Cape York - The "Lakelands", Starting sol 2703 Options

[Greg Hullender]

Is there a nice summary somewhere of what instruments are still working and what sort of science Opportunity is still able to do? Obviously the pictures alone are still spectacular, but I'm wondering what else is still working.

--Greg

[djellison]

Pancam - Fine, and less dusty than it has been
MiniTES - Bust

IDD - Azimuth joint bust - can position instrument along a vertical plane, not full 3D space.
APXS - Fine
MI - Fine
RAT - Fine ( but obviously, teeth are consumed to near death )
Mossbauer - VERY VERY tired. We're > 10 half-lives into it - so integrations that would have taken 6 hrs could technically take > 6 months. A good integration now would involved several weeks.

[elakdawalla]

I can't help but think that if I were the MER team I'd aim for a likely looking rock in early November, do some documentation, put out the Moessbauer, and take a nice long Thanksgiving & Christmas holiday while it integrates!

[fredk]

From Lenda's blog:

Squyres put down a lien to get a super-resolution panorama of the entirety of Endeavour Crater, and it has taken the better part of a week to get it all done.

Super res?

[CosmicRocker]

That rock was incredibly soft. I wasn't expecting that. In retrospect, perhaps I should have expected it. The outcrop is worn down just as flat as the surrounding Meridiani sandstones, so why wouldn't we expect it to be soft?

[stevesliva]

MiniTES - Bust

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

[marsophile]

That rock was incredibly soft.

Does that mean it is not basaltic?

[djellison]

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

Check the documentation for the MER Analysts Notebook.

For example - Sol 2261-2267 MER B Downlink Report

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.

or
Sol 2281-2287 MER B Downlink Report

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

later, you will just find

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

Or from the excellent : http://www.planetary.org/news/2011/0901_Ma...ver_Update.html

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.

Or going back further in time
http://www.planetary.org/news/2011/0430_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

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."

It is, as I said.... bust.

[serpens]

..... The outcrop is worn down just as flat as the surrounding Meridiani sandstones, so why wouldn't we expect it to be soft?

Indeed. Remember Clovis rock - a Spirit RAT in 2004 - image below? Looks a bit softer than Opportunity's last grind. But this is a breccia, probably suevite and the weathering susceptibilities of the constituent elements are different to the Moh's scale resistance to abrasion.

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/press/sp...o-A223R1_br.jpg

[jvandriel]

Mi cam Sol 2719.

Jan van Driel

[vikingmars]

...and take a nice long Thanksgiving & Christmas holiday while it integrates!

Yes : great idea Emily and and at a place where the global view of Endeavour is terrific and where a 360° pan can be taken (i.e. somewhere near the top of Cape York), and -even better if possible- with low sun and nice long shadows to enhance the features

[Bill Harris]

That rock was incredibly soft. I wasn't expecting that. In retrospect, perhaps I should have expected it.

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

[fredk]

"Poor man's" superres from the 2720 Tribulation/Solander 16 L6 frames:

As usual, this isn't a true superres - all I've done is resample to double res, then register and average, to (dramatically) reduce jpeg noise.

[Matt Lenda]

I can't help but think that if I were the MER team I'd aim for a likely looking rock in early November, do some documentation, put out the Moessbauer, and take a nice long Thanksgiving & Christmas holiday while it integrates!

I'd agree with Scott Maxwell's opinion on such a thing...

"*Yawn*."



-m

EDIT:

Mi cam Sol 2719.

Jan van Driel

Haha, I love the multiple shadows in there. Very clean merge!

[MarkG]

Mi cam Sol 2719.

Jan van Driel

Is there enough control in the arm and enough brush left to sweep out the grind debris? I remember that the brush bristles were a bit "cattywumpus".