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Block Island Offers More Opportunities For Closer Inspection
Pasadena CA (JPL) Aug 21, 2009 Opportunity is continuing its in-situ (contact) investigation of the 70-centimeter (28-inch) meteorite called "Block Island." On Sol 1974 (Aug. 13, 2009), robotic arm (IDD) work on ground in front of the meteorite completed with a microscopic imager (MI) mosaic of pebbles called "Vail Beach" at the foot of Block Island. On the next sol, Opportunity bumped closer to Block Island by about 40 centimeters (16 inches). This puts other meteorite surface targets within reach of the rover's robotic arm. On Sol 1976 (Aug. 15, 2009), the MI collected a mosaic of the target "Purple Patch," then placed the Mossbauer (MB) spectrometer for a long integration. On Sol 1979 (Aug. 18, 2009), the MI collected mosaics of a different target and then the arm positioned the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS). The shroud of the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) continues to be left open on scheduled sols to allow the environment to clean putative dust contamination from the elevation mirror. No improvement in Mini-TES performance has been observed so far, but the rover has seen no wind events. As of Sols 1979 and 1980 (Aug. 18 and 19, 2009), Opportunity's solar-array energy production was 467 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.457 and a dust factor of 0.552. The rover's cumulative odometry on Sol 1980 was 17,229.16 meters (10.71 miles). Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Spirit Hits 2000 Sols On Mars DutyPasadena CA (JPL) Aug 20, 2009 Today marks the 2,000th Martian day, or sol, of what was initially planned as a 90-sol mission on Mars for NASA's Spirit rover. Spirit's twin, Opportunity, will reach the 2,000-sol milestone on Sept. 8. Both rovers have found rocks altered by past action of water on Mars. Both show some signs of aging but remain capable of further scientific investigations. Since their landing halfwa ... read more |
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