[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: January 22-28, 2014

[Ron Baalke]

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

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Work on Mystery Rock Continues As Rover Marks 10
Years on Mars - sols 3554-3560, Jan. 22, 2014-Jan. 28, 2014:

Opportunity is up on 'Solander Point' at the rim of Endeavour Crater.
The rover is continuing to investigate this curious surface rock, called
'Pinnacle Island' that apparently was kicked up by the rover during a
recent traverse.

Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 24, 2004 PST (Jan. 25, 2004 UTC) on
what was to be a three-month mission, but instead the rover has lived
beyond its prime mission and roved the planet for nearly 10 years.
Mission highlights, including a gallery of selected images from both
rovers is at http://mars.nasa.gov/mer10/.

On Sol 3554 (Jan. 22, 2014), with a difficult robotic arm wrist motion
preventing a simple target offset, Opportunity instead lifted the
robotic arm out of the way for a 13-filter Panoramic Camera (Pancam)
image of the target Pinnacle Island, then placed the Alpha Particle
X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) back down on the same location.

On Sol 3555 (Jan. 23, 2014), the rover attempted a very small
turn-in-place of only 1.4 degrees to reach a new location on the target.
The initial wheel motion achieved sufficient turn magnitude, but the
wheel straightening undid that motion so the target position was not
reached. This was not surprising since very small motions are very
difficult to achieve with the rover. On Sol 3557 (Jan. 25 2014), this
motion was attempted again, but this time a 'tank turn' was used and
achieved the necessary result. The rover continued with 13-filter Pancam
imagery and an APXS atmospheric argon measurement. On Sol 3560 (Jan. 28,
2014), the robotic arm collected a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of the
new location on Pinnacle Island, followed by the placement of the APXS
on the same.

As of Sol 3560 (Jan. 28, 2014), the solar array energy production was
361 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.572 and a solar
array dust factor of 0.590.

Total odometry is 24.07 miles (38.73 kilometers).