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Opportunity Begins Imaging Of Cape Of Good Hope
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 30, 2007 Opportunity is healthy and making progress on the imaging campaign of "Cape St. Vincent." On Sol 1116, Opportunity experienced a fault due to a known but rare race condition in the flight software. This race condition fault has now occurred three times in 1,122 sols for Opportunity and three times in 1,143 sols for Spirit. Essentially, while the rover was booting up in the morning, two sequences were competing to complete first. The lower priority task was stopped by the higher priority task and when the former attempted to complete, it was locked out of the rover's memory. The software did as it is supposed to and threw up a red flag to programmers and awaited its next commands. On Sols 1117 and 1118 were spent recovering the rover from the fault. Opportunity spent sols 1119 and 1120 resting since these sols fell on an Earth weekend (the project no longer has the resources to bring in a weekend sequencing team). On Sol 1121, Opportunity drove to a position on the "Cape of Good Hope" to image the first half of a long baseline stereo image of Cape St. Vincent. On Sol 1123, Opportunity will bump 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) to image the second half of the Cape St. Vincent stereo image. The remainder of the sols were spent obtaining remote sensing science. Sol-by-sol summary: In addition to Opportunity's usual observations of panoramic camera tau measurements, navigation camera bitty cloud scans (looking to the sky for clouds), miniature thermal emission spectrometer sky and ground stares, and panoramic camera sky spots, the rover also did the following: Sol 1118 (March 17, 2007): On this sol, Opportunity recovered from the race condition fault. Sol 1119: Opportunity rested this sol (weekend in Pasadena). Sol 1120: Opportunity rested this sol (weekend in Pasadena). Sol 1121: On this sol, the rover drove to the first eye position of long baseline stereo image of Cape St. Vincent (9.97 meters or 33 feet) and began imaging. Sol 1122: The rover conducted remote sensing of atmosphere and soil properties on this sol. Sol 1123: Opportunity bumped to the second eye position of long baseline stereo image of Cape St. Vincent (about 2.5 meters or 8.2 feet) and began imaging. Sol 1124: On this sol the rover conducted a panoramic camera systematic soil and ground survey. The navigation camera was used in support of the miniature thermal emission spectrometer. The panoramic camera had a look at the horizon and the miniature thermal emission spectrometer assessed the foreground. Sol 1125: Opportunity used this sol to look at the sky and ground with its miniature thermal emission. That instrument was also used to monitor for dust. Current Odometry: As of sol 1121, Opportunity's total odometry is 10,295.50 meters (6.4 miles). Related LinksMars Rovers at JPL Mars Rovers at Cornell Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com Lunar Dreams and more
Spirit Loses And Then Re-Establishes Contact with Orbiter
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 21, 2007Spirit is healthy but had to sit out a Martian day waiting to send data to Earth while the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was in safe mode. Both the rover and the orbiter share the same X-band frequency with Earth and must coordinate communications. Ultimately, Spirit sent data to Earth while the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was on the other side of Mars, out of reach of Earth. |
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