As the Chair of the Sol 513 SOWG, my day was spent planning activities for the rover. The primary focus of these activities was to capture a full set of MAHLI images of its wheels. To ensure that the entire surface of the wheels was imaged, we planned short drives in between image-taking sessions. However, due to the power requirements of these activities, we had to be mindful not to drain the rover’s battery too much.
Despite this constraint, we still made sure to include some post-drive scientific tasks in our plan. These included an active measurement of hydrogen below the surface using DAN, a cloud search using Navcam, and imaging to plan targeted observations for Sol 514.
The planning process started earlier than usual because command sequences needed to be sent to the rover by 5 PM Pacific time. While it wasn’t as early as the previous day when I commuted to work in the dark, it was still a productive and busy day planning for Sol 513’s rover activities.