Opportunity takes extensive imagery to decide where to go next

Opportunity is continuing her winter exploration of "Perseverance Valley" on the west rim of Endeavour Crater.

The rover is positioned upstream of a fork in the flow channels. The team is collecting imagery to decide which fork, the north fork or the south fork, to explore next. To support that decision, extensive imagery is being collected on almost every sol.

On Sol 4941 (Dec. 17, 2017), the robotic arm was used to collect a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of a surface target within the work volume of the arm. The Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) was then placed on that target.

With the upcoming holidays, the rover will remain in place for a while. This will allow multiple sols of APXS integration on this target. Late on Sol 4942 (Dec. 18, 2017), Opportunity collected a twilight panorama using the Panoramic Camera (Pancam) color stereo imager.

As of Sol 4942 (Dec. 18, 2017), the solar array energy production was 390 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.459 and a solar array dust factor of 0.622.

Total odometry is 28.01 miles (45.08 kilometers).

Opportunity Comes to a Fork in the Road
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 17, 2017
Opportunity is continuing her winter exploration of Perseverance Valley on the west rim of Endeavour Crater. The rover continued with several days of collecting color, stereo, Panoramic Camera (Pancam) panoramas of the surrounding terrain. Then, on Sol 4934 (Dec. 10, 2017), after a sol of recharging, Opportunity drove about 28 feet (8.4 meters), approximately east, down the valley to ... read more

Related Links
Opportunity Archive
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

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