Opportunity has been making good progress driving. After completing a survey of meteorites recently, Opportunity has turned south around the point of a large ripple field. Eventually, the rover will resume heading east towards Endeavour crater.
The rover drove southward on sols 2043, 2045, 2047, 2048 and 2049 (Oct. 22, 25, 27, 28 and 29, 2009), totaling over 280 meters (918 feet).
The rover commands the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) elevation mirror open each sol in an attempt to clear some of the putative dust off the elevation mirror. To date, no improvement in the Mini-TES has been observed.
As of Sol 2049 (Oct. 29, 2009), Opportunity's solar-array energy production is 419 watt-hours, with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.580 and a dust factor of 0.571. Total odometry is 18,622.44 meters (11.57 miles).
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