Curiosity update: Preparing for more SAMple

2225ML0118010010804252E01_DXXX-br2Sol 2229-30, November 12, 2018, update by MSL scientist Rachel Kronyak: Following a successful weekend of science activities at the “Highfield” drill site, today we’re planning Sols 2229-2230. We’re eagerly awaiting data from CheMin, which will tell us all about the mineralogy of our newest drill hole sample. We’re equally as eager to get a Highfield drill sample to the SAM instrument for analysis. To prepare for SAM, on Sol 2229 we’ll perform a preconditioning activity to get the instrument ready to receive and analyze sample. Although SAM is located inside the belly of Curiosity, we can see the instrument’s inlet covers in the image above, which was taken by Mastcam late last week.

While the SAM preconditioning activity takes up the bulk of Sol 2229′s power, we were still able to plan about four hours’ worth of science activities! Today was my first Mastcam PUL shift since the anomaly, so I was very excited to see so many fantastic observations make it into today’s two-sol plan…. [More at link]

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