Southward from San Antonio to the Next Waypoint Options

[Bill Harris]

I think Oppy will turn East when she gets to a lane of bedrock about 250m South of San Antonio and this bedrock (The Yellow Brick Road??) looks persistent all the way to Santa Maria.

The distant views to Lazu, Miyamoto, et al seem a little more contrasty, so the air is clearing. The near horizon towards the Mule Ears seems a bit lower and I think that the near horizon towards Lazu will drop once we top that local rise.

Good road and nice scenery . Can life get much better?

--Bill

[Tman]

Another bit of a straight passage to the East on sol 2213: https://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...HUP1966R0M1.JPG

Between "Mule Ears" and "Rockaway" we've gained more and more space: https://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...PLP2412R1M6.JPG

[fredk]

That navcam image was taken on 2213, but before that sol's drive. So it shows the eastward jog from sol 2211. The 2213 drive was southwards:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2213

[Tman]

Aha, right: 1N324643261EFFAFHUP1966R0M1 / 2213 / 12:22:32

[BrianL]

Looking ahead on the projected route in GM, I interpret the terrain as follows:

300 m Ripple size noticeably reduced (start of mainly eastward travel)
1.4 km Patches of larger ripples return amidst large stretches of exposed bedrock
1.9 km Larger ripples end, increasing amount of exposed bedrock
3.8 km Transition to "tarmac"
5.6 km Big hole in the ground that will probably slow Oppy down for awhile

[Hungry4info]

More progress.

Not sure why but I like this image a lot.

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[SFJCody]

That was about as simple as they get: another sol, another ~70m SE toward Endeavour Crater.

[Tesheiner]

That will be sol 2218 i.e. tomorrow.

[Bill Harris]

And the wind has apparently increased. As I noted before, once we got past the wind shadow of the topographic rise at Concepcion, the ripple morphology changed with the suggestion of a wind velocity increase.

I have noticed an accumulation of dust in the low-gain antenna since the conjunction stopover at Santorini around Sol 1710. THsi dust collected as a ring around the top of the antenna and was persistent up to the arrival at Concepcion around Sol 2130. A recent Navcam view of the antenna on Sol 2211, after leaving San Antonio craters, shows that the antenna dust is no longer present.

I wonder if there have been recent cleaning events and what the watt-hour readings currently are?

--Bill

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[Poolio]

And what effect, if any, such an event may have had on the Mini-TES?

[fredk]

I wonder if there have been recent cleaning events and what the watt-hour readings currently are?

You're last image was sol 2211. Last week's Oppy update said:

As of Sol 2211 (April 13, 2010), the solar array energy production was 227 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.347 and a dust factor of 0.474.

That 227 level was continuing a slow drop. More importantly the dust factor also continues a slow drop, with some fluctuations from week to week. So it seems any changes on the low gain haven't been accompanied by big changes on the arrays.

[djellison]

From Scott

~250W-hr/sol as of last downlink.

[fredk]

We've been having generally a slow decline in power with small week to week fluctuations. That 250 Whr number doesn't tell us too much - maybe the tau dropped a bit from last week and dust factor stayed constant, or maybe tau and dust factor both increased a bit.

[NW71]

We've been having generally a slow decline in power with small week to week fluctuations.

Evening all

There appears to be relatively little concern on this forum and the jpl site re the power levels for Oppy. Is this due to experience gained and a solar panel clearing event is anticipated/expected or is it simply that these things are in the lap of the gods and hence not worth worrying ourselves with?

Neil

[Bill Harris]

Over the past six years we've observed The Cleaning Zephyrs breeze by frequently enough that we know that obscured solar panels are not an issue. I had noticed that a 500 Sol accumulation of dust on one of the antennas had disappeared and was wondering if a "cleaning event" had been noted also. This is sometimes related to the output of the solar panels, but can also be dependent upon atmospheric transparency and the annual insolation cycle.

I have seen some Pancam images of the miniTES calibration target recently, so maybe someone at JPL is hoping for improvement of that instrument. 'Twould be nice to have it back.

--Bill