Opportunity is at the top of Perseverance Valley on the rim of Endeavour crater.
The rover experienced a left-front wheel steering actuator stall on Sol 4750 (June 4, 2017) leaving the wheel 'toed-out' by 33 degrees.
On Sol 4752 (June 6, 2017), the rover backed up with an arc to allow investigation of a terrain-related stall.
On Sol 4754 (June 8, 2017), the left-front wheel was commanded to steer inward to straight at four different voltages along with other diagnostics.
The wheel failed to steer (zero change in encoder counts) at any of those voltages. To verify the steering diagnostic, a similar steering test was run on the left-rear wheel (known to be good) on Sol 4756 (June 10, 2017).
That test of the left-rear wheel performed nominally with the wheel steering as expected, verifying our test procedure.
The project is continuing the investigation of the left-front steering actuator stall. Further diagnostics are being developed along with ground testing plans.
While Opportunity's mobility status is under evaluation, the rover continues to collect an extensive Pancam panorama called the "Sprained Ankle Panorama" of the surrounding area along with targeted 13-filter Pancam images of high-value targets.
Also, an atmospheric argon measurement using the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) was performed on the evening of Sol 4757 (June 11, 2017).
As of Sol 4759 (June 13, 2017), the solar array energy production was 343 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.842 and a solar array dust factor of 0.529.
Total odometry is 27.87 miles (44.86 kilometers).
Walkabout Above 'Perseverance Valley'
Opportunity is at the top of "Perseverance Valley" on the rim of Endeavour Crater. The plan before proceeding down the valley is to perform a walk-about survey above the valley.
To start the walkabout, on Sol 4746 (May 31, 2017) Opportunity drove about 82 feet (24.9 meters) mostly south toward a chosen waypoint. Images for extensive panoramas were collected with the Navigation Camera (Navc … read more
