NASA Mars Exploration Rover Update: May 28 – June 4, 2014

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Opportunity Recovering From Flash Memory Problems – sols 3677-3683, May 28, 2014-June 04, 2014:

Opportunity is exploring the west rim of Endeavour Crater. However, the rover experienced a set of reset events triggered by an error writing to flash memory.

On Sol 3677 (May 28, 2014), Opportunity had a nominal drive of just over 62 feet (19 meters). On the next sol, the rover moved 57 feet (17.4 meters) further, generally to the south, southeast. On Sol 3679 (May 30, 2014), Opportunity performed an in-situ (contact) science campaign as the first sol of a ‘touch and go.’ A touch and go is where the rover uses the robotic arm on the first sol of a multi-sol plan (the touch) and then drives on the next sol (the go). However, Opportunity experienced a warm reset on the second sol, Sol 3680 (May 31, 2014). The touch was successful, collecting a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of the surface target, followed by an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement overnight, but the drive on the next sol never occurred because of the reset.

These warm resets have occurred in the past when an error occurs while writing to a specific area of flash (non-volatile) memory. The rover was restored to normal sequence operation on Sol 3682 (June 2, 2014), after the Sol 3680 reset. Another warm reset occurred on Sol 3683 (June 4, 2014), but the rover was restored to nominal operations the following sol.

As of Sol 3682, the solar array energy production was 733 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.682 and a solar array dust factor of 0.908.

Total odometry is 24.51 miles (39.44 kilometers).