Opportunity Sol 890 (Spirit Sol 910)

The plan for the day is to drive on toward Beagle. First, we're going to repeat the unsatisfactory scuff done on sol 885, this time recording motor/IMU data at 8Hz to better characterize the rover's interaction with the terrain. We'll take juicy color PANCAMs of it -- or just get decent-quality HAZCAMs if we can't afford the PANCAMs -- and then we press on.

We're all fired up for driving, too. Tim Parker's "Victoria Goal Map" is showing us so damn close! We're only 85m from Beagle, and 561m from Victoria. I expect we should be able to do an easy 50m or so thisol, which would put us one drive away from Beagle and cut our distance to Victoria by about 10%. I am totally jazzed about this. We've got it all worked out, and we're raring to go.

That's why I'm so disappointed when the drive is cancelled. During the SOWG meeting, the science team decides the IDD data they've gotten at this location isn't quite high enough quality, and they need one more sol before driving on.

Bummer. But at least I get a good laugh out of Rob Sullivan's description of the now-irrelevant work we did on the scuff: "a fabulous exercise in futility."

[Next post: sol 912, July 27.]