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Characterizing Wind Streaks At Victoria Crater

The wind streaks can be seen at the top of the MRO image.
by Staff Writers
Opportunity is healthy and is attempting to characterize the dark wind streak material which emanates from Victoria Crater as seen from orbital images. On Sol 1132 the team planned a four-hour alpha particle X-ray spectrometer integration to measure atmospheric Argon. The purpose of this measurement is to determine the atmospheric mixing processes and track their changes with time.


Sol 1137 included a test of a fix for a steering bias bug in the mobility flight software. This is the fix for the problem the team saw on sol 1114, when the software selected an arc that was 13 degrees off course from the goal.

Sol-by-sol summary:

In addition to Opportunity's usual observations of panoramic camera tau, navigation camera cloud captures, miniature thermal emission sky and ground stares, and panoramic camera sky spots, the rover did the following:

Sol 1131 (March 30, 2007): On this sol, Opportunity's panoramic camera began to take the first half of a long baseline stereo image of "Valley Without Peril." The navigation camera was used to fill gaps in the previous sol's panorama. The panoramic camera was then used again to image target "Almeria." The miniature thermal emission spectrometer also observed Almeria.

Sol 1132: Opportunity bumped 5.6 meters (18.4 feet) to the second eye location of the stereo panorama of Valley Without Peril. The miniature thermal emission spectrometer observed target "Barcelona." The alpha particle X-ray spectromter completed a four-hour atmospheric Argon measurement.

Sol 1133: On this sol, the rover continued the long baseline stereo second eye image of Valley Without Peril and also conducted remote sensing.

Sol 1134: Opportunity drove to a bright spot between wind streaks to set up for microscopic imaging and alpha particle X-ray spectrometer measurements on sol 1135. The rover took panoramic camera images at three different times during the sol as part of a photometry experiment.

Sol 1135: On this sol, Opportunity used the microscopic imager to examine the soil target "Salamanca," in the bright spot area between wind streaks.

Sol 1136: Opportunity used the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on soil target "Sevilla." The miniature thermal emission spectrometer did a foreground survey and the panoramic camera was used to image the rover tracks.

Sol 1137: The rover drove about 35 meters (115 feet) to middle of a wind streak and then took images with its panoramic camera as part of a photometry experiment.

Sol 1138: On this sol, the miniature thermal emission spectrometer completed a foreground survey. The panoramic camera conducted a 13-filter foreground survey and took more images for the photometry experiment.

Current Odometry: As of sol 1134, Opportunity's total odometry is 10,373.19 meters (6.45 miles).

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Experiment Simulates Radiation Exposure
State College (UPI) Pa., April 10, 2007
An international team will live in a small shelter in the Utah desert for two weeks this month in a NASA simulation of Martian exploration. The experiment, called Crew 61, is sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Spaceward Bound program and the Mars Society.









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