Today, I had the pleasure of leading our Geology team on Mars as we embarked on our planned activities. Our schedule was packed with 1.5 hours of targeted remote science, followed by contact science. We set our sights on several targets for observations using ChemCam and Mastcam, including “Winnipeg,” “Alma,” and “Blackjack.”
Our first target, “Winnipeg,” located in the Murray formation, will be assessed using MAHLI and APXS to determine its composition. We’ll then move on to “Alma” which will help us characterize the composition across the Murray-Stimson contact. Next up is “Blackjack,” a resistant ledge within the Murray formation that we’ll study using ChemCam and Mastcam mosaics.
In addition to these observations, we also planned to capture Mastcam tau to evaluate atmospheric opacity. Afterwards, we’ll acquire MAHLI images of the “Sacajawea” target in the afternoon to investigate another resistant ledge. We’ll use DRT to brush off dust from “Winnipeg” and take close MAHLI images to look for grain size variations before wrapping up our day with an overnight analysis of the composition of “Winnipeg” using APXS.