Opportunity is continuing the exploration of "Perseverance Valley" on the west rim of Endeavour Crater.

The rover is positioned on the north fork of a local flow channel about half way down the valley.

Improved energy levels from dust cleaning of the solar arrays continues to benefit activity on the rover. On Sol 4992 (Feb. 7, 2018), Opportunity was able to perform an overnight Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement of atmospheric argon.

On the next sol, the rover bumped about 8 feet (2.5 meters) north to reach some high-value surface targets.

Opportunity spent the next two days using the robotic arm (also called the Instrument Deployment Device, or IDD) to investigate the surface using the Microscopic Imager (MI) to collect mosaics and the APXS to perform a pair of offset integrations.

On Sol 4997 (Feb. 12, 2018), the rover then drove south just over 52 feet (16 meters) with a pause in between to perform some targeted remote sensing.

As of Sol 4997 (Feb. 12, 2018), the solar array energy production was 605 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.491 and an improved solar array dust factor of 0.870.

Total odometry is 28.03 miles (45.12 kilometers).

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

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Oppy Takes A Selfie To Mark Sol 5000
Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 16, 2018
The Sun will rise on NASA's solar-powered Mars rover Opportunity for the 5,000th time on Saturday, sending rays of energy to a golf-cart-size robotic field geologist that continues to provide revelations about the Red Planet. "Five thousand sols after the start of our 90-sol mission, this amazing rover is still showing us surprises on Mars," said Opportunity Project Manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. A Martian "sol" lasts about 40 minutes longer t ... read more