This picture was taken by Entrance Hazard Avoidance Digicam (Entrance Hazcam) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3906. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Obtain picture ›
Earth planning date: Wednesday, August 2, 2023
We don’t have quite a lot of energy to play with right now, so we’ve got to watch out about how a lot time we give the totally different actions. As Arm Rover Planner, I received to sequence the contact science actions right now.
We begin this two-sol plan with a nap to save lots of up energy. After waking up within the afternoon, we do a brief block of imaging. Mastcam is taking three stereo mosaics. The primary is a 4-frame mosaic of the Mt. Sharp foothills, particularly an eroded space to see the layer orientations. The second is a goal “Zagori,” which is a close-by area. Of huge sand ripples. The third is of the close by little craters. There’s additionally an extension mosaic of the workspace; there’s a pit within the workspace and science desires to find out whether it is one other small crater from the Jau cluster. Subsequent, ChemCam takes an LIBS mosaic of the goal “Valimi,” which is a nodular rock.
After the imaging, we flip to contact science; our workspace is within the picture. The contact science targets had been somewhat difficult to evaluate. The DRT goal, “Samaria,” is on a rock that appears reasonably tough within the photos. Luckily our instruments confirmed that the roughness was not as unhealthy because it regarded and we had been capable of proceed with brushing the goal, in addition to performing MAHLI and APXS. We couldn’t fairly get to the 1-cm shut method attributable to that slight roughness, however we had been capable of get to 1.5 cm which was acceptable for science. The opposite goal, “Kythira,” was a vein goal. This was somewhat difficult as a result of the vein was protruding up above the remainder of the rock floor. Luckily, the geometry of the vein (being fairly lengthy) ensured that the APXS contact can be protected and nothing might stick up into the instrument and once more we had been capable of proceed with MAHLI and APXS. The uncertainty of arm placements, nonetheless, could imply that we don’t find yourself precisely centered on the vein – we must wait and see! The geometry of this goal allowed us to get to 1cm with MAHLI for that further picture decision. We did two units of brief APXS integrations (shifting the arm in between) earlier than stowing the arm for the evening to be able to drive within the morning.
Round 5:30 the following morning, we make one other try to seek out frost Within the chilly winter Martian morning. Curiosity is close to the equator, and we simply barely meet the situations required to provide frost, so it will likely be scientifically fascinating if we discover it! Actions right now of day require quite a lot of heating to maintain the devices protected – that is why we’re tight on energy right now. ChemCam is taking LIBS observations of “Filia,” a soil goal. Soil will get colder than rock at evening, so this is a perfect place to search for frost. In conjunction, we additionally use REMS to get the relative humidity and temperature, and we take a Navcam zenith film to take a look at the climate situations and clouds.
After a nap, Curiosity is waking up for the second a part of the frost experiment on Filia and another science. We additionally take a ChemCam passive sky remark which may measure the water vapor within the ambiance. Mastcam takes a documentation picture of Filia in addition to Valimi, after which multispectral photos of the Samaria DRT goal and the Zagoria dune area to evaluate mud protection.
After one other brief nap, it’s time to drive. The terrain has been barely bettering over the previous few drives. It’s nonetheless rocky and sandy however the rocks and sand patches are smaller and fewer threatening. They do create quite a lot of holes in our stereo protection, nonetheless, which makes it tougher to drive lengthy distances and we typically must drive round. There are additionally a few ripples that we determined to keep away from. The final problem is that the rover is tilted left throughout a lot of the drive which implies the rover goes to have a tendency to slide to the facet. We have now to sequence checkpoints alongside the best way to verify we keep on the deliberate route. We’re driving solely a complete of about 20m right now, however as we’re energy tight, that’s about all we had time for anyway. After the drive, we take a regular set of post-drive imaging, together with drive course, workspace, clast survey, and twilight MARDI.
