Curiosity update: ‘Sample dropoff to CheMin’

Sol 1061-1063, July 31, 2015, update from USGS scientist Ken Herkenhoff: This morning, the MSL operations team was very happy to see that drilling into Buckskin was successful!  The weekend plan therefore has more arm activities, including transferring the sample to the scoop for inspection.  But first, the ChemCam RMI will take pictures of the new drill hole [image at right] and Mastcam will image a potential location for eventually dumping the sample.  The sample will be sieved and a portion of the fine-grained material dropped into CheMin for mineralogical analysis overnight on Sols 1061-1062.  In parallel, the APXS will analyze the potential sample dump location for comparison with future measurements of the dump pile… [More at link]