Surely the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator is already in place?

I would not use paint shop
....
in vip's you can do it all from the terminal without the gui overhead
simple bash script would do .

The power must be really bad if they are thinking about parking already.

I would hazard a guess that the ones pointing slightly more "outward" are the ones used at the end (to minimize the blast effects on any surface dust).

and on NASA's own websites

I assumed that 'oDoug' had had a disagreement with the mods re: forum rules and decided UMSF wasn't for him anymore.

Really expected more from NASA; NASA_Watch; and other sites, but alas little real information has yet been released.

That is what I initially thought but decided that the surface looked "too glassy" to be deeply weathered. I imagine that the actual criteria for hardness of the rock would be Oppy's RAT engineering telemetry, such as the current draw or the grind time of the operation, and not amount of cuttings.

--Bill

Or dust. Depends on how you see it. They do gamely keep checking it.

Opportunity is healthy and all* subsystems are nominal as of the Sol 2267 UHF downlink. Energy is currently 296 Whr with Tau at 0.370 and a dust factor of 0.5820 as of Sol 2267.

*except the Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (MTES) which has experienced a failure. Investigations into the Mini-TES failure are ongoing.

[Mini-TES, the miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer experienced an anomaly on Sol 2257 which is currently being investigated.]

*with the exception of a known problem with Mini-TES as of the Sol 2308 downlink.

Last Sunday, the rover's Sol 2700, the team decided to have the rover conduct another set of diagnostics on the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) that began acting up last year and hasn't been working since. "We’re all about trying to exhaust even remotely likely possibilities," noted Nelson. Opportunity followed her commands to exercise the back-up laser and back-up optical switch.

Last year, after being turned on, the Mini-TES failed to conduct a transferring kind of "handshake" with the PMA. "It timed out, and then said it wasn't talking to the flight software, and it was also not properly commanding the motors that would have changed the PMA azimuth, and we got a PMA fault," Nelson recounted. The ensuing diagnostics indicated the PMA azimuth motor is fine, and the issue is likely between the Mini-TES and the motor control board.

This month, the Mini-TES exhibited more anomalous behavior. Specifically, it failed to draw power. A functioning Mini-TES should draw 200-250 milliamperes up to about ¼ amp, according to Nelson. "We're not seeing that current draw," he said.

That would seem to suggest that the Mini-TES is simply not turning on, or that something somewhere between the instrument and motor control board has failed. Although the instrument investigation is continuing, the Mini-TES remains, Nelson said, "effectively out of commission."