[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: December 18, 2014 - January 1, 2014

[Ron Baalke]

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

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Clues from Orbit Aiding Exploration - sols 3520-3534, 
Dec. 18, 2013-Jan. 01, 2014:

The rover is maintaining favorable northerly tilts for energy production. 
Opportunity is positioned on the edge of an exposed outcrop where orbital 
observations suggest the possible presence of small amounts of clay minerals.

The rover's activities have been relatively uncomplicated over the holiday 
period. On Sol 3521 (Dec. 19, 2013), the robotic arm was used to collect 
a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic, followed by an Alpha Particle X-ray 
Spectrometer (APXS) placement for multiple sols of collecting information 
about composition. A similar activity using both instruments was performed 
on Sol 3530 (Dec. 28, 2013). An outage at an antenna station of the Deep 
Space Network prevented uplink of a remote sensing plan, but that plan 
was recovered in subsequent sols.

Some small but welcome dust-cleaning events occurred during sols 3533 
and 3534 (Dec. 31, 2013, and Jan. 1, 2014). As of Sol 3534, solar-array 
energy production improved to 371 watt-hours, with an atmospheric opacity 
(Tau) of 0.569 and an improved solar array dust factor of 0.566. Just 
prior to these cleaning events, solar-array output per sol was about 35 
watt-hours lower, and the dust factor was about 0.50. Perfectly clean 
solar arrays would have a dust factor of 1.0, so the larger the dust factor, 
the cleaner the arrays.

Total odometry is 24.07 miles (38.73 kilometers).