NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Update: September 12-17, 2013

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

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Robotic Arm Goes to Work on Rock Target – sols 3426-3431, Sep. 12, 2013-Sep. 17, 2013:

Opportunity is at the northern edge of ‘Solander Point’ on the rim of Endeavour Crater. The rover is investigating the geologic contact at the base of Solander Point.

On Sol 3426 (Sept. 12, 2013), Opportunity drove 28 feet (8.62 meters) to reach a surface target. On the next sol, the rover deployed the robotic arm to investigate the surface target named, ‘Poverty Bush.’ First, the rover imaged the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) bit to assess the remaining grind life. Then, the rover collected some calibration sky flat images with the Microscopic Imager (MI). After that, a Microscopic Imager mosaic was collected of Poverty Bush, followed by the placement of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) for a multi-sol integration.

On Sol 3430 (Sept. 16, 2013), Opportunity drove away heading about 39 feet (12 meters) to the west/northwest. On the next sol, the rover continued driving another 74 feet (22.5 meters) to reach another candidate outcrop for in-situ (contact) science investigation.

As of Sol 3431 (Sept. 17, 2013), the solar array energy production was 346 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.619 and a solar array dust factor of 0.520.

Total odometry is 23.82 miles (38.34 kilometers).