Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image taken on Sol 1344, May 18, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Mars Curiosity rover drive planned last weekend was completed successfully, moving MSL less than 20 feet (6 meters) into position for contact science on the rocks broken by the rover wheels.

That’s the word from Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Curiosity is just about to enter Sol 1345.

Touch and go

This week, planning is restricted for rover activities.

Curiosity Mastcam Left image taken on Sol 1342, May 16, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Plans called for Sol 1344 to include a “touch and go” that requires extra Rover Planner staffing, as both arm activities and a drive are planned.

“It’s great to be able to do so much in one plan, but we had to cram a lot of stuff into Sol 1344 because the drive has to be completed before the afternoon MRO communications relay to allow another drive to be planned on Wednesday,” Herkenhoff reports.  “So we had to decide which scientific observations were most important and work to fit them into the plan.

Broken rocks

A target was selected for a Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) observation of “Impalila,” one of the freshly-exposed rock surfaces.

Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 1344, May 17, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Mastcam was to acquire a multispectral observation of the broken rocks before the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) snapped pictures of “Stampriet,” Impalila, “Narubis,” and “Swartmodder.”

After MAHLI imaging is completed, the plan called for the robotic arm to be stowed. Curiosity was then slated to drive toward the west, “hopefully getting back to the Sol 1311 location, where the rover was before we decided to return to the Lubango area,” Herkenhoff adds.

Curiosity Rover’s Location for Sol 1342
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 1342 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (May, 16, 2016).
Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. From Sol 1329 to Sol 1342, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 10.30 feet (3.14 meters). Since touching down in Bradbury Landing in August 2012, Curiosity has driven 7.92 miles (12.75 kilometers).
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Dates of planned rover activities described are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.