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Opportunity Continues Its Journey South Along Crater Rim![]() File image. |
Opportunity is located on the rim of Endeavour Crater, heading south along the rim.
The near-term plan is to reach a valley called 'Willamette' where grooves are seen in orbital imagery. The rover had recently disturbed the surface soil during a challenging uphill drive and revealed some interesting bright material.
The science team saw this as an opportunity to conduct some long overdue in-situ (contact) analysis.
So, on Sol 4603 (Jan. 4, 2017), Opportunity began using the robotic arm to investigate the exposed material, first with the Microscopic Imager (MI) to collect a mosaic of the surface and then placing the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on the ground for a multi-hour integration.
On Sol 4605 (Jan. 6, 2017), an offset surface target was selected, again for a MI mosaic and offset APXS placement. During these sols, remote sensing imagery with the Panoramic Camera (Pancam) and Navigation Camera (Navcam) cameras was also collected.
On Sol 4607 (Jan. 8, 2017), it became time to get on the road again. Opportunity drove about 41 feet (12.6 meter) to the northeast to get around some troubling terrain.
Then on Sol 4609 (Jan. 10, 2017), the rover headed roughly west in a two-segment drive, totaling over 82 feet (25 meters).
As of Sol 4609 (Jan. 10, 2017), the solar array energy production was 463 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.724 and a solar array dust factor of 0.671.
Total odometry is 27.20 miles (43.77 kilometers).
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