Sol 4222-4224: A very thorny energy puzzle

Land planning date: Friday, June 21, 2024

All we’ve Waiting for the patient We have been rewarded, as we have been greeted with information of the success of our coaching try for “Mammoth Lakes 2”! You’ll be able to see the drill gap within the picture above as nicely First place we tried Simply to the left. The precise digging is just the start – we need to see what we’ve dug. We began this course of this weekend through the use of our laser spectrometer (LIBS) to scan the drill gap earlier than delivering among the drilled materials to CheMin (X-ray diffraction apparatus for chemistry and minerals) to hold out its personal investigations.

The following step in a coaching marketing campaign is often to proceed the evaluation utilizing SAM (Sample analysis in the Mars Toolkit), which tends to be fairly energy-hungry. In consequence, we need to be sure that we go into the subsequent plan with sufficient pressure for it. This meant that though we had lots of free time this weekend, with three sols and Chemin solely spending the primary evening, we wanted to consider carefully about how we’d use that free time. Generally, when science groups ship on our plans, we’re overly optimistic. Generally this optimism is rewarded, and we’re allowed to maintain further science within the plan. At present we wanted to strategize just a little extra, and our noon Science Operations Working Group (or SOWG, because it’s recognized) assembly was a puzzle session, as we found out what might be moved and what we wanted to place apart in the intervening time.

One uncommon characteristic of this weekend’s plan was a sequence of brief observations to detect change on Walker Lake and Finch Lake, targets we had checked out in earlier plans to see the wind-driven motion of Martian sand. It was seen throughout the three sol days of the plan, to see any modifications throughout one sol day. Though these observations are comparatively brief—just some minutes—we’ve to wake the rover to take them, which drains our vitality. Happily, the science staff took this under consideration and categorized the observations as excessive, medium or low precedence. This made it simpler to do away with much less essential objects, to avoid wasting just a little vitality.

One other energy-saving technique is to consider carefully about the place notes go. The weekend plan virtually all the time consists of an “AM ENV Science Block” – a time devoted to morning observations of the setting and ambiance. Usually, this group would proceed on the final Sol of the plan, however we truly needed to get up on the morning of the primary Sol for CheMin to complete its evaluation. This meant we might transfer the morning ENV block to Sol 1, and Curiosity obtained extra time to sleep, on the finish of the plan.

Making modifications like these means not solely have been we capable of end the plan sturdy sufficient for Monday’s actions, however we have been nonetheless capable of accommodate lots of science remotely. This included quite a lot of mosaics from each Mastcam and ChemCam on earlier targets corresponding to ‘Whitebark Move’ and ‘Quarry Peak’. We additionally had two new LIBS targets: “Damaged Finger Peak” and “Shout of Reduction Move”. Except for our morning group, ENV managed to sneak in just a few further notes: a movie a couple of mud satan, a line of sight and a tau to observe altering mud ranges within the ambiance.

Written by Alex Inanen, an atmospheric scientist on the College of York