Recent Activities of Opportunity Rover

The Opportunity rover is currently parked at ‘Smith layer’ of the ‘Bathtub Ring’ formation of rock layers at Duck Bay in Victoria Crater. The rover had been testing its wire brush used for abrasion of rock surfaces, which had recently failed due to encoding errors. The rover was instructed to swivel the brush in the incorrect direction, and the brush was bent as a result. An engineering team is now working at solutions around the problem. The aim is for the Rover to dig into the Smith layer to gather more information about its composition.
Some of the Rover’s recent activities include…
-mosaic images of ‘Cape Verde,’ a promontory on the crater rim
-measuring argon in the atmosphere
-taking images of the rock layer ‘Smith’ after it had been recently brushed clear
-Imaging of ‘Cabo Frio’ and ‘Cape Verde’