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MARSDAILY
Opportunity Continutes To Scout For Site To Winter In
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 26, 2011

Opportunity's Traverse Map Through Sol 2781.

In preparing for positioning Opportunity for the coming winter, the project has been scouting sites with favorable northerly tilt on the north end of Cape York on the rim of Endeavour Crater.

There are two candidate sites for winter havens that indicate sufficient northerly tilt.

Opportunity is investigating one of those two sites with the plan to spend the Thanksgiving holiday there. Because of the coming holiday, the project implemented multi-sol plans for the last three planning days before Thanksgiving.

On Sol 2778 (Nov. 17, 2011), the rover moved just under 39 feet (12 meters) to the south approaching the candidate location. Rover attitude increased to 10 degrees of northerly tilt.

On Sol 2780 (Nov. 19, 2011), an atmospheric argon measurement was made with the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS).

On Sol 2781 (Nov. 20, 2011), Opportunity bumped just under 10 feet (3 meters) to reach an interesting surface target with improved rover tilt. The northerly tilt increased to about 12 degrees.

On Sol 2783 (Nov. 22, 2011), Opportunity made a very small turn to move a surface target within the work volume of the robotic arm. Another atmospheric argon measurement was collected with the APXS later that sol.

The plan ahead is to spend Thanksgiving at this location and to collect Microscopic Imager (MI) images of this new surface target, called "Transvaal" along with an APXS measure of the same.

As of Sol 2783 (Nov. 22, 2011), solar array energy production was 297 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.661 and a solar array dust factor of 0.463.

Total odometry is 21.34 miles (34,342.70 meters or 34.44 kilometers).

Related Links
Mars Rovers at JPL
Mars Rovers at Cornell
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more




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MARSDAILY
Opportunity Nearing A Winter Haven
Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 22, 2011
The project continues to implement the seasonal plan for Opportunity, which is to winter over on the north end of "Cape York" on the rim of Endeavour Crater where northerly tilts are favorable for solar array energy production. With recent driving, Opportunity in now in the vicinity of the winter haven location. On Sol 2771 (Nov. 9, 2011), the rover completed some in-situ (contact) science ... read more


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