[meteorite-list] Curiosity Update: Rover's Second Scoop Discarded, Third Scoop Commanded

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2012 17:05:44 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201210160005.q9G05i5v012885_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-323

Rover's Second Scoop Discarded, Third Scoop Commanded
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
October 15, 2012

Commands will be sent to Curiosity today instructing the rover to
collect a third scoop of soil from the "Rocknest" site of windblown
Martian sand and dust. Pending evaluation of this Sol 69 (Oct. 15, 2012)
scooping, a sample from the scoopful is planned as the first sample for
delivery -- later this week -- to one of the rover's internal analytical
instruments, the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument. A later
scoopful will become the first solid sample for delivery to the rover's
other internal analytical instrument, the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)
instrument.

The rover's second scoopful, collected on Sol 66 (Oct. 12), was
intentionally discarded on Sol 67 due to concern about particles of
bright material seen in the hole dug by the scooping. Other small pieces
of bright material in the Rocknest area have been assessed as debris
from the spacecraft. The science team did not want to put spacecraft
material into the rover's sample-processing mechanisms. Confidence for
going ahead with the third scooping was based on new assessment that
other bright particles in the area are native Martian material. One
factor in that consideration is seeing some bright particles embedded in
clods of Martian soil. Further investigations of the bright particles
are planned, including some imaging in the Sol 69 plan.

Sol 69, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, will end at 5:01
a.m. Oct. 16, PDT (8:01 a.m., EDT).

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-323
Received on Mon 15 Oct 2012 08:05:44 PM PDT