Opportunity is still about halfway down in "Perseverance Valley" on the west rim of Endeavour Crater, pursuing hypotheses as to the origin of the valley.

The rover is positioned next to some tabular rocks that are the subject of an in-situ (contact) investigation. On Sol 5081 (May 10, 2018), using the robotic arm (IDD), Opportunity moved the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) less than half an inch (about 1 centimeter) to collect an offset measurement relative to the previous sampling. While performing contact measurements, the rover is also collecting targeted, multi-spectral images of the rocks using the Panoramic Camera (Pancam).

On Sol 5083 (May 12, 2018), the rover bumped about 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) to new targets. As with all moves, a wide, multi-frame Navigation Camera (Navcam) panorama is collected for site awareness and future drive planning. However, the last drive ended with a very small rock under the right-front wheel.

This raises questions about rover stability when using the robotic arm. Thus, on Sol 5086 (May 15, 2018), the rover was commanded to rotate the right-front wheel backward about 45 degrees of rotation. That kicked out the pebble and now all rover wheels are firmly on the ground for robotic arm use.

As of Sol 5086 (May 15, 2018), the solar array energy production was 659 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.651 and a solar array dust factor of 0.795.

Total odometry is 28.06 miles (45.16 kilometers).

Related Links
Opportunity Archive at JPL
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

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Opportunity team continues studies on origin of 'Perseverance Valley'
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 14, 2018
Opportunity is only halfway down in "Perseverance Valley" on the west rim of Endeavour crater, pursuing several scientific hypotheses as to the origin of the valley including both water and wind erosion. The next objective is to investigate some tabular rocks up close that are of interest to the science team. On Sol 5074 (May 3, 2018), Opportunity backed up about 6.07 feet (1.85 meters) to set up for an approach to the tabular rock targets. On Sol 5076 (May 5, 2018), the rover moved forward just o ... read more