Daily Updates - February 22, 2004
Opportunity Status at end of sol 28

On sol 28, which ended at 1:38 a.m. Sunday, PST, Opportunity moved its arm repeatedly to make close-up inspections the "El Capitan" part of the street-curb-sized outcrop in the crater where the rover is working. Opportunity took 46 pictures with its microscope, examining several locations on "El Capitan" at a range of focal distances. It also placed its Moessbauer spectrometer and its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer on the rock target to assess what minerals and what elements are present.

Controllers chose the song "I am a Rock," performed by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, as Opportunity's sol 28 wake-up music. The sol's activities included observations by the miniature thermal emission spectrometer and the panoramic camera, as well as the use of the tools on the arm.

The arm's complex maneuvers totaled 25 minutes of actual arm movement. Rover planners' success in accomplishing them drew a round of applause in the Mission Support Area at JPL during the afternoon downlink from Mars.

During the martian night, early on sol 29, Opportunity woke up and moved its arm again to switch from the Moessbauer spectrometer to the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. Additional close-up inspections are planned for later in sol 29, which ends at 2:17 a.m. Monday. Plans for sol 30 feature the use of the rock abrasion tool to grind through the surface at one target on "El Capitan."

Opportunity Daily Update Archive