Opportunity team plot path forward to the 'Gully' by Staff Writers Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 07, 2016
Opportunity is heading towards the next science waypoint on the rim of Endeavour Crater. Early in this period, Sols 4556 and 4559 (Nov. 16, 2016 and Nov. 19, 2016) she did quite a bit of exploratory driving in an effort to attain a good vantage point for finding a path through a troubling area of boulder patch and steep slopes ahead. The concern was whether the available routes to avoid the boulders were all too steep to traverse, in which case we would have to forgo the current 'Extended Mission 10' (EM10) route and backtrack to find a different route to our main objective, the 'gully.' Fortunately, the imaging following the drive on Sol 4559 (Nov.19, 2016) did indeed show a route forward and so with the Sol 4566 (Nov. 27, 2016) drive we proceeded 56 feet (17 meters) along the EM10 route. This was followed by an additional 82 feet (25 meters) on Sol 4568 (Nov. 29, 2016). As of Sol 4568 (Nov. 29, 2016), the solar array energy production is 465 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.902 and a solar array dust factor of 0.690. Total odometry is 27.05 miles (43.52 kilometers).
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