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Several Drives This Week Put Opportunity Over 17-Mile Mark

File image.
by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 12, 2011
Opportunity continues the trek towards Endeavour crater with great dispatch, driving on four of the last six sols.

On Sols 2554 and 2556 (April 1 and 3, 2011), the rover drove over 100 meters (328 feet) due east on each sol. On Sol 2558 (April 5, 2011), the drive stopped short at only 64.6 meters (212 feet) of progress when the right bogie angle limit was exceeded.

The limit was set very tight to ensure safe driving. A modest terrain feature caused the limit to trip. After careful review that there was no safety concerns, the rover resumed driving on Sol 2559 (April 6, 2011), with a 65.4 meter (215 foot) drive to the southeast.

There continues to be a small increase in the motor currents for the right-front wheel. The project is tracking this.

Another diagnostic of the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) instrument was performed on Sol 2557 (April 4, 2011). Those diagnostics still indicate anomalous behavior.

The instrument investigation is continuing.

As of Sol 2559 (April 6, 2011), solar array energy production was 414 watt-hours with an elevated atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.910 and a solar array dust factor of 0.561.

Total odometry is 27,504.97 meters (27.50 kilometers, or 17.09 miles).



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MARSDAILY
Study Of 'Ruiz Garcia' Rock Completed
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 31, 2011
Opportunity completed the in-situ (contact) investigation on the surface target Ruiz Garcia at Santa Maria crater. On Sol 2520 (Feb. 25, 2011), the rover used the robotic arm (Instrument Deployment Device, or IDD) to collect a microscopic imager (MI) image mosaic of Ruiz Garcia. Then, it placed the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) down on the target for multi-sol integration. ... read more







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