Opportunity Takes Advantage of her Location to do a Mini Science Campaign by Staff Writers Pasadena CA (JPL) Feb 07, 2017
Opportunity is located on the rim of Endeavour Crater, heading south. The rover is trying to make progress towards the next major scientific objective, the gully about a kilometer south of the current location. The rover recently turned from heading west to heading south around the north edge of "Beacon Rock." On Sol 4624 (Jan. 25, 2017), Opportunity drove 76 feet (23.25 meters), the last westward move before turning south. Over the next two sols, the rover drove both days covering 62 feet (18.91 meters) and 38.45 feet (11.72 meters), respectively. Taking advantage of her location, Opportunity conducted a short in-situ (contact) science campaign on Sol 4629 (Jan. 30, 2017), using the robotic arm to collect a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of a surface target and placing the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on the same for a multi-hour integration. She also fit in an atmospheric argon measurement with the APXS on an earlier sol. On Sol 4630 (Jan. 31, 2017), it was another push to the south with a 71.49 feet (21.79 meter) drive. This last drive stopped a little short because the visual odometry algorithm had difficulty resolving progress from near-featureless images of the ground. Lots of Navigation Camera (Navcam) and Panoramic Camera (Pancam) panoramas have been collected after each drive. As of Sol 4630 (Jan. 31, 2017), the solar array energy production was 466 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.801 and a solar array dust factor of 0.681. Total odometry is 27.30 miles (43.94 kilometers).
Related Links Opportunity Archive Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com Lunar Dreams and more
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