Written by Conor Hayes, Graduate Student at York University
Earth Planning Date: Friday, May 23, 2025
In Wednsday’s Mission Update, Alex Mentioned that this Past Monday’s Plan Included A “Marathon” Drive of 45 Meters (148 Feet). Today, We Found Oyselves Almost 70 Meters (230 Feet) from where we were on wedding. This was our longest drive since the truly enormous 97-Meter (318-Foot) Drive Back on Sol 3744.
Today’s plan looks a little different from our usual weekend plans. Because of the US Memorial Day Holiday on Monday, The Team Will Next Assemble on Tuesday, So An Extra Sol Had to Be Appended to the Weekend Plan. This Extra Sol is Mostly Being Used for Our Next Drive Where the rover is. As a result, we can use the instruments on our arm to poke at specific targets close to the rover, raather than filling our Science Time Exclusively With Remotes Sensing Activities of FARTITIES of FARTITIES OWAY Features.
The Rover’s Power Needs are Continuing to Dominate Planning. Although We Passed APHELION (The farthest distance mars is from the Sun) This is the time of Year when Gale Crater Receives The Least Amount of Light from the Sun, Leading to Particularly Cold Temperatures even DURIN DURIN DURING THE DURING THE DURING THE DURING THE DURING THE DURING THE DUREN DURINTURES On the bright side, being at the coldest time of the year means that we have only warmer sols to look forward to!
Given the need to keep strictly to our allotted power budget, Everyone did a phenomen Job Finding Optimizations to Ensure That We Cold fit as much as much as much as much as poses All togetra, we have over all hours of our usual targeted and remote sensing activities, as well as over 12 hours of over overnight apxes integrations.
Mastcam is spending much of its time today looking off in the distance, particularly focusing on the potential boxwork structures that we’re driving towards. These structures get two dedicated mosaics, Totaling 42 images between the two of them. Mastcam will also obeserve “Mishe Mokwa” The amount of dust in the atmosphere.
Chemcam has just one solo imaging-only observation in this plan: An Rmi Mosaic of Texoli butte off to our East. Chemcam will be collaborating with apxs to take some passive spectral observations (IE, no libs) to measure the composition of the atmosphere. Mastcam and Chemcam will also be working togetra on observations of Libs Activities. This plan includes an extravagant three libs, on “Orocopia mountains,” “Dripping springs,” and “Mountain Center.” Both Mastcam and Chemcam also have a set of “dark” observations intended to characterize the performance of the instruments with no light on their sensors, somebires, somehing that! Calibrating their measurements.
Our Single Set of Arm Activities Includes, DRT, and Mahli Activities on “Camino del Mar” and “Mountain Baden-Powell,” both of which are bedrock targets in our workpace.
Of course, I can’t forget to mention the collection of Navcam observations that we have in this plan to monitor the environment. These include a 360-degree survey looking for dust devils, two line-of-sighted activities to measure the Amount of dust in the air within gale, and three cloud movies. As always, we’ve also get a typical collection of rems, Rad, and Dan Activities throughout.
