Did you know? | Curiosity team switches back to Earth time

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On Sol 84 (Oct. 31, 2012), NASA's Curiosity rover used the
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture this set of 55
high-resolution images, which were stitched together to
create this full-color self-portrait. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin
Space Science Systems.

Did you know? | Phys.org - After three months working on "Mars time," the team operating NASA Mars rover Curiosity has switched to more regular hours, as planned.

A Martian day, called a sol, is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, so the team's start time for daily planning has been moving a few hours later each week. This often resulted in the team working overnight hours, Pacific Time. 

Starting this week, most of the team's work will stay within bounds of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., PST. Compressing the daily planning process for rover activities makes the switch possible.

A simultaneous change this week begins more dispersed operations for the scientists on the rover team. The team includes about 200 JPL engineers and about 400 scientists, mostly from other institutions. More than 200 non-JPL scientists who have spent some time working at JPL since Curiosity's landing on Aug. 5, 2012 (Pacific Time; Aug. 6, Eastern Time and Universal Time) will continue participating regularly from their home institutions throughout North America and Europe. The team has been preparing in recent weeks to use dispersed participation teleconferences and Web connections.

The operational planning this week is focused on getting a first sample of solid Martian material into the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, instrument.

On the mission's Sol 89 (Nov. 5, 2012), the other analytical instrument inside the rover, Chemistry and Mineralogy, or CheMin, dumped out the second soil sample it had finished analyzing. That second sample into CheMin came from the fourth scoop of soil that Curiosity's robotic arm collected at a site called "Rocknest." Also on Sol 89 came confirmation that SAM had completed an overnight analysis run on a blank sample cup in preparation for receiving a soil sample. Plans call for the fifth scoop at Rocknest to provide samples going into both SAM and CheMin in coming days.

Source: Nasa.gov
Editor: Phys.org