[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Opportunity Update: February 4-9, 2015

[Ron Baalke]

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Latest Drive Puts Rover Within Marathon-Distance Record -
sols 3922-3927, February 4, 2015-February 9, 2015: 

Opportunity is on the west rim of Endeavour Crater heading towards "Marathon 
Valley," a putative location for abundant clay minerals now only about 
656 feet (200 meters) away.

The project is operating the rover without using the Flash storage system 
to avoid resets associated with a corrupted portion of Flash. The project 
is preparing to mask off the troubled sector of Flash and resume using 
the remainder of the Flash file system.

On Sol 3923 (Feb. 5, 2015), Opportunity drove 72 feet (21.7 meters) south, 
following the drive with post-drive Panoramic Camera (Pancam) and Navigation 
Camera (Navcam) drive-direction panoramas. On the following sol, the rover 
completed the Navcam 360-degree panorama with more imagery.

On Sol 3925 (Feb. 7, 2015), Opportunity performed the first sol of a two-sol 
"touch 'n go" using the robotic arm (the "touch") to collect Microscopic 
Imager frames and then place the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer on 
a surface target for a multi-hour integration. On the next sol (the "go"), 
the rover drove over 102 feet (31 meters) and then collected more drive 
direction imagery. With this drive Opportunity exceeded (26 miles) 42 
kilometers of driving distance on Mars.

As of Sol 3927 (Feb. 9, 2015), the solar array energy production was 479 
watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.824 and a solar array 
dust factor of 0.606.

Total odometry is 26.11 miles (42 kilometers).