Travelling to the channels, Extraordinarily unlikely Options

[SFJCody]

Opportunity is entering a multi-year science campaign at the rim of Endeavour crater, a campaign primarily driven by the interest in clays.


Eventually this investigation will conclude. So where next? Far, far to the south lies a location identified as a go-to target for one of the MSL candidate landing sites- a series of outflow channels. With no possibility of further Mossbauer integrations and the mini-TES severely degraded, wouldn't these features be good targets for an imaging/APXS only geology investigation?





Iazu by the middle of the decade, unnamed crater south of Iazu by the end of the decade, channels by middle of the next decade...

[tanjent]

PaulM, those words make good sense to me. Field discoveries usually lead to a series of new questions before the answers begin to emerge - we don't know how long a process we are embarked upon at the present site given the already-degraded condition of the instruments. Only if this location proves to be a lot less interesting than we have every reason to expect it to be would we want to consider consuming any more of the rover's uncertain life expectancy in long-distance travel. Bring up the channels issue again in two years; if we still have any mobility, maybe I'll be able to muster some enthusiasm.

[PaulM]

I am wondering if Oppy will be cleaned by the wind before the next Winter. I read that winds have been observed in the last decade moving sand dunes on the floor of Endeavour crater between Cape Tribulation and the central peak.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2010JE003675.shtml

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/mult...y/pia13708.html

I therefore wonder if Oppy should head for these dunes in a year's time if no cleaning occurs. Perhaps when Oppy has driven down the side of Cape Tribulation, sampling the clays all the way, it should carry on to the active dunes. I guess that this plan might not be "following the water". However, a live rover photographing active sand dunes is probably better than a dead rover sampling clays.

[fredk]

I hadn't seen that paper before - I see that it includes an "inverse polar" view of Endeavour from James! Congratulations on getting your technique recognized!