NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Update

Opportunity Status for sol 2622-2628 : Opportunity continues to make excellent progress towards Endeavour crater with under 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) to go before the first landfall on the rim. On Sols 2622, 2626, 2627 and 2628 (June 9, 14, 15 and 16, 2011), the rover drove over 345 meters (1,132 feet) backwards using a combination of blind driving and autonomous navigation.

Opportunity has been driving towards the south/southeast, passing by interesting craters along the way. Currently, the rover is passing through a strewn field of crater impacts, suspected to be all from the same air fall event. On Sol 2625 (June 12, 2011), additional diagnostic tests were run on the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) instrument. The results are providing further insights into the instrument’s anomalous behavior. The rover has benefitted from some recent dust cleaning events on Sols 2627 and 2628 (June 15 and 16, 2011).

As of Sol 2628 (June 16, 2011), solar array energy production increased to 528 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.782 and the solar array dust factor improved to 0.652.
Total odometry is 30,815.10 meters (30.82 kilometers, or 19.15 miles).