* Astronomy

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RE: The Opportunity rover

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The yellow line on this map shows where NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity has driven from the place where it landed in January 2004 -- inside Eagle crater, at the upper left end of the track -- to a point approaching the rim of Endeavour crater. The map traces the route through the 2,670th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars (July 29, 2011).

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL

Endeavour crater has been the rover team's destination for Opportunity since the rover finished exploring Victoria crater in August 2008. Endeavour, with a diameter of about 22 kilometres, offers access to older geological deposits than any Opportunity has seen before.
In honour of Opportunity's rover twin, the team has chosen "Spirit Point" as the informal name for the site on Endeavour's rim targeted for Opportunity's arrival at Endeavour. Spirit Point is the southern edge of a ridge called "Cape York." Farther south on the rim, a ridge called "Cape Tribulation" offers exposures identified from orbit as clay minerals.

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Mars rover explores ancient crater Endeavour

Nasa has released footage of the Mars exploration rover, Opportunity, moving across the surface of Mars, filmed by one of its hazard cameras.
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NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity has reached its next destination, Endeavour crater. Three years after climbing out of Victoria crater, Opportunity has completed an eleven-mile trek to the rim of Endeavour crater at a spot informally named "Spirit Point" after the rover's decommissioned twin.
At 14 miles in diameter, Endeavour has ridges along its western rim that expose rock outcrops older than any Opportunity has seen so far.

Blobrana · L

NASA Mars Rover Arrives at New Site on Martian Surface

After a journey of almost three years, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet's Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before.
On Aug. 9, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater's rim. Opportunity drove approximately 21 kilometres since climbing out of the Victoria crater.
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NASA Mars Rover Approaches Long-Term Goal

The NASA Mars rover Opportunity has gained a view of Endeavour crater from barely more than a football-field's distance away from the rim. The rim of Endeavour has been the mission's long-term goal since mid-2008.
Endeavour offers the setting for plenty of productive work by Opportunity. The crater is 22 kilometres in diameter -- more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, an earlier stop that Opportunity examined for two years. Observations by orbiting spacecraft indicate that the ridges along Endeavour's western rim expose rock outcrops older than any Opportunity has seen so far. The selected location for arrival at the rim, "Spirit Point," is at the southern tip of one of those ridges, "Cape York," on the western side of Endeavour.
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NASA rover nears rim of Martian crater

Months after the death of the Mars rover Spirit, its surviving twin is poised to reach the rim of a vast crater to begin a fresh round of exploration.
Driving commands sent up to Opportunity directed the six-wheel rover to make the final push toward Endeavour crater, a 14-mile-wide depression near the Martian equator that likely could be its final destination.
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NASA's Opportunity Tops 20 Miles of Mars Driving

More than seven years into what was planned as a three-month mission on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has driven more than 20 miles, which is more than 50 times the mission's original distance goal.
A drive of 124 metres completed on July 17 took Opportunity past the 32.2 kilometres mark. It brought the rover to within a few drives of reaching the rim of Endeavour crater, the rover's team's long-term destination since mid-2008. Endeavour is about 22 kilometres in diameter, and its western rim exposes outcrops that record information older than any Opportunity has examined so far. The rover is now about 1.3 kilometres from the site chosen for arriving at the rim.
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Mars Exploration Rover B (Opportunity) was launch on the 7th July, 2003

MER-B Launch

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER), is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the sending of the two rovers - MER-A Spirit and MER-B Opportunity - to explore the Martian surface and geology.

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OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Opportunity Getting Closer to Endeavour Crater - sols 2629-2634, June 17-22, 2011:

Opportunity is making excellent progress towards Endeavour crater with only 2.3 kilometres to go before reaching the first landfall on the rim, a place called "Spirit Point."

The rover drove southeast on four sols, Sols 2629, 2630, 2633 and 2634 (June 17, 18, 21 and 22, 2011), totalling more than 380 metres.

With all this driving, which requires many seconds on the rover's inertial measurement unit (IMU), regular sun finds, called Quick Fine Attitudes (QFA) are performed to correct for expected drift in the rover's gyros. A QFA was performed on Sol 2633 (June 21, 2011). Over the three-sol weekend plan, an overnight Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement of atmospheric argon was performed on Sol 2631 (June 19, 2011). With the improve energy production from cleaner solar arrays, on Sol 2634 (June 22, 2011), an early morning wakeup for an AM ultra-high frequency (UHF) relay pass was implemented to return more data from the rover.

As of Sol 2634 (June 22, 2011), solar array energy production was 505 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.926 and a solar array dust factor of 640.

Total odometry is 31,203.25 metres (31.20 kilometres).

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OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Solar Panels Cleaned: 19-Mile Mark Reached! - sols 2622-2628, June 9-16, 2011:

Opportunity continues to make excellent progress towards Endeavour crater with under 3 kilometres to go before the first landfall on the rim.
On Sols 2622, 2626, 2627 and 2628 (June 9, 14, 15 and 16, 2011), the rover drove over 345 metres backwards using a combination of blind driving and autonomous navigation.
Opportunity has been driving towards the south/southeast, passing by interesting craters along the way. Currently, the rover is passing through a strewn field of crater impacts, suspected to be all from the same air fall event. On Sol 2625 (June 12, 2011), additional diagnostic tests were run on the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) instrument. The results are providing further insights into the instrument's anomalous behaviour. The rover has benefited from some recent dust cleaning events on Sols 2627 and 2628 (June 15 and 16, 2011).
As of Sol 2628 (June 16, 2011), solar array energy production increased to 528 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.782 and the solar array dust factor improved to 0.652.
Total odometry is 30,815.10 metres (30.82 kilometres).