The article discusses the challenges faced by the Curiosity rover on Sols 3851-3852 and Sols 3848-3850. On the first set of days, the rover attempted an 11-meter drive to get off a large rock that was preventing arm activities. Although the rover successfully got off the rock, its wheels slipped in the surrounding sand, and it ended up in approximately the same place as Friday. However, the team was able to use the arm to target a spot on the laminated bedrock in front of them for DRT and named it “Aporema.” The RPs approved Aporema for DRT, APXS, and MAHLI activities quickly, and the GEO team delivered the plan 30 minutes early. The plan involved two arm backbones “split” around one midday remote science backbone before driving in the afternoon and taking post-drive imagery before sunset.
On the second set of days, the rover’s right middle wheel was perched on a rock, making it unsafe to do the arm activities and contact science planned. The team pivoted to taking more imaging, including Navcam line-of-sight images, Mastcam stereo images of sand ripples, a scour feature, and a nearby fractured rock, ChemCam LIBS observations of bedrock targets, and Mastcam documentation images. After imaging, the rover attempted to drive through challenging terrain with big rocks and lots of sand that could cause significant slip. The Mobility Rover Planner needed a lot of time to figure out how to get Curiosity out of the area where the last drive faulted and back onto the safest path forward. The third sol of the plan involved additional imaging and atmospheric observations before Curiosity woke up early in the morning for communication with orbiters to relay data.
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