Opportunity For Some Crater Hopping On Route To Endeavour

MARSDAILY

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by Staff Writers
Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 20, 2009
Opportunity has been crater hopping as the rover heads south, making drives between several small craters and taking drive-by images of them.

These small craters - just a few meters or yards in diameter - are from fairly recent impacts, occurring in the last, maybe, 10,000 to 100,000 years.

Four drives were completed in the week, totaling more than 140 meters (459 feet). The drives were all blind drives. They used a mix of driving forward and driving backward.

The longer drives included slip checks. Importantly, wheel currents have returned to more normal levels for the right-front wheel's drive actuator after it was rested for several sols following concerns about it drawing higher-than-usual current during drives in February and March.

As of Sol 1858 (April 15, 2009), Opportunity's solar array energy production is 491 watt-hours. Atmospheric opacity (tau) remains around 0.921. The dust factor is 0.615, meaning that 61.5 percent of sunlight hitting the solar array penetrates the layer of accumulated dust on the array. Opportunity is in good health, with an odometry total of 15,205.65 meters (9.45 miles).

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MARSDAILY

Spirit Suffers Memory Gaps and Unexplained Resets

Pasadena CA (JPL) Apr 20, 2009
Spirit failed to wake up for three planned events. The rover eventually woke up from an expiring alarm clock timer 27 hours later. Then, an unexpected reset of the rover occurred on Sol 1874 (April 11, 2009). A second reset occurred on Sol 1875 (April 12, 2009).

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