Successful Rover Drive: Planning for Sol 1353 and Memorial Day Weekend Activities”.

On Sol 1352, post-drive imaging showed that there were sandy ripples ahead, but also enough rocky patches for the rover to safely drive towards the southwest. This is great news as we had planned to head in that direction on Sol 1353. Before the drive, Mastcam will take stereo mosaics of the Murray-Stimson contact and a few areas with nodular features. ChemCam will autonomously analyze the chemistry of a target selected by AEGIS software after the drive.

In anticipation of Memorial Day weekend, two sols are being planned on this day to get a head start. We are eagerly awaiting receiving the necessary data from Sol 1352 tomorrow morning to continue planning for the weekend activities. However, since activities on Sol 1353 cannot be precisely targeted, Navcam will search for clouds and Mastcam will measure dust levels in the atmosphere at various times that sol. Additionally, ChemCam will perform a routine calibration activity.

As the MAHLI/MARDI uplink lead, it was another easy day for me with just one MARDI twilight image to plan. However, it’s important to note that dates of planned rover activities mentioned in these reports may be subject to change due to various factors such as Martian environment conditions, communication relays and rover status.