Sol 1566-68, December 21, 2016, update by USGS scientist Lauren Edgar: Today was our last tactical planning day before the team takes a break over the holidays. But that doesn’t mean that Curiosity will be resting! A group of science team members and operations staff assembled an 8-sol plan that will execute over December 22-30, focused on environmental monitoring and change detection. Today’s tactical planning was aimed at creating a 3-sol plan that will take place over New Year’s, from December 31-January 2. When we return to normal operations on January 3, we’ll dive right back in to a campaign investigating some interesting fracture patterns at “Old Soaker,” seen in the Mastcam image above.
Today’s 3-sol plan starts with Mastcam multispectral observations of the targets “Old Soaker” and “Schooner Head” to assess their red and gray color variations. This is followed by a Navcam observation to search for dust devils. Then ChemCam will target “Moore Harbor” and “Northeast Harbor” to look for variations in chemistry. (…)
This will be the last [Curiosity update] blog [post] until January 3 when we resume normal operations. Until then – may your sols be merry and bright, and safe travels as you rove into the New Year! [More at link]