This image was taken by the Left Navigation Camera on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3981. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›
Earth planning date: Wednesday, October 18, 2023
The target ‘Sequoia’ has been successfully drilled! Today’s image is one of my favorites – the shadow of the cruiser’s mast, and the perfectly drilled target in the background… it doesn’t get any better than that! Curiosity remains for some time longer for CheMin’s analysis of the drilled material, and the lack of thrust means we have more power than expected. And wow, the science team stepped up – we managed to get 1 hour of observations on the first sol, and 1.5 hours on the second!
Today in planning, I took on the role of ‘Keeper Of the Plan’ for the geology and mineralogy science theme group, and the role is abbreviated as GKOP. My job is to ensure geology-focused science requests from the instrument team make it into the plans for delivery to the rover. For the first sol of this midweek plan, we started with a Navcam dust devil survey. Then, ChemCam took over two LIBS observations of the drill hole and tailings to determine the chemical composition here. Mastcam arrives at the end of the first activity block to document ChemCam activity on Sequoia and again try to identify any changes due to wind activity. On the afternoon of the first sol, and the morning of the second sol, we also planned photometric observations. By using Navcam and Mastcam images taken at different times of the day, we can measure surface reflectivity and use it to determine the physical properties of the surface.
A few hours after the morning photometry, the second sol contains 1.5 hours of science observations. First, Mastcam tau observations are used to measure atmospheric opacity. We then switched to ChemCam to search for a LIBS target in the same block as the drill hole, named ‘Angel Wings’. These observations are paired once again with Mastcam documentation images. We then moved on to a nearby butte called ‘Kukenan’ for ChemCam’s Remote RMI, as well as a beautiful large Mastcam mosaic of the entire surface of the butte! One of the great things about training campaigns is that we stay there for a while, and can make great observations of the beautiful surroundings.
2023-10-19 16:40:24
#Drillhole #Family #Sequoia #NASA #Mars #Exploration #SurabayaPostKota.net
