85ish metres tosol, 75ish metres the sol before yestersol, 50 metres two sols before that.
Given power and scheduling, they're driving just about alternate days, and getting good 50+m drives
We're about 6 driving days from Victoria, which will be about 2 weeks of operations allowing for a stop at anything interesting on the way :)
There are 'ways' into Victoria, and infact I've seen PPT slides that describe Victoria as the sort of place where you would happily go in knowing you can't come out as there is nothing within a realistic range to visit after Victoria. A place suitable for 'end of mission'...a sad thought but one we have to consider at some point. They were fairly confident of getting out of Endurance...they tested an engineering model to angles even worse than Endurance presented...Victoria however, I don't think they'll worry too much.
I imagine there will be a LOT of observations from around the rim, several months ( the terrain will be GREAT driving though ), two or even three complete panoramas of the crater to generate a superb DEM of the crater for future planning.
We're not far from solar conjunction, just month or two away, I think it will be spent at the rim, charging batteries and looking after itself - but as Sol 1000 arrives, we can expect a press conf to celebrate that figure, and unveil both the first big mosaic from Victoria and the finished 'McMurdo' panroama from Spirit's winter haven.
For about the 4th time, Opportunity is about to get a whole new mission all over again.
Doug
Space/Science » in reply to re: Opportunity pushing for Victoria Crater
re: Opportunity pushing for Victoria Crater
