Sol 3756: Sit Back and Wait for the Data To Roll In

Today we planned a single sol plan.

We are in the middle of the Tapo Caparo drill campaign. In yesterday’s plan we delivered 2 portions of sample to our CheMin instrument for mineralogy. That analysis will run overnight on Mars which corresponds to the middle of the day Tuesday, on Earth. That meant we did not have any new information to react to this morning for planning.

We still have plenty of science activities to plan but none that involved the Rover Planners, so they were released early to work strategic activities like, for example, what we expect our next eventual drive to look like after this campaign ends. Working activities strategically makes for a more refined plan once we do come in for day-of planning, allowing more time to be spent reacting to new information.

Our geology and environmental theme groups filled this single sol plan with many goodies. We will take a ChemCam LIBS observation of the rock exposed from a fracture that formed during the drilling process, “Moura.” This gives a nice perspective on some fresh rock, unobscured by the collection of dust. We’ll also use ChemCam’s remote micro imager (RMI) capability to take some high-resolution imaging of fine laminations on a nearby block named “Itaquera.”

During a drill campaign, we can remain at the same location for several weeks sometimes. This gives instruments like Mastcam the opportunity to take small chunks of a larger mosaic piece by piece over the course of our stay. This saves power on the rover and the complexity of sequencing for our instrument operators. In today’s plan, Mastcam will take a 7x7 stereo mosaic as an extension off the target “Tefe.”

Our environmental theme group requested a Navcam large dust devil survey and a nighttime APXS atmospheric observation. We take APXS atmospheric measurements once a month. Just like on Earth – atmospheric measurements like these are most powerful when placed into the context of a year (or years) worth of observations, this can tell us how compositional changes vary with respect to seasons, for example.

It has been a short and sweet planning day, looking forward to seeing CheMin’s mineralogy results for Tapo Caparo tomorrow morning!

Written by Elena Amador-French, Science Operations Coordinator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory