Sols 4314-4315: Wait, What Was That Back There?

After wrapping up the targeted and contact science, we’re ready to drive. As the science team had time to look a bit more at the data collected in that region, they discovered this target that was worth going back for. We are driving back to the area of the white stones to do more contact science on rocks that look similar to the elemental sulfur we saw earlier this year. Planning ahead, I got to scout this drive on Friday, laying out the safest path and looking for parking spots that were both good for communications as well as for doing contact science. The target “Sheep Creek” is about 50 meters (about 164 feet) to the northeast, which makes the drive a challenge — the resolution of our imagery at that range makes it harder to pinpoint these small rocks. We do have really good imaging in that direction, and the terrain isn’t super scary, so the Rover Planners are going to try to make it in one drive. During the drive, we will be taking a MARDI “sidewalk” movie (a series of images looking below the rover for the entire length of the drive), which will help document the channel. On the second sol of the plan, we do some additional atmospheric and untargeted science. We have a Navcam suprahorizon movie (looking at the crater rim to evaluate dust in the atmosphere) and a dust devil movie. We also have a ChemCam AEGIS observation, where the rover will autonomously select a target to image. Overnight, CheMin does an “empty cell” analysis to confirm that the system is cleaned out and ready for the next sampling campaign.