Z końcem listopada minęły ju z 173 dni jak Opportunity zamilkł, a tymczasem Planetary Society przygotowało nam ciekawy artykuł o tym co robią i co planują ludzie z zespołu misji Opportunity!
The end of November marked 173 days since the MER team has heard from its rover. The last downlink received from Opportunity arrived June 10, 2018, and the minimal amount of data the rover returned revealed the planet encircling dust event (PEDE) was blotting out the Sun in a way the mission had never before experienced, reducing the solar-powered rover’s energy to the lowest ever recorded on the mission and forcing the ‘bot to shut down and enter into a kind of hibernation mode. Obecnie temperatury w kraterze Endeavor nie grożą nieodwracalnym zamarznięciem łazika (o ile on jeszcze żyje przyp. Ekoplaneta
)
Meanwhile, the sky over Endeavour cleared a bit more; the MER thermal team ran some new simulations that showed the Martian temperature at Opportunity’s site is not so cold that the rover is in imminent danger of having to turn on her heaters; and the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) took another image of Opportunity in Perseverance Valley that doesn’t appear to show any significant change at the site, which in turn would seem to indicate that the windy season has not really kicked up yet at Endeavour, or at least in Perseverance Valley where Opportunity is hunkered down. Nadzieja członków Opportunity Team jest niezłomna:
The ops team continued planning as they have since Opportunity checked into hibernation. “We’re still building the plans so all the tools still flow and the team stays in the routine of operations,” noted Herman. Once Opportunity does phone home, if she does, the ops team assumes they will have to address a number of faults, including a mission clock fault, a low-power fault, and an up-loss timer fault, and they are well prepared for that. Przygotowano nawet propozycje badań naukowych dla 12 misji rozszerzonej:
"Przeprowadziliśmy kilka dyskusji naukowych, aby pomóc w opracowaniu 12. propozycji rozszerzonej misji i utrzymać morale na wysokim poziomie", powiedział Arvidson. Łazik i jego koledzy z pracy oczywiście kontynuowaliby odkrywanie Doliny Perseverance, a następnie udaliby się do krateru Endeavour, jak wcześniej informowano w The MER Update. With extended mission proposals due Feb. 14, 2019, the science team began meeting in November to determine what they would like Opportunity to do next year, provided the rover is recovered. After finishing work in Perseverance Valley, one desire, according to MER Deputy P.I. Ray Arvidson, is to go inside Endeavour Crater and check out what appears to be a wind-excavated sulfate-rich moat and mound. The moat, which is -1900 meters in elevation, is visible in this image (blue) created by MER Deputy Project Scientist Abby Fraeman as a kind of horseshoe hugging the eastern and western sides of the crater. A subtle mound, Arvidson hypothesized, formed as a result in the center of the crater, “pushed up a little bit against the northern side.”
The moat that Arvidson is talking about is what he describes as “a gentle valley that is a couple of kilometers wide hugging up against the eastern and western sides of the crater, beginning in the south and then kind of bifurcating around the mound.”
If you look down at the interior or the crater, imagine a horseshoe. Place the imaginary horseshoe with the rounded end on the southern side, and the would-be imprint of the horseshoe is where this bifurcating valley or moat is located.
“So you have this general valley extending down from Perseverance Valley into what we think are the sulfates, and then it continues east and goes up gradually to this subtle mound in the center of the crater that is pushed up a little bit against the northern side,” said Arvidson.“As you go downhill and uphill, you go through different strata of what appear to be sulfates from CRISM.”Powyżej Jeśli łazik się obudzi i będzie zdolny do jazdy to po ukończeniu badań Perseverance Valley zjedzie na dno krateru badać siarczany (niebieska ,,podkowa" od południowej strony krateru. Moje pytanie chodzi o obszar kolorze jasno czy ciemnoniebieskim?)
http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/space-missions/mer-updates/2018/11-mer-update-windy-season-begins.html