Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 24, 2022 Today was an exciting day of planning (and not just because of the...
We planned a full drill of Avanavero, our first drill in over 6 months! The MAHLI image shows the spot after the DRT brush and our drill preload test.
Dozens of engineers have been tackling the problem and finally gave the ok to drill again with some adjustments to our drill campaign process.
The first sol of the plan was mostly dedicated to the drilling.
In the science block before the drill, we take some Mastcam documentation of Avanavero and of "Marbura Hill" along with some photometry observations with Mastcam and Navcam.
Then we'll drill! We will also take REMS and DAN background measurements as well.
We also take Mastcam and ChemCam observations of the Avanavero drill tailings.
Later in the sol we also perform the drill sample portion characterization activity, where we deliver two portions of the drilled sample to the SAM inlet cover to take a look at the samples before we deliver any into the CheMin or SAM instruments.
Today my role was "RP2" so I was responsible for the final verification and modeling of the drill commanding.
Because of how many sequences it takes to drill, our modeling software can take hours! Today's planning also started at noon Pacific, so the team stayed at work late to make sure we were confident in the plan.
I know I won't be the only one on the team eagerly awaiting the downlink of telemetry about how the drilling went!