[meteorite-list] Curiosity Update: Resume Working with First Scooped Sample

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 11:35:48 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201210101835.q9AIZmAg000750_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-316

Resume Working with First Scooped Sample
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
October 10, 2012

The team operating Curiosity decided on Oct. 9, 2012, to proceed with
using the rover's first scoop of Martian material. Plans for Sol 64
(Oct. 10) call for shifting the scoopful of sand and dust into the
mechanism for sieving and portioning samples, and vibrating it
vigorously to clean internal surfaces of the mechanism. This first
scooped sample, and the second one, will be discarded after use, since
they are only being used for the cleaning process. Subsequent samples
scooped from the same "Rocknest" area will be delivered to analytical
instruments.

Investigation of a small, bright object thought to have come from the
rover may resume between the first and second scoop. Over the past two
sols, with rover arm activities on hold, the team has assessed the
object as likely to be some type of plastic wrapper material, such as a
tube used around a wire, possibly having fallen onto the rover from the
Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's descent stage during the landing in
August.

Sol 63 activities included extended weather measurements by the Rover
Environmental Monitoring Station, or REMS. The Sol 63 planning also
called for panoramic imaging by the Mast Camera, or Mastcam, in the
early morning light of Sol 64, before uplink of Sol 64 commands.

A Sol 61 raw image from the right Mast Camera, at
http://1.usa.gov/VSwTN7 , shows the location from which Curiosity's
first scoop of soil was collected.

Sol 63, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, ended at 1:03 a.m.
Oct. 10, PDT (4:03 a.m., EDT)

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the
Mars Science Laboratory Project and built Curiosity.

For more about Curiosity, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl ,
http://www.nasa.gov/msl or http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Guy Webster / D.C. Agle 818-354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov / agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-316
Received on Wed 10 Oct 2012 02:35:48 PM PDT