A top science priority for the sol 3991 to 3993 weekend plan is for the CheMin instrument to dump its sample on sol 3991. Fine rock powder will leave the sampling tube more cleanly now than if we wait until after the conjunction when it might have adhered to the glass during the many temperature cycles in the intervening weeks. The team would like to reuse this tube. In addition, Curiosity will also be returning the data from its second CheMin analysis. There will also be another set of diagnostics performed on the Mastcam filter wheel.

Also on tap this weekend are five science blocks chock full of observations of the terrain and sky around the Sequoia drill site. Many atmospheric observations have been planned, including multiple Navcam dust devil movies, measurements of atmospheric dust opacity by Navcam and Mastcam, Navcam cloud altitude movies, ChemCam passive sky observation, and both evening and morning Navcam phase function sky surveys. Some of the cloud movies taken recently have been spectacular, so we hope to catch some more clouds and/or dust in action. APXS will join in as well with a measurement of atmospheric argon. Mastcam will be expanding its photography of the workspace near the rover with an 11x5 mosaic.

Mastcam is also returning to both the Sequoia drill hole and the "Aspendell" target to look for changes over time, and it will be revisiting the "Brainard Lake" target in the morning to sample different lighting of the rocks. ChemCam will be especially busy this plan. Its long distance RMI camera will complete a large mosaic on the Peace Vallis ancient river valley far across Gale Crater, taking advantage of our current clear weather on Mars. Another RMI telescopic pointing will map layers in the cliffs of Kukenan high above the rover. ChemCam will turn its laser to analyze three targets named for features in Kings Canyon National Park: "Cedar Grove," "Dusy Basin," and "Fang Turret."

All geologic targets in this area of Mount Sharp have been designated names from the Bishop geologic quadrangle located in the Sierra Nevada of California, especially beloved by Caltech geologists. "Cedar Grove" is an area of local bedrock with many nodular concretions formed in water and named for the famous campground area along the South Fork of the Kings River. "Dusy Basin" will sample a highly layered bedrock with a name honoring a magnificent high alpine lake basin just east of Bishop Pass in the Sierra.

Finally, the "Fang Turret" observation will punch a line of laser pits across the face of a vertically projecting dark colored fin, as seen in the attached Mastcam image from Sol 3979. Its namesake is an immensely difficult to climb "Class 6" rock tower on the South wall of Tehipite Valley in the spectacular roadless canyon of the Middle Fork Kings River. This tower rises 100 vertical feet above the 10,000 ft ridgeline of "Gorge of Despair". Rock climbers give great names to their favorite features!

In Wednesday's sol 3989 to 3990 plan, SAM received another sample from the drill. Based on what the initial SAM results show, SAM may do a more detailed chemical analysis next week before the team starts restricting activities in preparation for the Solar Conjunction. Our last planning session before the conjunction will be on Monday, November 6, and we will resume communications with Curiosity in time for a planning session on November 29.

SAM Take Two and Preparing for Conjunction: Sols 3989-3990
by Remington Free | Operations - JPL
Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 26 - Today, the MSL team picked back up with our plan to drop off a sample of rock powder drilled from Sequoia to the SAM instrument using our robotic arm. Normally, after drilling when we want to deliver sample to SAM for analysis, we first do "preconditioning" checks; essentially, to ensure SAM is in a good working state to receive the sample.

Over the past weekend, when a 3-sol plan was sent to the rover, we planned for the preconditioning to happen on one of the sols. Unfortunately, the preconditioning didn't pass all its checks, so we had to postpone the drop-off that was originally planned for Monday.

However, this week we've had a second shot at things. On Monday, we ran SAM preconditioning again, which passed successfully this time! On the first sol of our plan, we'll finally get to deliver our sample to SAM for analysis. The photo above is of the body of the rover - you can see two inlet covers for SAM in front, and one for the CheMin instrument at the back. These covers open and close as we deliver sample to the instruments using the robotic arm.

We're always excited to execute a new solid sample analysis activity. This activity involves a pyrolysis measurement where we heat the sample up to near 1000 degrees Celsius, and the resulting gas is analyzed for composition. On this sol, we'll also have a block of science activities, which include optical depth measurements using Mastcam and LIBS observations of our "Dragon Tooth" target using ChemCam. On the second and final sol of the plan, we will run another science block, which includes NCAM dust devil and cloud movies, multiple Mastcam observations, and another LIBS observation of "The Sphinx" target using ChemCam.

As part of this plan, we are also sending up conjunction plans to the rover. Conjunction is a period of time where Mars, the Sun, and the Earth are all in alignment - but because the Sun is blocking Mars from us, we can't actually communicate with any of our Mars missions at all! This year, conjunction will occur for several weeks during November. Our team builds plans to keep the rover safe and productive by itself while we're waiting for communication to resume, which were uplinked onboard the rover as part of today's plan. Though we aren't quite into conjunction yet, it's always best to be prepared!

Related Links
Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more