We apologize for the lack of an update on Wednesday this week. Lauren and I were both in a training class, and Ken was traveling, so none of us were able to post here. That means that today’s post covers five sols of planning.
The sol 1148 plan started off with a Mastcam observation of the target McLeod and a 10×1 mosaic to patch a gap in the mosaic from sol 1144. After that, we drove for 32 meters, followed by standard post-drive imaging. On Sol 1149, ChemCam did calibration observations and Navcam and Mastcam conducted standard atmospheric observations. The drive on Sol 1148 put us in range of some interesting rocks, and the Sol 1150-1152 plan is focusing on analyzing our new surroundings.
On Sol 1150, Mastcam has an 8×4 mosaic of some interesting layered rocks, followed by ChemCam and Mastcam observations of the targets “Dunkirk” and “Duperow”. After the remote sensing is done, there are three APXS observations of the targets “Exshaw”, “Ellis Canyon”, and “Ennis”. On Sol 1151, Mastcam has an 18×2 mosaic of the “Carlile” area and a 9×2 mosaic of the “East Glacier” target. This is followed by ChemCam observations of Ennis and Exshaw and the accompanying Mastcam documentation images. In the afternoon on Sol 1151, there will be a short drive to the southeast which should provide data to allow a longer drive in the next plan. Finally, on Sol 1152, the plan is to do Navcam, Mastcam, and ChemCam atmospheric observations, plus some ChemCam focus tests.
Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the ChemCam team on MSL, provided this information. Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays, and rover status.