Pebbles before mountains

NASA's Mars 2020 mission team has been working methodically and thoroughly, making good progress on understanding the best path forward to remove the uninvited pebbles from Perseverance's bit carousel.

This was done so we would have a good idea what rocks and pebbles already exist down there before some more - from our bit carousel - join them in the not-so-distant future.

Simply put, we are returning the remaining contents of Sample Tube 261 back to its planet of origin.

We sent commands up yesterday, and later on today the rover's robotic arm will simply point the open end of the sample tube toward the surface of Mars and let gravity do the rest.

So if our plans go well with our pebble mitigation, we may very well attempt to core "Issole" again.

Which brings me to next steps in our pebble mitigation strategy: we're sending up commands to the rover later today, ordering it to do two rotation tests of the bit carousel.

Our expectations are that these rotations - and any subsequent pebble movement - will help guide our team, providing them the necessary information on how to proceed.

Still, to be thorough, we are also commanding the rover to take a second set of under-chassis images, just in case one or more pebbles happen to pop free.

Essentially, we are leaving no rock unturned in the pursuit of these four pebbles.

While many were enjoying the days between the Christmas and New Year holidays in the US, at JPL we were working to finish up sampling activities at Issole.