MSL Post Landing - Commissioning Period & Early Observations, Commissioning Activity Period 1B - Sols 9 through 16 Options

[elakdawalla]

Now that Curiosity has her driving and science software installed and is ready to proceed, I figured it was time for a new thread. Please keep sol 0-8 discussion in the previous thread (including discussion of the full-frame MARDIs, as they come down), and post new stuff here.

Things to look forward to: a Mastcam pan of the top of the mountain to be uplinked in the next sol or two; testing of the steering actuators on sol 13; first drive on sol 15. This period, which Grotzinger told me would take "no fewer than 6 sols," will be followed by an "Intermission," during which the science team may choose to drive to a new site (not very far away) for Commissioning Activity Period 2, when they'll commission the arm and its instruments.

Also, an admin note: we allowed a lot of chit-chat in the landing thread because we were all so excited about the successful landing But as we move forward, I'd like to ask people to be mindful of forum rule 2.2. The strength of this forum is in its high signal-to-noise ratio; avoid posting things that just say "wow, awesome" or "I agree." Please keep chit-chat to the chit-chat forum.

[Joffan]

If they really want to exercise the laser pointing, they should try writing "JPL" on N165. It's basically the landing reference, so a little commemorative grafitti seems in order.

My suggested name for N165: Zero Pebble.