4375-4381: Stuffed Holiday Plan

Earth planning date: Monday, Nov. 25, 2024

Today we planned a mammoth seven-sol plan, to cover the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday period. Unfortunately, our weekend drive ended a little early and we didn't receive all of our needed confirmation imagery. At 7 feet high and weighing about 2,000 pounds, the rover itself is as big as a large car (check out this page, with a 3D interactive model of the rover, and more details about its dimensions). However, the contact science instruments are at the end of the arm, which stretches for another 7 feet (2.1 meters) when fully extended - for example, when reaching for a target in the workspace. We really need those confirmation images to be sure that all six wheels are firmly planted on the ground before taking out the arm to do contact science - no one wants our rover to be all wibbly-wobbly, like a giant tower of Thanksgiving jello!

So, no APXS or MAHLI this Thanksgiving; but we have so many other activities, it's a very stuffed plan. Mastcam has more than five hours of activity across the plan. A planned mosaic of Texoli butte and surrounding area grew so large, it was split into two distinct activities of a 50×4 mosaic (four rows of 50 images) and a 50×1 mosaic.