Sol 1821, September 19, 2017, update by MSL scientist Roger Wiens: Communication ties our lives together. If phone or internet service goes out in our area, sometimes we have to put our lives on hold for a few minutes or a few hours. The same is true for Mars operations. Yestersol Curiosity missed its ‘phone call’ from Earth due to a small issue at one of NASA’s Deep Space Network stations. We were aware of the issue yesterday, but we went ahead and completed the operation plan in case something would change at the last minute, but no dice. So today we plan to uplink exactly the same plan. Yestersol’s plan is described in the blog for Sol 1820.
Of special note, ChemCam’s observations will carry it past the half million mark for the number of laser firings on Mars. We receive a spectrum with each laser pulse, so these all represent a huge amount of critical data on Mars compositions. Fortunately, ChemCam’s laser should last a while longer. Based on ground testing, we hope for at least another half million shots… [More at link]