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Rocky 7 - Mojave Desert Field ExperimentsExperimenter's Notebook
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The main goal was to finish the Sunshine Flow traverse. A basalt rock was also to be examined with the rover instruments. The day's testing began at 9:00 am local time when Rocky 7 was placed at the end of Sunday's traverse. The science target (a basalt rock which the operators in the trailer identified as possibly possessing a coating of desert varnish) was approximately a meter in front of the rover. The operators first commanded Rocky 7 to acquire more stereo panoramic images of the area so that this science target could be better located. The rover was then commanded to approach the rock and place the NMR instrument in the mast up against the rock. At this point Sam Kim and his NMR team connected a laptop computer to their instrument (still located in the mast) and entered the necessary commands to perform the NMR measurement.
After the NMR measurement was done, the rover rotated itself so that it could examine a patch of soil (aeolian accretion mantle) exposed near the basalt rock science target. A Point Reflectance Spectrometer [PR] measurement was taken of this soil. Unfortunately the PR data were poor, e.g. the dark current values were higher than the the basalt signatures, and precluded spectral analyses. The PR is located on the rover's manipulator arm.
After these science tasks were done Rocky 7 continued its traverse down to the playa. A stereo panoramic image was acquired and the rover began moving off of the basalt flow. During the traverse the NMR instrument in the rover's mast overheated in the 100 degree F heat, temporarily stalling the rover until the problem was fixed. At 6:45 pm local time Rocky 7 reached the playa after traveling 73 m. The Sunshine Flow traverse covered 85.85 m total during Sunday and Monday's activities.