State from Sol 23

• The rover is in good health, and all functionality is available. Power is still available to keep the Mini-TES warm and alive provided UHF transmission is limited.
• This is a 34m antenna Sol. DTE this Sol is 3.06 megabits, UHF is limited to a total of 20.85 megabits. Data remaining on board is approximately 0 Megabits from previous Sols

Sol 24 is another Approach/Touch and go Sol:

• The Mission Manager is allowing a reduction in the engineering data rate to increase the DTE available on these remaining end of mission Sols. This will depend on the health of the vehicle and will be decided on a Sol by Sol basis. Given the currently good rover state of health, we will release up to 1.0 megabits on Sol 24.
• This Sol's main objective is to complete the approach to Black Lab and attempt to position the rover to permit IDD operations on the target on Sol 25. On the way we want to perform a brief IDD operation on a target called Darth Vader (a small black pebble).

Sequence Development:

• We sequenced a 36.5cm traverse to a position approximately 91.5cm away from Black Lab. The new news for this meeting is that the arm needs to be within 89 to 97cm to get on the rock. We believe there is a 80-85% chance that we will be in the IDD workspace after this drive. This is a very small rock, and we are likely to have some trouble getting the instruments placed on this rock.
• The concept of using one of the NAVCAM images of a target called "Camelback" to come down in the UHF data, and to be used in the uplink planning was addressed. The understanding between the MM and the SOWG chair is that it is acceptable to count on the UHF data at the Sol 25 IST meeting for the Sol 25 IPS observations of "Camelback".
• The actual amount of engineering data reduction was 450kb (of the 1.0Mbits that we were willing to forgo).
• On the touch and go IDD instrument placement, only one set of HAZCAMs were taken (of the APXS placement, the middle one). In the event of an arm anomaly, there will be engineering telemetry of the joints, and the arm contingency will bring down HAZCAMs of the problem.
• A simulated earthquake in Pasadena caused a power outage within 4 seconds of sequence development completion. Computer reboot, sequence file recovery and continuing on through sequence validation was accomplished with only a "Ooh, this is bad" comment, on time. Way to go Sequence Team!
• The uplink was approved with three minutes to go.

Sol 25 Considerations:

• First,did we succeed with the final approach? If not, why can't we reliably do a 35cm drive to plus/minus 4 cm?
• Second, we have agreed to plan IPS observations of Camelback on the basis of UHF data to come down during the Sol 25 IST meeting.
• Third, the decreasing power availability (factored in as reduced FIDO operations time) is really beginning to limit our actions. With the further reduction to 40 and 30 minutes, Sols 25 and 26 are going to be a real challenge.

Cumulative Comments:

• It is important for the theme groups to sequence their requested observations, and in particular they should sequence their highest priority observations first. On Sol 15, the highest priority Pancam was not sequenced by the theme group, but the second and third were.
• Given extra time during sequence development, it is worthwhile to review the science priorities as well as to review, in sequence order, the visualizations of the image and remote spectroscopy requests.
• The modeling for IPS points needs to be updated. Ground testing should be performed to determine the duration of IPS measurements as a function of coadds. In addition, the modeling for Navcam images needs to be updated, since they appear to take up twice as much space in the resource modeling as they should at 16:1 image compression after a 12:8 pixel compression.
• The tools do not provide a means to determine the actual length of planned traverse segments. Furthermore, there are no good estimates with uncertainty of the meters per minute that the rover (with hazard avoidance on) can traverse as a function of the terrain type. Finally, there is limited information on the dead reckoning capability of the rover on gyros with respect to heading errors. Overall, there was no way to estimate the traverse duration or error based on the traverse design and terrain expectations, other than the experience of spacecraft team eyeballing the situation. This would not be acceptable in a real mission.
• We need to request a change control board to adjust the Hazcam data volume in the command dictionary from 2.1 to 1.05 Mbits.
• Clarification from PI: we have a mission success location if a) use two out of three in situ instruments, and b) the PI is willing to advocate that the science is new and different enough to make it a location.
• We need a ruling from the test director on whether we need Hazcam from one meter back and Hazcam at the current location in order to perform an arm operation. This may be affected by FIDO's ability to implement a stop one meter short after a long traverse. If not, we may not ever be able to do targets of opportunity after a long traverse.
• We have a test director flight rule to not use approach moves (hazard avoidance off) for total moves of more than three meters. Note that this is a Flight Rule that can be waived per Mission Manager (and has been on Sol 23).
• Before this Sol, we have completed the requirement for 3 locations, one trench (actually two), and have driven approximately 202 meters (out of 200 required). There are two Sols left.

Special Notes:

• Starting on Sol 16 and on all subsequent sols, the afternoon sol will begin at 12:15 PM with all subsequent events shifting later by 15 minutes.

Updated sequence development schedule starting at 0900 and 1415:

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

I would like to thank and congratulate the SOWG and the Engineering Teams. Between the first Sol and these Sols, the improvement in the abilities and teamwork of the group was astounding. This team has a really good chance to pull this off at Mars!

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