NASA Mars Rover Opportunity: Good Health Report After Hiatus (Photos)

Opportunity Status for sol 2500-2511: Opportunity emerged from the solar conjunction in good order. Solar conjunction is the period when communications between Earth and Mars are disrupted because the Sun is directly in between the two planets.

Opportunity Status for sol 2500-2511: Opportunity emerged from the solar conjunction in good order. Solar conjunction is the period when communications between Earth and Mars are disrupted because the Sun is directly in between the two planets.

Telemetry has been returned from the two-week solar conjunction period. With the known exception of the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES), all systems are healthy. Extensive moessbauer (MB) integration spectra were successfully collected from the surface target Luis de Torres.

The rover has resumed normal tactical operations. The plan ahead is to perform a rock abrasion tool (RAT) grind on the surface target Luis de Torres for follow-on microscopic imager (MI) mosaics and alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) measurements.

Completing that, Opportunity will resume the trek towards Endeavour crater. As of Sol 2511 (Feb. 15, 2011), solar array energy production was 505 watt-hours with an elevated atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.949 and a solar array dust factor of 0.597.

Total odometry is 26,658.64 meters (26.66 kilometers, or 16.56 miles).