Opportunity Dusts Off And Gets Back To Work

Having weathered a recent dust storm, Opportunity is back to business. Energy levels are on the rise as the rover prepares for its next investigative campaign.

Sol-by-sol summaries

Sol 631 (Nov. 2, 2005): With images of the rover's current location in hand, rover planners were able to plan a drive of just over 39 meters (128 feet), which brought Opportunity to the edge of a large stretch of outcrop.

Sol 632: Opportunity drove about 5 meters (16 feet) to a target called "Olympia."

Sols 633 and 634 (Nov. 4 and 5, 2005): The two-sol plan is to kick off the robotic arm campaign at Olympia. The plan includes grinding a target called "Kalavrita" with the rock abrasion tool, inspecting the target with the microscopic imager both before and after the grind, and using the panoramic camera to take images for a mosaic. Output from the solar panels on sol 633 was 528 watt hours.

Opportunity's total odometry, as of sol 633, is 6418.07 meters (3.99 miles).

Copyright 2005 by Space Daily, Distributed United Press International