Sol 1310: Good morning Mars!

Well, that was an early morning! I was on duty as the KOP today
and we started at 6:30 am, so I was up and looking at new pictures of Mars
before sunrise. Normally I would not be happy about getting up so early, but I reminded
myself this morning that getting to help run a nuclear-powered laser-wielding
robot on Mars is worth losing a little bit of sleep every once in a while!

Our drive finally went according to plan, bringing us a bit
closer to the edge of the Naukluft plateau. We plan to continue driving today and tomorrow, aiming to get within reach of some interesting
large fractures that we can see in the orbital data to do contact science over
the weekend. There are also some tantalizing outcrops coming up that should
give us nice views of the stratigraphy of the Stimson unit, but they are not
quite visible yet.

We are only expecting to get a small amount of data
downlinked before tomorrow, so we kept today’s plan for Sol 1310 nice and
simple. In the morning, we have a ChemCam observation and Mastcam documentation
of a nearby alteration halo around a fracture, followed by a small Mastcam
mosaic of a similar bright halo and fracture at a location we are calling "Oswater".
After that, Curiosity will drive for about 20 meters and we will collect our
standard post drive imaging. by Ryan Anderson -Ryan is a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of the ChemCam team on MSL. 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