[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: September 4-9, 2014

[Ron Baalke]

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

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Flash-Memory Reformat Successful! - sols 3773-3778, 
September 04, 2014-September 09, 2014:

Opportunity is on the west rim of Endeavour Crater heading towards 'Marathon 
Valley,' a putative location for abundant clay minerals.

The rover's Flash file system was successfully reformatted on Sol 3773 
(Sept. 4, 2014). The Flash space available is slightly smaller (<1%) than 
before the reformat, consistent with the reformatting process flagging 
some bad cells to avoid. On Sol 3775 (Sept. 6, 2014), some scripts and 
configuration files were copied back to Flash from EEPROM (other non-volatile 
storage) were they were kept during the reformat. Other configuration 
files were loaded from the ground on Sol 3776 (Sept. 7, 2014). The rover 
has performed without any anomalies or unusual behavior since the reformat.

A drive was sequenced on Sol 3778 (Sept. 9, 2014), using visual odometry 
to navigate around potential rock obstacles. The drive stopped almost 
as soon as it started because the rover's visual odometry could not find 
enough visual features for the algorithm to converge. The plan ahead is 
to re-sequence the drive but to instruct the rover to use a different 
scene with more visual features for the visual odometry.

As of Sol 3778 (Sept. 9, 2014), the solar array energy production was 
694 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.879 and a solar 
array dust factor of 0.754.

Total odometry is 25.28 miles (40.69 kilometers).