Spirit & Opportunity

Palomar · 2004-01-11 11:12:55

*Here's a close-up shot of the sundial on Spirit. I mentioned it quite a few posts back...way back there, happily buried now. :laugh:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040110.html

"'Two Worlds, One Sun' is the legend emblazoned on the Spirit rover's camera calibration target. Resting on the rover's rear deck, it also doubles as a sundial, allowing students to determine the solar time at Spirit's landing site on Mars."

--Cindy

Stu · 2004-01-11 11:42:19

Basically a "Steady as she goes" Press Conference today... everything's looking good for Spirit's imminent drive off the lander... more pictures to be released soon... candidate visit sites being discussed... unexpected and unplanned science measurements being taken, to take advantage of the rover's extended stay on the lander...

So, everything running smoothly on Mars and at JPL... looks like Spirit might be getting her wheels dusty just as Pres. Bush makes his big pro-space speech.

S

Rxke · 2004-01-11 11:45:54

"looks like Spirit might be getting her wheels dusty just as Pres. Bush makes his big pro-space speech. "

Oh Boy....

Tell me this is not a dream...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-11 11:47:44

Somewhat lackluster briefing. Almost fell asleep, haha.

Couple of good things happened, middle wheel pyros fired fine, arm pyros fired fine, and the arm was put into a stow position for driving (it extends out and folds back and hooks on to a little stow hook on the front of the rover). Last critical thing for the rover to do is cut the lander power (the lander is powered by the rover, which allows the rover to do things like operate the air bags, etc), and in the Q&A it was said that there are actually two redundant pyro devices so that goes ahead well. So, everything seems to be going as optimistic as possible.

Due to the communications being so good (120 megabits a sol!), they determined that they could take a few more Pancam images. So before egress, they will take two more Pancam and Mini-TES images to finish out the data set (planned). Then (due to the great communications), there will be one last 120 degree uncompressed Pancam image taken in the direction of the egress path. This is going to be fantastic, folks. We're talking 270 megabits for the last sets of Pancam/Mini-TES images (the majority of that which I would wager is the uncompressed product).

Also, before that, they're going to turn 45 degress towards the egress point, take some pictures, and turn another 45 degrees. These guys are just taking it very very easy. One of the scientists pointed out that this is roughly a 4 million dollar a day mission, so they want to get everything right, and they want to be very careful.

I don't blame them, and frankly, I think they're doing an amazingly excellent job so far.

Another thing mentioned was that they plan to release a fully 3D color stereo image of the full Mission Success pan (once it's completed and so on). We are talking Pathfinder Presidential Pan 10x. It's going to be so awesome.

Okay, I'm done rambling for now.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-11 11:49:29

This is the calm before the storm.

Rxke · 2004-01-11 13:12:09

Actually the arm pyro-success is very good news! They were afraid it would jostle the Mossbauer again (it got a 'bad hit' during launch, disabling it temporarily...) with ill effect. Didn't happen. Good.

Will this be the only 'royal pan' they'll take for the forseeable future? Given it takes so much time, it won't be a bi-weekly feature i'd guess, or the rover would be getting nowhere...

Rxke · 2004-01-11 14:59:42

BTW SpaceRef got an e-mail from someone@nasa.gov which contained a very special postcard from Mars... Spaceref

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-11 18:29:14

NASA watch sucks. They are Bush lackys from day one. Can't believe the pompus stuff they said about Beagle 2 today. I knew there was a reason I didn't read their site. Blood pressure.

Stu · 2004-01-11 23:54:20

NASA watch sucks. They are Bush lackys from day one. Can't believe the pompus stuff they said about Beagle 2 today. I knew there was a reason I didn't read their site. Blood pressure.

This is what I;ve written in response...

<< Sir,

Your dismissive comments re Beagle 2 in today's update of NASA WATCH are **deeply** offensive, and unworthy of both your website and NASA as an office. As the editor of a widely-read website, you should have been aware that the opinions given in the Telegraph article were just those of a single writer, and the overwhelming majority of people here in the UK with even a passing interest in space exploration have been as delighted for NASA as they have been disappointed for the Beagle team. This isn't a race, or a competition; we are all striving to push back the boundaries of knowledge and technology, overcome enormous challenges and make discoveries of benefit to everyone, yet you chose to sound, frankly, smug at a time when the scientists of Beagle 2, their familes and all the science enthusiasts of the UK are feeling great sadness. You have let yourself down very badly, and as an avid reader of NASA WATCH ever since I went online I feel very disappointed in your comments and attitude.

Your dismissal of Beagle, and your flippant opening remarks re the failed landing are genuinely offensive. I am sure you are only too well aware of the incredible struggle Colin Pillinger and his team faced to even get Beagle built, let alone launched. That it failed was down to a technical fault, not down to them, and as was proven with NASA's own Polar Lander and Climate Orbiter, technical faults have no respect of, and are not awed by, huge budgets or ambitions. If a British space website had ridiculed the NASA team behind Polar Lander at the time of its loss in the way you have treated the Beagle project, NASA WATCH would have been *ablaze* with outrage, and rightly so.

True, you "leap", and everyone respects and admires you for that, but you cannot compare the space programs of our two nations, there is no real comparison. Beagle was a pioneering effort, a first brave attempt to attain your high standards and leap as high as you do. That it failed is a tragedy, but a tragedy we will, I am sure, recover from, and whether it is a Beagle 3, 4, 5 or 10 that eventually opens up on the surface of Mars, when it does it will be a great day for everyone, not just its British designers and builders.

Spirit is a triumph, and we all applaud you for that. But your attitude in this matter is, frankly, very offensive. Should Opportunity fail, the first people who will call JPL with commiserations will be Colin Pillinger and the team.

On their behalf, I ask for an apology at the earliest opportunity.

Regards,

Stuart Atkinson >>

Hope I have everyone's agreement.

S

Rxke · 2004-01-12 02:05:02

Stu,
Heh... I just *knew* you would be offended by his comment, but that Guardian article that triggered his comment... That was asking for trouble IMHO.
Still, the reaction was less than civilised.

I always saw N-watch as written by someone 'frustrated' and took it with a pinch of salt, but use it as an interesting source of external links, he often comes up with articles, links... i'd otherwise would've missed.
Liked your reaction. He should pipe down, not gloat over other people's 'failures'

Stu · 2004-01-12 10:17:48

Stu,
Heh... I just *knew* you would be offended by his comment, but that Guardian article that triggered his comment... That was asking for trouble IMHO.
Still, the reaction was less than civilised.

Well, I got a reply from Mr Cowing:

"Sorry. No apology."

Yes, the article was ill-advised, but the guy at NASA WATCH should have taken it as one person's view, been more gracious in success.

I despair, honestly I do.

S

Adrian · 2004-01-12 10:35:36

Stu, this sounds interesting. Do you have links to the article at NASA Watch and the Guardian?

Also, this thread is getting worryingly long, in the sense that I wouldn't want any posts to disappear if it gets corrupted. I think when it reaches 300 posts I'll lock it and open up a new thread (it seems they do this on a lot of other forums as well, probably for the same reasons).

Stu · 2004-01-12 10:42:23

Stu, this sounds interesting. Do you have links to the article at NASA Watch and the Guardian?
Also, this thread is getting worryingly long, in the sense that I wouldn't want any posts to disappear if it gets corrupted. I think when it reaches 300 posts I'll lock it and open up a new thread (it seems they do this on a lot of other forums as well, probably for the same reasons).

Hi Adrian,

If you just go to the NASA WATCH page it's there as soon as it opens - a quote from the article, a link to it, and Keith Cowing's reply. NASA WATCH's website is:

http://www.reston.com/NASA/watch.html

Good idea re. the thread, by the way.

S

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-12 10:53:42

A NASA TV press briefing in 5-10 minutes. Link in my sig.

Your response to NASA watch looks very good Stu, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Give 'em hell though! It was really stupid what they said. The BBC article wasn't bashing the US, it was bashing the science. I for one agree with it to a lot of extents.

Stu · 2004-01-12 11:07:36

Look at that panorama... unbelievable...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-12 11:14:28

That full pan was awesome, but did you see that 3D rendering? That was far greater quality than I expected their 3D renderings to be. I was shocked!

Stu · 2004-01-12 11:18:03

Only a medium resolution version of the panorama "up" on the MER main site... looks pretty low resolution to me... wonder when a hi-res version will be available? I wanna go explore!

S

clark · 2004-01-12 11:18:39

Okay, I need help. Can anyone give a link to the panorama and the 3d rendering? I simply can't find it.

Nevermind, just need the 3d rendering...

Stu · 2004-01-12 11:20:43

Here...

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004

Click on the 1.11.04 at the top there... just a poor quality version up so far, and last time I looked no 3D renders yet either...

S

Rxke · 2004-01-12 11:26:39

wow... They say the hi res pic of the 'magic carpet' has a resolution of 1mm/pixel!
(And it's not mud...)

clark · 2004-01-12 11:33:42

I felt the cold red dust of mars
Slipping through bare fingers

Thank you Stu!

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-12 11:51:12

The full pan, when it's available, is going to easily be several hundred megabytes (in .tif form). I'm not even sure .jpg can handle the resolution of it (.jpg is limited by a 65535 wide image, I believe, and the image is sure to be far wider than that).

Byron · 2004-01-12 11:58:28

Just downloaded the 13 MB jpeg version of the panorama...wow! This is one image that's worth waiting for...

Josh, will there be any appreciable difference in the quality between the jpeg version and the tiff version? I'm worried about blowing out the RAM in this computer if I download something that large...

B

Stu · 2004-01-12 12:53:08

Just downloaded the 44Mb version... just outrageously beautiful. (how my friends at work laugh when I describe these scenes as "beautiful" but I know all of you seeing them here will know exactly how I feel!)

Few things jump out at me - for one thing, the large number of rocks which show impact damage, i.e. nicks and craters on them, usually at the top. Saw these on pathfinder images too, and they were attributed to rocks slamming and smashing against each other there during the floods that carved out the Ares Vallis... but here? Well, some will have been caused by meteorite impacts for sure (busy scanning the panorama now for culprits!) others were maybe damaged when smaller rocks and pebbles were picked up by dust devils and snicked against them... but some of these rocks are *flat-topped*, and show grooves and trenches on their sides... maybe a good sign for the lake-bottom theory there...

And look at all that detail in Sleepy Hollow! And the hints of gullies on the almost-triangular, stand-alone hill... fantastic, just fantastic...

Looking at that panorama, can't you just imagine walking alongside Spirit, down that ramp, and stepping out onto the surface alongside her? Shielding your eyes from the Sun and scanning that horizon, taking in every rock, sand dune, hill and crater... kneeling down and taking a handful of dust in your hand, looking at it up close, seeing the fine, sunlit grains sparkling and twinkling in your palm before letting them fall back to the ground in slow motion... looking out to the horizon, beyond Sleepy Hollow, and seeing a dust devil drifting slowly across your field of view, almost reaching overhead... then patting Spirit on the side and heading out, together, into that silent sea of stones and sand...

We live in amazing times guys. Savour these moments. No-one can take them away from us.

S

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-12 13:11:48

Ahah, Stu, I found the 44 meg image you were talking about. Here's a link to anyone interested: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalo … r=pia05049

Byron, the .jpg and the .tif are very very color similar. Either file is going to take the same ammount of memory in your computer (video memory), though, the only difference being that the .tif is uncompressed and the .jpg isn't.

Mind you guys, this is still sized fown by a factor of two. The individual Pancam images that make up this total image is still far higher resolution. I may be back later to link each part of this panorama so that you guys can see what I mean.

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