[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: January 14-21, 2015

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 16:30:35 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201501240030.t0O0UZ9t007059_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/status.html#opportunity

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Team Has Plan to Fix Flash Memory Issue - sols
3902-3908, January 14, 2015-January 21, 2015:

Opportunity is on the west rim of Endeavour Crater heading towards
"Marathon Valley," a putative location for abundant clay minerals now
less than 1,312 feet (400 meters) to the south.

The Flash memory degradation causes multiple resets of the rover on each
wake-up. To mitigate this, the project is operating the rover without
using the non-volatile Flash storage system, and using instead the
volatile random access memory (RAM) for temporary storage of telemetry.
Recently, the project was able to configure the rover to use this mode
at every wakeup without the need to set this mode each time with a
ground command.

Meanwhile, the project is preparing to mask off the troubled sector of
Flash and resume using the remainder of the Flash file system in normal
operations. The plan to implement the masking was reviewed last week by
an independent panel and the project was given the go ahead.

Opportunity drove on Sols 3902, 3905 and 3908 (Jan. 14, Jan. 16 and Jan.
21, 2015), totaling over 574 feet (175 meters).

As of Sol 3908 (Jan. 21, 2015), the solar array energy production was
440 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 1.037 and a solar
array dust factor of 0.596 (from Sol 3906/Jan. 18, 2015).

Total odometry is 25.97 miles (41.80 kilometers).
Received on Fri 23 Jan 2015 07:30:35 PM PST