Spirit & Opportunity

Rxke · 2004-01-04 02:07:35

Thanks for that last link, josh!

And hi everybody! Life is Great!

I feel like under Mars Gravity, can't stop bouncing around!

EEEEEEEEEEE-YYYYYYYYYYaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAA!

BTW, Gusev looks very flat, doesnt'it? Great for driving miles and miles... The first, probably uncalibrated pictures promise fantastic coverage in the future, that panoram iw great!

Stu · 2004-01-04 02:09:32

From first glance looks like there aren't many rocks *at all* around Spirit - are we sure it hasn't actually landed on Tatooine or Arrakis? ;-)

Few rocks = good news for when it trundles down the ramps and sets off to explore :-)

Can't wait to see some clearer images, and colour ones too.

S

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-04 02:11:26

Yeah, the spot was picked very very nicely. Very flat. Not too many rocks, but just enough to work with. Even got a bit lucky and have an interesting little boulder nearby.

I'm going to hit the hay now, I just wanted to say, really great stuff goin' on here. I'll be posting more about the rovers more often. I do have to say that this is perhaps the most exciting thing to ever happen on Mars since Pathfinder (and I was the same way with Pathfinder, mind you).

Rxke · 2004-01-04 02:14:09

Not many rocks, also good to 'get the hang' of the controls, i guess they'll be able to do some decent traveling...

BTW Gusev looks like an ideal landing place for future projects, doesn't it? I thought the best (for landings, that is,) we would ever see were things like where Sojourner landed, mildly boulder-strewn (heh)

Stu · 2004-01-04 02:14:50

I'm going to hit the hay now, I just wanted to say, really great stuff goin' on here.

Well, go get some zzzz's Josh, you deserve it! Thanks for keeping us company on here, and for the link to the first pictures too.

What *wonders* are in store for us these next 90 sols..! :-)

Rxke · 2004-01-04 02:19:57

Hee-hee, just noticed in the thread 'watch the race unfold' they switched to simulation to MER-B! *Incoming!*

So, this year has arely begun, but there's sooooooooo much to happen...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-04 02:35:11

There's a conference going on now! I stayed up when I noticed it. I just wanted to let you guys know.

Rxke · 2004-01-04 02:41:06

I'm following it...

(NOTE: I did some cleaning up of these posts after the conference, wih some extra comments, initial posts were a mess, can't type blind, let alone 10 fingers (blush)) Comments preceded with a '*'

*******

*Great atmosphere; team getting thumbs up, rounds of applause,

-'these people are the future of NASA!'

*Hey, what do they want to tell us?

"Thank you Pete," another round of applause

Rxke · 2004-01-04 02:46:23

Swept clean surface (wind)... 'Almost taylor-made for landing... Wow, they're doing a 360 pan!

Ideally suited for the instruments, spectrometers, camera's wheels...

Don't know yet what kind of surface they're on, (have to wait for mini-TES for that...) but they wanna bet it's a dry lakebed!

another round of applause... for the team people that just arrived to change places with the ones that did the landing.

Lot's of laughter, rounds of spontaneous applause, (throughout the whole conference)

'privilege to work with these people, thank you very much'

*Very* cheery atmosphere.

Now news about lander

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-04 02:47:30

Some cute memorable quotes:

"I will stop calling Mars the Death Planet. I apologize."

"We landed in the sweet spot. Thank you Pete."

"[this spot is] ideally suited for our insturments."

Batteries are fully charged. Solar panels are optimal. No faults, at all, never happened before.

Rxke · 2004-01-04 02:51:25

expected 16 mbit of data, got 24, batteries fully loaded, 'We're ready to go!'

Fault protection indicaters: All green, never seen that happen before (laughter)

Camera in great shape...

Egress path ... some airbag material... other side a rock... lots of options, probably retract airbag, turn in place... Will plan it out during following days...

*Full deployment of Spirit before it can start 'roving' will take approx. 9 sols, so no need to hurry

5pm tomorrow direct link, with Oddysey... trying first for hi-gain antenna deployment, will increase data flow, is now low-gain...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-04 02:57:39

I just wanted to point out that a better resolution paranorma is now available: http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/ima … 5_full.jpg

Rxke · 2004-01-04 02:58:57

-Some confusion in panel about 'is it tomorrow already?'

*obviously, everybody totally exhausted,

-kidding to fresh crew (command and control) that is also attending the conference before starting their shift:

"you got a lot of work ahead" (Happy laughter)

*****

press questions

-How's the camera? And Solar cells?
pancam good, solar as expected,...

*that solar part didn't sound too confident, BTW, some questioning around etc... Hope that's *really* ok.... On second thought... It's evening there, so probably hard to judge performance of solar cells...

-where you going to drive to?
too early to say where they will drive to now, depends on landing place, still doing triangulation...(but) Very close, within one mile to planned target...

-if indeed dry lake bed, look for hole to do some measurements, big plus would be: sediments: would be great asset: stratification, lot's of info'

*Edit, later: hole? Not sure if i heard that right... i guess they mean fresher craters in Gusev, ejecta from these impacts could contain sedimentary rocks...)

-More data than expected, now,

*NASA chief O' Keefe looking *very* pleased, kidding, looking confident...

Rxke · 2004-01-04 03:03:52

-again: perfcect place, were going to do a lot of driving around, couldn't be better,

l-ot of clean swept litle rocks, won't need RAT, maybe now just for trying out...

**Aviation week question, science mission?

-First week totally scripted, health checks, big panoramas in color IR, hi res, these gonna take a while, so expect for the coming days some stunning pancam stuff, getting more complete while they download.

*We ain't seen nothing yet! IR will give first data of composition of surroundings, too...

-Everything planned for next 9 sols.

-But of course they're going to start to think ahead, from the info they get from these pics

Rxke · 2004-01-04 03:12:07

*Half of the assembled people leave stage (jennifer, o'keefe...) hard to tell who from live stream...
also some reporters, hottest news has been covered, looks like rest is rehash...

Interesting: First pictures are 4x reduced in resolution (low-data link),so cams can do 4xbetter and pancam is again 4x better....

*Again: we ain't seen nothing yet!)

Mini TES some days before scientific data, but this is (again) perfect environment for mini-TES....

polar projection is same pic as panorama, neat, it's just interpolation...
*will be great, this is possible because they use stereo-imaging, nice extra free lunch in the form of a bird's eye view)

Question: Oblique view?
-No it's an artefact, electronically we will 'adjust them'
*so, first pic of big panorama was hastily 'thrown together,' they'll do a better stitch later...)

Mossbauer: waiting for health-check to see if its ok *(remember, they had problems on-route)

-But it was doing great after 'repair'

*(i'm off, seems rest are repeat questions... hope i didn't bother people with this impromptu reporting)

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-04 03:19:46

That's it. G'night all. Next briefing at 9AM when MGS flies over.

Rxke · 2004-01-04 03:52:32

And in other 'important' news: Brittney Spears reportedly married

Grrrreat. Couldn't she pick another day? No? It's not even a real marriage... Stupid joke. This is not the news kids have to get, today, when other *important* things happen... Sigh.

Rxke · 2004-01-04 04:50:58

No comment...

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-04 05:11:10

Words fail me.
What a great feeling. If I feel like this for a rover, how will I feel when the first astronaut arrives?!!

Rxke · 2004-01-04 07:05:54

Don't forget to vote for Mars pics on Yahoo! when you wake up, folks!

Byron · 2004-01-04 07:29:05

Words fail me.
What a great feeling. If I feel like this for a rover, how will I feel when the first astronaut arrives?!!

Yeah...same here!

I'm just sooo happy to see Spirit not only making it down ok, but sending back those awesome pics so soon after landing. Wow!

Finally, a landing site that's not filled with rocks....very good news for the rover, which should be able to do some real "rock 'n rolling" on that flat plain....

Looks like luck is with us on this one....

B

Rxke · 2004-01-04 07:39:46

For a *big* series of the raw (not edited) images...

Looka here!

Byron · 2004-01-04 07:43:55

For a *big* series of the raw (not edited) images...
Looka here!

You just beat me to it...I was going to post this exact same link..lol. Aren't those pics great?!?

B

Byron · 2004-01-04 07:45:57

Hey, does anyone have the exact location of where Spirit landed? Any major geological features lurking over that short horizon??

Gosh, I'm just so excited about this!

B

Rxke · 2004-01-04 07:48:28

They're working on that, but estimat within one mile of predicted spot!

Yes, those pics, are a *MUST SEE*
These pics are smallish, 14kb, so don't hesitate to load them. My favourites:

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