max, all good questions. The <a href="...

max, all good questions.

The optical microscope is part of the MECA package. samples are input to the MECA package by a rotating sample wheel with 10 sets of 6 different substrates.

I suspect the tests are looking at either "calibration" substrates or "bucket" substrates.

I would suspect that the "wet chemisty beakers" are pressurized ( Mars, you know ) -- but I don't know that for a fact.

All the .pdf papers googled on various sites describing the technical details of MECA are strangely unresponsive.

Perhaps the little clear drop is an interplanetary joke played by the creaters of the sample wheel.

The FAMARS part of MRCA will be a new scale of Mars exploration.