NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Update: May 23-27, 2014

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE:  Rover Corrects its Spacecraft Clock – sols 3672-3676, May 23, 2014-May 27, 2014:

Opportunity is exploring south on the west rim of Endeavour Crater.

The rover is conducting an in-situ (contact) science campaign in the northern part of the region of aluminum/hydroxyl clay minerals seen from orbit.

Opportunity has been correcting her spacecraft clock by a few seconds each day (sol) to gradually offset the accumulated drift since the beginning of the mission.

On Sol 3673 (May 24, 2014), the rover continued a multi-sol Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) integration of the surface target, called ‘Sarcobatus Flat.’ On Sol 3674 (May 25, 2014), Opportunity repositioned the robotic arm to collect a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of a clast, followed by the placement of the APXS on the clast.

A flash ‘amnesia’ event occurred on the night of Sol 3674 (May 25, 2014). All APXS data were recovered. On Sol 3676 (May 27, 2014), the rover once again repositioned the robotic arm to get the entire field of view (FOV) of the APXS on the clast target.

As of Sol 3676, the solar array energy production was 764 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.613 and a solar array dust factor of 0.942.

Total odometry is 24.49 miles (39.41 kilometers).