[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: November 24 - December 3, 2014

[Ron Baalke]

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

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Flash-Memory Reformat Planned  - sols 3852-3861, 
November 24, 2014-December 03, 2014:

Opportunity is on the west rim of Endeavour Crater heading towards 'Marathon 
Valley,' a putative location for abundant clay minerals less than a mile 
(about a kilometer) to the south.

The rover is stopped at an interesting geologic unit and conducting in-situ 
(contact) measurements. On Sol 3853 (Nov. 25, 2014), the rover used the 
robotic arm to reposition the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) 
for a surface measurement. On the next sol, the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) 
was used to brush a new surface target, which was then imaged with the 
Microscopic Imager (MI) and examined with the APXS.

With the Thanksgiving holiday, a multi-sol plan was built to collect Pancam 
images over the long holiday weekend. However, the rover experienced amnesia 
events and then a computer reset around Sol 3856 (Nov. 28, 2014). After 
the reboot, the rover was no longer under sequence control and was unable 
to mount the flash (non-volatile) memory. The project restored the rover 
to normal sequence operation on Sol 3859 (Dec. 1, 2014), but the flash 
file system remained unavailable. The project prepared for a reformatting 
of the flash memory on Sol 3862 (Dec. 4, 2014).

As of Sol 3859 (Dec. 1, 2014), solar-array energy production was 468 watt-hours, 
with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 1.376 and a solar-array dust factor 
of 0.638.

Total odometry as of Sol 3861 (Dec. 3, 2014) is 25.66 miles (41.30 kilometers).