Emily Lakdawalla • Aug 08, 2007
A little good news on the rovers
The skies aren't quite as dark as they have been, for both Spirit and Opportunity. In fact, Spirit has enough power now to be doing a little work with its robotic arm. This news is from a press release issued last night. On Spirit's sol 1276, energy production was up to 295 watt hours. On Opportunity's sol 1255, energy production was up to 243 watt hours. For Opportunity, the power improvement was particularly welcome, because of concerns last week about the rover's falling core body temperature. The good news is that the temperature has increased from -37°C to -33.4°C; it seems there's now enough power for Opportunity to avoid tripping either its survival heaters or a low-power fault.
Here are Mark Lemmon's latest figures on atmospheric opacity, graphed by Doug Ellison:
Let’s Go Beyond The Horizon
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