Sol 1687, May 5, 2017, update by MSL scientist Michelle Minitti: The rover planners executed another great drive to park us in front of a megaripple in order to study its physical and chemical characteristics, which we can compare and contrast to the sands we investigated during our recent Bagnold dune campaign.
As the geology (GEO) theme group lead today, my job was to make sure we planned the highest priority observations of the megaripple, and positioned ourselves to successfully complete all the desired observations of the megaripple in the upcoming weekend plan. Working with my fellow GEO group members and all the individual instrument teams is one of the most satisfying parts of the job, as everyone brings their experience and capabilities together to build a plan that gets the most science out of the rover each sol. We certainly put Curiosity to work, planning MAHLI and APXS observations of the target “Schoolhouse… [More at link]