Opportunity prepares for a flight software update

Opportunity Status Report: Opportunity is continuing her winter exploration of “Perseverance Valley” on the west rim of Endeavour Crater from a location in the north fork of the local flow channel.

Color imaging of light toned bedrock and nearby streaked rocks occupied the first few sols. The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) argon integration was done on Sol 4974 (Jan. 20, 2018). A short 3 foot (1 meter) drive on the next sol positioned the rover at the light toned outcrop and some missing images were retaken.

On Sol 4977 (Jan. 23, 2018), the robotic arm was used to collect a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of a surface target within the work volume of the arm. The APXS was then placed on that target. Also on that sol, the latest version of the flight software was copied over the older fallback version in preparation for a flight software update, later in the year. Additional dust cleaning has raised solar array energy production to 644 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.423 and an improved solar array dust factor of 0.839…. [More at link]

This entry was posted in Reports and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.