Welcome Back from Conjunction
A report from Science says Mars has emerged from its holiday behind the Sun, and teams on Earth have reconnected with Curiosity. The first planning day gave Curiosity a full weekend of activities and prepared the rover for its next drill.
The team checked out a broken white rock in the workspace with APXS, MAHLI, and ChemCam’s laser spectrometer, and imaged a sandy area during conjunction to look for wind motion. Curiosity then made a short drive of about 2 meters to a drill site only a few centimeters from the November target “Nevado Sajama.”
The return is driven by a rare SAM experiment using the instrument’s last container of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) to help identify organic molecules. Because SAM had only two containers and the first was used almost six years ago, the team rehearsed the sample handoff to SAM in Wednesday’s plan before the planned drill this weekend.