Curiosity update: Drilling Precipice

Sol 1536, November 30, 2016, update by USGS scientist Ken Herkenhoff: The The cross-contamination experiment and cleaning of CHIMRA went well, so we are ready to drill into the Precipice target!  Past drilling activities have made use of both rotation and percussion, but percussion has caused intermittent short circuits occasionally since Sol 911, so on Sol 1536 we will test the ability of the drill to acquire a sample using rotation only, without percussion.  We expect that the Precipice target is soft enough that the experiment will go well, but of course… [More at link]