Sol 1310, April 12, 2016, update from USGS scientist Ryan Anderson: 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… [More at link]