John Callas

Start of Sol 13:

• Sol 12 was a 34m DSN pass with limited DTE. A very complex In Situ observation was commanded on Sol 12 including MI, APXS and MB (returned via UHF) and highly compressed two front Hazcam images on DTE (one of the MI placement, one of the MB placement). The In Situ measurement success has to be judged only on the compressed Hazcam images. If successful, a drive is expected for today.

Science Assessment Meeting:

• It appears that the robotic arm did not place as expected. It faulted out with unexpected MB contact with target. It is believed that there is at least an uncertainty of 1.5 cm in the range data. Need to stow the arm as part of next sol. Current target is believed to be very difficult to access. Important measurements are APXS and MB, MI is lower priority. Should not have received Hazcam image on DTE, because contingency commands did not have compression set.
• The fact that previous MI slews only produced a single image on previous observations should have suggested that front Hazcam range data is questionable. But the very first MI contact was intentional.
• Theme groups were polled for "stay" or "go" at this site. All said "go" except long term planning. Science feels they have been able to address the hypothesis at this site, so in situ data is now less significant.

SOWG Meeting:

• No change in resource predicts. Rover state is healthy. Rover team working sequence to stow the robotic arm. Engineering request 25 minutes of the 90 minutes surface operations for engineering tasks (stow arm and rover checks). Only 3 Mini-TES observations, all for mineralogy. Geology wants observations at end of sol, touch and go on next sol. Long-term planning recommends going to Bonneville (about 20 meters away). Bonneville permits testing of several hypotheses. The narrower valley provides better remote sensing opportunities. Soil theme group proposes an intermediate way-point to Bonneville with front and rear Hazcam and at destination. 360 Navcam and monochrome Pancam at Bonneville. Atmospheres group proposes more cloud observations. Mineralogy requests IPS on targets.

Post-IST Meeting:

• This was a very difficult sequence. The Mission Manager believes there is an elevated risk due to the lack of time to fully review and validate this complex sequence. Components of the sequence had to be built in parallel by different groups. First, there is a stow arm sequence. There was substantial confusion on the imagery and simulation of the arm position following its fault out. It is believed this was caused by data products coming down in different order, resulting in a different rover state. The engineers believed they confirmed the arm telemetry and the proper rover state and now believed the telemetry to be correct following the initial confusion. The engineers built the arm stow sequence based only on numerical telemetry (a first time). The telemetry confusion cause a significant delay in the preparation of that sequence.
• The other component of this sol's sequence is the pre-stow science observations which had many pieces already. These observations by themselves represent a full IST effort.
• The last component of the sol's sequence was a drive to Bonneville. Like the others, this component represents a full IST effort. IST needed to establish additional way-points to implement drive. These way-points were not vetted with the SOWG, although approved on-the-fly by the SOWG Chair viewing the SAP model visualization.
• This was a very oversubscribed IST build with insufficient time to fully review and validate the sequence. However, the Mission Manager approved the sequence for radiation with only seconds to spare.

Post-Radiation Comments:

• There was substantial confusion with getting engineering information during the downlink and uplink processes. The Mission Manager did not have sufficient access to the engineering team to investigate and explore the anomalous arm situation. There is also insufficient communication between the engineering team and the science team. The engineering team is over subscribed.

The IST process is now:

• 70 minute Sequence Design
• 10 minute Sequence Validation
• 10 minute Sequence Approval

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