Sol 1200-01, December 21, 2015, update from USGS scientist Ryan Anderson: Unfortunately, over the weekend there was an issue with the rover’s arm while the “Greenhorn” sample was being dumped, which caused the rover to stop what it was doing. Because the arm ended up in an unexpected position, it prevented the APXS and MAHLI observations from occurring as planned, and it was in the way of the subsequent three ChemCam observations. The arm issues meant that today’s plan was dedicated to recovering from the problem, but we managed to include some science observations as well.
On Sol 1200, we have a bunch of Mastcam images. First, Mastcam will take two images of “Hope Mine” and “Engo”, the ChemCam targets that were automatically selected by the AEGIS software on Sol 1199. Next, Mastcam will do a mosaic of the slip face of Namib dune… [More at link]