[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: June 23-28, 2011

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:05:32 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201106301805.p5UI5WOZ012334_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html#opportunity

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Opportunity Is Just Over a Mile From Crater Rim -
sols 2635-2640, June 23-28, 2011:

Opportunity is making excellent progress towards Endeavour crater with
only about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) to go before the first landfall on
the rim, a place called "Spirit Point."

The rover drove on Sols 2635 and 2637 (June 23 and 25, 2011), covering
138.8 (455 feet) and 126.4 meters (415 feet), respectively. A drive
planned for Sol 2640 (June 28, 2011), did not occur because a Deep Space
Network (DSN) station outage prevented the uplink of the two-sol plan.
The rover, instead, safely executed her on-board runout sequence. The
planned drive will be recovered in the subsequent plan. A Quick Fine
Attitude (QFA) was performed on Sol 2638 (June 26, 2011), to remove
accumulated drift in the rover's inertial measurement unit (IMU or
gyros). The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) performed a
measurement of atmospheric argon on Sol 2639 (June 27, 2011). The
improved energy situation has permitted some early morning ultra-high
frequency (UHF) relay passes to return additional science data. AM relay
passes were performed early on the morning of Sols 2637 and 2639 (June
25 and 27, 2011).

As of Sol 2640 (June 28, 2011), solar array energy production was 476
watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 1.11 and a solar array
dust factor of 0.648.

Total odometry is 31,468.54 meters (31.47 kilometers, or 19.55 miles).
Received on Thu 30 Jun 2011 02:05:32 PM PDT