Viking Lander 2 Sampling Arm Events - Seismic Disturbances ?
Ralph Lorenz 2/16/2016

The table lists the principal episodes of Viking Sampler arm operation on Viking
Lander 2, with the aim of relating signatures in other instrumentation (e.g.
seismometer, meteorology) with mechanical disturbances associated with arm
operations.

The data are derived from tables 40 and 41 of Moore, H.J., Hutton, R.E., Clow,
G.D. and Spitzer, C.R., 1987, "Physical properties of the surface materials at
the Viking landing sites on Mars", US Geological Survey Professional Paper No.
1389.

Columns are
1.  Mission Phase  (1=Primary Mission, 2=Extended Mission)
2.  Event Number (the Item number, leftmost column in Moore et al. tables)
3.  Sol Number
4.  Hour   
5.  Minute
6.  Operation type

The codes for operation type are

1  shroud ejection
2  biology sample   (sample operations include trenching)
3  backhoe touchdown
4  GCMS sample
5  purge
6  XRFS sample
7  rock nudge
8  rock push
9  physical properties
10 mirror operations
11 park
12 conical pile
13 deep hole
14 rock chip

In some cases, operations extended for hours (or e.g. for 'deep hole' or XRFS
operations, for a day) after the start time indicated in this table. Thus any
anomalies being investigated should take the full range of operations in Moore
et al's table into account.

Note that some of the times appear to differ by at least several minutes from
the times reported for XRFS operations reported in table A4 of Baird, A. K., A.
J. Castro, B. C. Clark, P. Toulmin, H. Rose, K. Keil and J. Gooding, 1987, "The
Viking X-Ray Fluorescence Experiment: Sampling Strategies and Laboratory
Simulations", JGR, 82, 4595-4624. This is probably an instrument vs lander
timestamping issue, and cautions that the times should be considered somewhat
approximate.