Opportunity drove only once this past week, nearing the 24-kilometer (15-mile) odometry mark.
On Sol 2382 (Oct. 6, 2010), the rover covered over 94 meters (308 feet) on her trek to Endeavour crater. With the use of autonomous navigation, the rover collects many more data products which fill the available flash memory.
So occasionally, time has to be taken to work off this data backlog, limiting driving and other activities in the interim.
The process was delayed due to a temporary Deep Space Network antenna outage this week that prevented the uplink of a data management sequence to re-prioritize, retransmit and delete certain data products.
Driving is expected to resume as soon as the data management sequences can be executed onboard the rover. As of Sol 2388 (Oct. 12, 2010), solar array energy production was 607 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.518 and a solar array dust factor of 0.691.
Total odometry is 23,991.43 meters (23.99 kilometers, or 14.91 miles).
Spirit Remains Silent at Troy
Spirit remains silent at her location on the west side of Home Plate. No communication has been received from the rover since Sol 2210 (March 22, 2010).
The project is listening for Spirit with the Deep Space Network and Mars Odyssey orbiter for autonomous recovery communication from the low-power fault case, and conducting a "Sweep and Beep" strategy to stimulate the rover in the case of a mission clock fault.
Improving solar insolation levels should provide an environment for the rover batteries to recharge, with increasing likelihood of hearing from Spirit in the period ahead.
Total odometry is unchanged at 7,730.50 meters (4.80 miles).
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