Curiosity update: ‘A software upgrade is available. Install now?’

Sol 871-872, January 16, 2015, update from USGS Scientist Ryan Anderson: “Today’s plan for sols 871 and 872 is our last chance to get some science done before we begin a week of no activity while the engineering team upgrades the rover software. The plan is to do two ChemCam rasters on targets ‘Funk Valley’ and ‘Rainbow Basin.’ Each raster will analyze three closely-spaced spots on the target. Funk Valley is our latest candidate mini-drill target (our last mini-drill ended up breaking the rock, so we’re trying again), and Rainbow Basin is a rock with some interesting erosion-resistant knobs. Mastcam will take supporting images of these targets and then we will be spending a pretty big chunk of time doing some…” [Much more at link]