[meteorite-list] NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Climbs to High Point on Rim

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4437

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Climbs to High Point on Rim
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 8, 2015

After completing two drives this week, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity 
has paused to photograph the panoramic vista from the highest point the 
rover has reached during its 40 months of exploring the western rim of 
Mars' Endeavour Crater. The view is one of the grandest in Opportunity's 
Martian career of nearly 11 years and more than 25.8 miles (41.6 kilometers).

The rover has been having trouble with a section of its flash memory, 
the type of memory that can store data even when power is switched off. 
Opportunity's operators at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, 
California, have adopted a tactic of avoiding use of the flash memory, 
while they prepare a software remedy to restore its usability.

The rover is atop "Cape Tribulation" on Endeavour Crater's rim. Like the 
informal names for several other features around the 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) 
crater, the name Cape Tribulation is a reference to one of the locations 
visited by the HMS Endeavour captained by James Cook in his first voyage 
of discovery to Australia and New Zealand in 1769-1771.

A view from the summit of the Martian Cape Tribulation is online at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA19098

The summit's elevation is about 440 feet (about 135 meters) above the 
plains surrounding the crater. Drives completed on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 
without use of flash memory, brought Opportunity the final 174 feet (53 
meters) southeastward to the crest.

>From this site, Opportunity will proceed southward along the crater rim 
to a location called "Marathon Valley," where water-related minerals have 
been detected from orbit. That site's informal name comes from the calculation 
that Opportunity will have completed a marathon-footrace's distance of 
driving (26.2 miles, or 42.2 kilometers) by the time the rover gets there. 
The rover's current odometry is 25.86 miles (41.62 kilometers).

Opportunity powers down every night in order to have enough energy for 
daily operations. Without use of the onboard flash memory, it cannot store 
images or other data overnight. While operating in a no-flash mode, the 
mission is downloading each day's data before beginning the overnight 
sleep. Meanwhile, the rover team is testing a software fix that would 
mask off the portion of the flash memory that has problems. This would 
allow resuming use of the rest of the flash memory.

"The fix for the flash memory requires a change to the rover's flight 
software, so we are conducting extensive testing to be sure it will not 
lead to any unintended consequences for rover operations," said JPL's 
John Callas, project manager for Opportunity.

Opportunity landed on Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time (on Jan. 24, 
2004, Pacific Standard Time) for a mission planned to last three months. 
Since then, and during the 2004-2010 career of Opportunity's twin, Spirit, 
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project has yielded a range of findings 
proving wet environmental conditions existed on ancient Mars -- some very 
acidic, others milder and more conducive to supporting life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, 
manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate in Washington. For more information about Spirit and Opportunity, 
visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/rovers

and

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at:

http://twitter.com/MarsRovers

and

http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers


Media Contact

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov 

2015-011