Well, the fight with the sand trap hasn't finished.
Here you have animated GIFs from the forward and rear hazcams and we can see that the rear-right wheel (left on the image) started to move up again. Slip factor on the two steps of the last drive (sol 1550) was 63% and then 91%.
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Oppy, the message is clear. Victoria no longer wants you. She's clearly tired of you constantly staring at her cliffs and has said, nope, these are not for you. Sadly, it's time to move on. There are plenty of craters out there who I'm sure will be more receptive to your advances.

Brian

I'm with you. Let's get out of here before Oppy gets stuck for good.

One small quagmire does not render all of duck-bay unnavigable. Saying that Cape Verde is an impossible target is unjustified and probably quite wrong. Neither of you were in UMSF during the thrash to Burns Cliff. It took a long time, it meant getting stuck quite a lot - but it was worth it - it was worth every single sol it took to get there ( and it took a lot )

Doug

I agree with Doug, Cape Verde is too good to miss now. If anything, the fact that the arm is out front has made it a more justified target now. In this position the arm can reach higher walls, if that is deemed possible. Also the drive to Cape Verde is the shortest distance to a real target, a lot of driving might damage the arm motors or joints if they start searching for science targets.

Plus, SS said they're going there

Remember that the sun has been sinking lower in the north while we've been stationary here, so presumably it's gotten harder to approach close to Verde. Of course there's good reason to just get closer and image with pancam.

I've also been wondering about the trap that caught them here. It was not apparent before driving into it. How can they deal with this? Perhaps by following the outcrop north before dropping east closer to the cliff. They could certainly drive to Verde without trouble - the problem will be driving back up!

If these drivers are go for approach, so am I.

Another drive attempt on sol 1552 - not much progress made; we seem to be mostly just rotating about our left side:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...BAP1314R0M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...BAP1214R0M1.JPG

Strange, the front wheels don't appear to be embedded in the soil. Perhaps the middle wheels are now stuck in something.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...B6P1242L0M1.JPG

Lots of subframe images from the hazcams.....

I don't like seeing subframes from the hazcams, they always make me nervous.

Oppy is free, I hope.
forward hazcam
rear hazcam

Now that is an unusual...thingy. (pointed out by 'Mann' on the yellow forum).

From the shadow it appears tubular with apparent structural rings? No bounce marks so not a rover part (thank goodness). Optical illusion? Any ideas? If nothing springs immediately to mind then a detour to have a quick look would be an attractive possibility. Hope Hoaxland doesn't notice it.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...AHP2261L7M1.JPG

Doesn't look like an optical illusion. Seams to be sitting there instead of burried.
Can someone pointed out its location?

Almost, I would say. Last drive was executed in five steps and slippage was detected in all of them. But while the slip factor was in the 90% range on previous extraction attempts, yestersol it was: 79%, 84%, 76%, 64%, and 47%.
I wasn't doing these calculations before she got stuck here so I don't know if that 50% slip factor can be considered as "nominal" or not. But in any case it shows the trend observed on Purgatory (and similar).



MMB would be perfect, but I don't have it on this computer.

Hortonheardawho did a great job locating it in context.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hortonheardawho/2567159743/

He also did a 3-D that really makes it an interesting item

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hortonheardaw...in/photostream/

Ok. Here's a post of mine with a 360º navcam mosaic taken from almost the same position: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=113712
The "little thing" can be seen on the soil on the general direction of Cabo Frio.

And here's the original image: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...ABP1928L0M1.JPG.
It's near the bottom right corner.

Distance to Oppy ?

About 4 meters (based on the route map).

Here's another navcam picture (sol 1418) looking to the same area but from the opposite side but I can't distinguish "it" on the picture. A pancam would be nice however I can't find any.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...84P1785L0M3.JPG

It's odd that nothing is visible in the navcam from sol 1418. The pebbles close-by can you pinpoint.
If it is a part from the rover, it may be such lightweight that it left no visible track.

'Obviously' a screw cap of some sort. Only one question: is it from the sun cream or the midge repellant?

I measure 3.7 metres distance. That means it's about 1.5 cm in diameter.

It appears to be a rover part. As Tesheiner pointed out, it's not visible on sol 1418. Here are two navcam shots from slightly closer, on sols 1450 and 1462. In both it's quite clear that there's nothing at that position. But on sol 1486 there is something there. According to Tesheiner's map, we drove just upslope of that position on sol 1484, which is consistent with when it appears in the imagery.
Click to view attachment

What's the little "thing" at 8 hours visible on sol 1450 and 1462 and no longer visible on 1486 ?
Is the "thing" moving ?

Looks like a spring or a portion of a spring. Color would clinch it, but the coil direction seems to be clockwise with elevation, and the end of the wire seems to be at about 7 or 8 o-clock.

I agree it looks like a spring. Here's a slightly improved image, the average of the two R1 frames we have, and enlarged 100%:
Click to view attachment
Any ideas what part of the rover this could come from?

Hmm, maybe it's a part of wire covering that has dropped off. Some wires were cut by explosive cutters after the landing. It looks like it might be a part of a wire maybe from the back of the rover, for example visible in the rear hazcam:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...BKP1314R0M1.JPG

You have to admire Hortonheardawho's eye for detail although a control comparison (another rock or berry in the frame) supporting Horton's comment that the brightness is comparable to the surrounds would indicate if the close match is significant. But the object at 11 o'clock does seem to fit the coil diameter. If there is a connection between these two then the wire proposal seems less likely.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hortonheardawho/2571699228/

Say, what is the penalty for littering on Mars?

I would really like to see a pancam taken during this timeframe looking on that same area, if there is any.

Back to the sand trap topic, I was pleased to see that the planned sequences for sol 1559 contains a "normal pattern" of drive imaging ("penultimate" and "ultimate" hazcam pics). Opportunity is ready to leave this area.

Driving in the "object" direction?
Wondering if they're aware of it

Me too. I couldn't find any pancam imagery from closeby. The imagery from the top of Verde is too far away to show the object if it was there. Frustratingly, we were very close to the spot on sol 1484 and this navcam shot just misses it - the object is just below the bottom of the frame. I'm skeptical of Horton's second object - there are other similar cobbles around. I can't imagine that they haven't noticed it, climber - it's so obvious in the pancam imagery.

As far as the new drive, we have from this update:

I tried using the search options at the pancam site (something like "all pancams from sol X to Y and azimuth between A and B") and no luck.
Actually I got a "drive direction" image from that same sol 1484, but it has a pointing similar to the navcam you linked. It misses the area by a few degrees.

Let's see if they survey this area again on the way back from Cape Verde some months in the future...

> The staging area is about 15 meters (49 feet) away

If I did my math correctly, that's almost at the wall!

If they are talking about driving directly toward the wall, not angling up or down.

Brian

I think after The Quackmire and arm trouble, now would be a good time to start a new thread for the real approach:

To the Cape! (part 2)

A 3D view of the glorious mess we made, pulling out of the Quackmire on sol 1559:
Click to view attachment