Spirit Sol 192

I have a problem I haven't had for some time: I get irrationally worried about yestersol's sequence and can't sleep, waking early to fret about it. It was one of our most complex sequences to date, after all. So I log in from home and, of course, it looks just fine. The only fly in the ointment is that the data products report we drove only 4.5m, where we commanded about 10m. But it was a relatively short comm pass, so it's likely we simply don't have all the data yet. In any case, the rover didn't set an error flag, and its heading looks good, which means the sequence almost certainly succeeded completely.

Big surprise. I go back to sleep.

Today's a much simpler sol, a welcome change after yestersol's harried pace. Indeed, John generates thisol's sequence mostly by copying yestersol's and cutting the stuff we don't need.

We zip through the uplink process almost without a hiccup. The only hitch comes near the end, when we're about to deliver. Joe Melko shows up and tries to talk me into changing the drive, to use a new technique where we accommodate slip by lying to the rover about its wheel radius. I take the approach of "Good idea, we'll be sure to do that on the next one" -- it is a good idea, but it's too late to change the drive thisol -- and Joe goes away. "I like the way you handled that one," Bill Bensler (our TUL today) comments, and that's that.

Bill also has a useful piece of advice for a smooth uplink process: "When in doubt," he says, "say you have a standing waiver."