[meteorite-list] Mars Exploration Rover Update - March 27, 2007

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:47:05 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200703291547.l2TFl5527598_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html#opportunity

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Opportunity Begins Imaging of 'Cape of Good Hope' -
sol 1118-1125, March 27, 2007:

Opportunity is healthy and making progress on the imaging campaign of
"Cape St. Vincent."

On Sol 1116, Opportunity experienced a fault due to a known but rare
race condition in the flight software. This race condition fault has now
occurred three times in 1,122 sols for Opportunity and three times in
1,143 sols for Spirit. Essentially, while the rover was booting up in
the morning, two sequences were competing to complete first. The lower
priority task was stopped by the higher priority task and when the
former attempted to complete, it was locked out of the rover's memory.
The software did as it is supposed to and threw up a red flag to
programmers and awaited its next commands.

On Sols 1117 and 1118 were spent recovering the rover from the fault.
Opportunity spent sols 1119 and 1120 resting since these sols fell on an
Earth weekend (the project no longer has the resources to bring in a
weekend sequencing team).

On Sol 1121, Opportunity drove to a position on the "Cape of Good Hope"
to image the first half of a long baseline stereo image of Cape St.
Vincent. On Sol 1123, Opportunity will bump 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) to
image the second half of the Cape St. Vincent stereo image.

The remainder of the sols were spent obtaining remote sensing science.

Sol-by-sol summary:

In addition to Opportunity's usual observations of panoramic camera tau
measurements, navigation camera bitty cloud scans (looking to the sky
for clouds), miniature thermal emission spectrometer sky and ground
stares, and panoramic camera sky spots, the rover also did the following:

Sol 1118 (March 17, 2007): On this sol, Opportunity recovered from the
race condition fault.

Sol 1119: Opportunity rested this sol (weekend in Pasadena).

Sol 1120: Opportunity rested this sol (weekend in Pasadena).

Sol 1121: On this sol, the rover drove to the first eye position of long
baseline stereo image of Cape St. Vincent (9.97 meters or 33 feet) and
began imaging.

Sol 1122: The rover conducted remote sensing of atmosphere and soil
properties on this sol.

Sol 1123: Opportunity bumped to the second eye position of long baseline
stereo image of Cape St. Vincent (about 2.5 meters or 8.2 feet) and
began imaging.

Sol 1124: On this sol the rover conducted a panoramic camera systematic
soil and ground survey. The navigation camera was used in support of the
miniature thermal emission spectrometer. The panoramic camera had a look
at the horizon and the miniature thermal emission spectrometer assessed
the foreground.

Sol 1125: Opportunity used this sol to look at the sky and ground with
its miniature thermal emission. That instrument was also used to monitor
for dust.

Current Odometry:

As of sol 1121, Opportunity's total odometry is 10,295.50 meters (6.4
miles).
Received on Thu 29 Mar 2007 11:47:05 AM PDT