NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Update: August 22-27, 2013

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

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Examining Rocks Around Boulder Field – sols 3405-3410, Aug. 22, 2013-Aug. 27, 2013:

Opportunity is at the base of ‘Solander Point’ on the rim of Endeavour Crater. The rover is navigating around a large boulder field examining the geologic contacts in this area.

On Sol 3405 (Aug. 22, 2013), Opportunity backed away from the target ‘Platypus’ to image it with the color Panoramic Cameras, then moved about 13 feet (4 meters) navigating around the boulder field for surface targets to investigate. Navigation Camera images of the rover tracks were also collected.

On Sol 3407 (Aug. 24, 2013), Opportunity moved 35 feet (10.7) meters further within the boulder field, skirting some large rocks. On the following sol, the rover collected a measurement of atmospheric argon using the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer.

On Sol 3410 (Aug. 27, 2013), Opportunity drove about 118 feet (36 meters) approaching an exciting geologic contact.

As of Sol 3410 (Aug. 27, 2013), the solar array energy production was 373 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.646 and a solar array dust factor of 0.525.

Total odometry is 23.77 miles (38.26 kilometers).