{"id":781906,"date":"2024-05-06T10:51:51","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T15:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=781906"},"modified":"2024-05-06T10:51:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T15:51:51","slug":"sols-4175-4177-dont-blink-were-taking-a-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=781906","title":{"rendered":"Sols 4175-4177: Don\u2019t Blink We\u2019re Taking a Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"


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3 min read<\/p>\n

Sols 4175-4177: Don\u2019t Blink We\u2019re Taking a Picture<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This image shows our previous workspace block and rover wheel tracks from Sol 4171 taken by the Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA\u2019s Mars rover Curiosity.<\/div>\n
NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Earth planning date: Friday, May 3,\u00a02024<\/p>\n

Curiosity loves to drive so it\u2019s pretty rare we stay at a location longer than one planning cycle without the intention of drilling. But since we found ourselves at this unique and beautiful rubbly ridge with dark-toned clasts all around, the science team decided to skip driving last plan and stay through most of the weekend in favor of more contact science. My job this week was operating the Mastcams, and we decided to take full advantage of this opportunity! Why not take an afternoon 360-degree panorama while we\u2019re here? It\u2019s understandably hard to argue against a full panorama, so we went for it and planned 331 Mastcam Left images that should cover most of the terrain around us (including a custom arm pose to get the ridge in better view). Since our left filter wheel got stuck last fall, occluding over half of our lens, we\u2019ve had to subframe our images quite a bit to avoid any filter wheel hardware showing up and thus \u2014 our Mastcam Left frame size covers less than half what it use to. It\u2019s extremely lucky we\u2019re still able to use the camera at all, and we\u2019re very happy to keep planning 360 panos after all these years even if it takes about 2.5x more images to acquire.<\/p>\n

Now for the reason we stayed: a full evening of contact science on the first sol! APXS and MAHLI are planning to investigate a light-toned, layered but somehow still crunchy, rock named \u201cLiberty Cap\u201d and another similar rock named \u201cWilma Lake.\u201d Liberty Cap imaging will also include a different type of MAHLI stereo where the turret rotates instead of moves laterally, called \u201crotational\u201d stereo (or: \u201cHerkenhoff\u201d stereo after Ken Herkenhoff, a long-time MAHLI Co-Investigator among many other titles). Without any APXS support, MAHLI will also take a look at a pointy, dark-toned target named \u201cLookout Peak.\u201d I sit right next to the MAHLI operations team and was trying my best to keep up with all they have going on today.<\/p>\n

On the second sol, we drive! To be honest, there\u2019s a ton more we planned today (including mid-drive and post-drive Mastcam imaging!) but this blog could go on and on with how packed this plan is. It\u2019s always a little nerve-wracking sending a plan like this up to Mars before checking out for the weekend, but I\u2019ll try my best and come back fresh for more Mastcam imaging on Monday.<\/p>\n

Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems<\/p>\n

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