Opportunity is on the west rim of Endeavour Crater near "Marathon Valley," a putative location for abundant clay minerals now only about 394 feet (120 meters) away.
The project is preparing to mask off the troubled Bank 7 sector of the Flash file system with a new version of the flight software (FSW) after the project completes the near-term science campaign.
The rover has sampled an unusual rock composition in the rim region near Marathon Valley. The near-term plan is to sample more rocks exhibiting the purple and bluish coloring that is apparent at this site. On Sol 3945 (Feb. 28, 2015), Opportunity drove over 98 feet (30 meters) to the south to approach more of the purple and blue rock types.
Supporting Navigation Camera (Navcam) and Panoramic Camera (Pancam) panoramas were also collected.
On Sol 3848 (March 3, 2015), the rover bumped forward just under 13 feet (4 meters) to reach these rocks and place candidate targets within reach of the robotic arm instruments.
The plan ahead is to brush the surface targets with the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) and collect a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic and place the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) for a multi-hour integration.
As of Sol 3948 (March 3, 2015), the solar array energy production was 545 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.708 and a solar array dust factor of 0.687.
Total odometry is 26.15 miles (42.09 kilometers).
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