Sols 2320-23, February 14, 2019, update by MSL scientist Catherine O’Connell: Today was a very busy planning day for the Curiosity operations team. We planned a 3-sol plan, with contact science, imaging, environmental monitoring and a drive.
Our weekend plan brought us to a block of coherent rock, a treat after spending many workspaces in more broken up and rubbly areas. The Geology (GEO) theme group uplinked lots of contact science here on Monday, so we are ready to leave and drive on to the next coherent block we have identified in the distance, a target known as “Midland Valley.” Before leaving however, we planned contact science on “Ladder Hills,” a beautiful example of laminated bedrock. APXS will be used to determine the chemistry, to compare it to our other targets in this workspace “Gannet” and “Curlew.” MAHLI will take images of the laminations within Ladder Hills from two different angles – straight downwards onto the rock surface (the spot where APXS will also analyze), and from an oblique angle. ChemCam will acquire active LIBS (laser) analysis of Ladder Hills, in addition to analysis of “Fyvie,” a large pebble for comparison with bedrock targets… [More at link]