Jennifer Trosper
State from Sol 24

The rover is in good health although all expectations are that it won't last past sol 26. Power degradation has continued steadily with only 40 minutes of operations time being available today. Power is still available to keep the Mini-TES warm and alive provided UHF transmission is limited.

This is a 70m antenna Sol. The operation time is 40 minutes. DTE this Sol is 8.91 megabits, UHF is limited to a total of 24.55 megabits in order to save enrgy for the Mini-TES heating.

Sol 25 is a RAT sol:

• This sol is a RAT sol. We will be taking spectroscopy measurements on the Prietta target on Black Lab. Black Lab will then be ratted in preparation for additional spectroscopy tomorrow. A set of soil measurements will be taken at the end of the sol and overnight.
• The engineering data reduction is no longer in effect. Engineering is requesting their full set of data for this sol except for some of the front hazcam images post IDD instrument placement.

Sequence Development:

• Following is a summary of the sequenced activities:
  • Mini-TES - 5 observations
  • PanCam images of Camelback and long valley
  • IDD on unratted Black Lab at location Prietta
    • CMI, APXS, MB and hazcam images
  • Rat Black Lab
  • Move IDD to Soil
• Discussion was held regarding the possible fault scenarios for the RATting activity. There was concern that Sol 26 science would be precluded because of a potential fault on the RAT today. If the RAT does have a fault (most likely case is where we don't have enough pre-load and slip off of the target), the contingency sequence will be executed and anything post-RAT in the nominal sequence will not be executed. The IDD contingency sequence will be executed in it's place.

Sequence Approval:

• Resources:
  • Time within allocation
  • DTE bandwidth within allocation
  • UHF bandwidth within allocation
  • Power - not modeled
  • Thermal - verified that the reduction in UHF time is still valid to keep the Mini-TES alive for one more sol.
  • No flight rules or constraints were violated
  • No low level commands were used in the sequence
  • This is the first time we have physically left the arm on a target overnight during this test. There is no specific concern relative to this from engineering.
  • No discussion of command loss or low power fault protection issues.
• The uplink was approved with 10 minutes to go.

Sol 26 Considerations:

• We left the IDD on the soil for overnight integration of the APXS and MB instruments. In the morning, if all has gone well, we will most likely want to move the IDD back to Black Lab and do spectroscopy on the ratted target.
• The decreasing power availability (factored in as reduced FIDO operations time) is really beginning to limit our actions. With the further reduction to 30 minutes, Sols 26 is 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.
• It seems like the SOWG chair spends a lot of time writing down the basic observation reqests. It may be useful if the team leads, in addition to delivering their sequences, deliver a summary of the observations to the SOWG chair which he can mark up and prioritize.

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

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