Curiosity update: ‘Recipe for a successful rover plan’

NRB_501719368EDR_F0511102NCAM00257M_Sol 1177-79, November 25, 2015, update from USGS scientist Lauren Edgar: The 28 m drive on Sol 1174 ran successfully and Curiosity is now parked in front of a beautiful sand sheet and sand dune!

Today science and engineering teams cooked up a full 3-sol plan, to account for the second half of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  The team started with equal parts Mastcam and ChemCam to analyze the sand and bedrock, and to monitor the movement of sand across the rover deck and in nearby ripples.  The meat of the plan consists of SAM preconditioning, drop off of the “Greenhorn” drill sample to SAM, and an EGA (evolved gas analysis).  Essentially that means that we’ll heat the sample up in an oven and measure the major gases that are released.  Since this is a very power intensive activity, we kept the sides to a minimum… [More at link]

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