NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Update: April 27 – May 1, 2013

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Rover Back in Action – sols 3291-3295, Apr. 27, 2013-May. 01, 2013:

Opportunity has safely emerged from solar conjunction. However, in the past week the flight team learned that the rover did experience a flash memory anomaly during conjunction on Sol 3286 (April 21, 2013), that put the rover into automode, a standby mode where no onboard sequences are running.

The flight team attempted to recover the rover from automode on Sol 3294 (April 30, 2013), but was unsuccessful due to an operational error. This error is being investigated by the project. On the subsequent sol, Opportunity was successfully restored to normal operations. The rover is in good health with nominal science planning proceeding.

As of Sol 3294 (April 30, 2013), the solar array energy production was 506 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.672 and a solar array dust factor of 0.573.

Total odometry is unchanged at 22.15 miles (35.65 kilometers).