[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: July 16-20, 2015

[Ron Baalke]

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Experimenting with Flash Memory sols 4080-4084, 
July 16, 2015-July 20, 2015: 

Opportunity has entered 'Marathon Valley' on the west rim of Endeavour 
Crater. 

On Sol 4081 (July 17, 2015), the rover drove 96.7 feet (29.47 meters) 
to the northeast to enter the valley and collected spectacular imagery. 
The project has been experimenting with the Flash file system on the rover 
to understand its current usability. 

On Sol 4082 (July 18, 2015), Opportunity mounted its non-volatile Flash 
file system, instead of using volatile RAM for telemetry storage. The 
Flash seemed to work, although a benign 'amnesia' event did occur later 
on the sol. On the next Sol the rover was unable to mount the Flash at 
all and used RAM instead, still able to carry out the science plan that 
day. 

On Sol 4084 (July 20, 2015), a short bump was sequenced, but because of 
an amnesia event later on the sol, the telemetry from the bump was not 
received on the ground, although other data showed the drive completed 
as expected and the rover moved to the planned location. 

The Flash file system will continued to be investigated by the project 
as the science mission in Marathon Valley continues. Other than the Flash, 
Opportunity is in good health. 

As of Sol 4084 (July 20, 2015), the solar array energy production was 
432 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.645 and a solar 
array dust factor of 0.607.

Total odometry is 26.40 miles (42.48 kilometers), more than a marathon.