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

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Continuing Southward - sol 438-442, April 26, 2005

"Opportunity keeps driving southward and studying new locations despite a
disabled right-front steering motor. Opportunity has driven about 110
meters (361 feet) without use of that motor. The miniature thermal
emission spectrometer began returning good data again. That instrument
was in use when the rover stopped operating for a software reset on sol
440. The rover continues making scientific observations while engineers
diagnose the cause of the reset."

Bruce:

That post deserved a reply, if for no other reason than the humorous subject line.

Seriously though, that bit of news slipped past me, unnoticed in the original status update. I hope it wasn't just a transient thing, and that the mini-TES continues to provide useful information.

So no one knows why it is now returning good data again?

I hope that it takes a full color pan if it remains stuck for a while, even if it is sent back at reduced resolution. I had always thought it would be need to have a 360 degree pan just out on the plains, but ordinarily it would be a waste of bandwith....if they can't move though, that wouldn't matter.

Well - I'd quite like, say, an 8 x 5 mosaic looking back toward Endurance (the middle of the Lion King pan was 5 frames high iirc - and the Larrys lookout pan is 4 frames high in places ) - that would be very very nice. Do it at 456, you've got an afternoons image taking to do

Make the L4's LOCO compression ( 6.24 bits per pixel ) thats 261Mbits
And the L5's and L6's as ICER compression ( 1.13 bits per pixel ) thats 94 Mbits - 355 Mbits to do a fantastic 40Mpixel high quality mosaic of Meridiani at its best - hell, do the lot at ICER, and it's only 150 Mbits

STEVE - JIM... DO IT - Chuck the RAD's up and I'll do the rest

I mean - it's obvious Oppy's got stuck because she's jealous of Spirit's Larrys pan being released



Doug