Opportunity continues to exhibit elevated motor current in the drive actuator of the right-front wheel. To mitigate this, the rover has been driving backward.
This week, Opportunity built and booted new flight software, version R9.3. After a build activity on Sol 1811 (Feb. 26, 2009), Opportunity booted onto the R9.3 flight software on Sol 1814 (March 1, 2009). The new software has been working fine.
Opportunity drove more than 56 meters (184 feet) the sol before the boot and drove again for about 40 meters (131 feet) on Sol 1816 (March 3,
2009) , two sols after the boot. The team is considering resting the right-front drive actuator in coming sols as a way to further mitigate the elevated motor current.
As of Sol 1817 (March 4, 2009), the solar array energy production is 488 watt-hours, down by 20 watt-hours from a week earlier. Atmospheric opacity (tau) has increased a little to 0.710. The dust factor on the solar array is 0.576, meaning that 57.6 percent of sunlight hitting the solar array penetrates the layer of accumulated dust on the array. The rover is in good health using its new flight software.
As of Sol 1816 (March 3, 2009), Opportunity's total odometry is 14,834.38 meters (9.22 miles).
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