MISSION UPDATES | May 20, 2013

Sol 280 Update On Curiosity From USGS Scientist Ken Herkenhoff: Drilling Success!

Written by Ken Herkenhoff, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center

The drilling at "Cumberland" went perfectly . The MAHLI images that we planned for Sol 279 came out well . So the plan for Sol 281 includes sieving of the sample and feeding some of it to SAM. This will happen late in the afternoon, when winds are expected to be low, to avoid loosing some of the sample during dropoff to SAM. SAM will then start analyzing the sample overnight.