Opportunity is continuing the exploration of "Perseverance Valley" on the west rim of Endeavour Crater.
The rover is positioned about half way down the approximately 656 feet (200 meter) valley. The rover started the week well, but things grew to be challenging. On Sol 5005 (Feb. 21, 2018), Opportunity collected a Panoramic Camera (Pancam) color stereo panorama.
Using the robotic arm (also called the Instrument Deployment Device, or IDD) on the next sol, the rover collected a few more "selfie" frames with the Microscopic Imager (MI) to fill out the "selfie" that was collected on Sol 5000 (Feb. 16, 2018).
The next sol's plan had to be canceled as Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was in safe mode and no relay pass would occur on Sol 5007 (Feb. 23, 2018). The next plan was for the three sols over the weekend, Sols 5008, 5009 and 5010 (Feb. 24, 25 and 26, 2018).
Since the Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna intended for uplink was not available, the project decided not to try to send up the weekend plan and let the rover drop into Automode (no master sequence).
On Tuesday, the Sol 5011 (Feb. 27, 2018) plan was successfully carried out and the rover was back under master sequence control, collecting images and conducting science.
As of Sol 5011 (Feb. 27, 2018), the solar array energy production was 669 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.486 and an improved solar array dust factor of 0.881.
Total odometry is 28.03 miles (45.12 kilometers).
