Spirit & Opportunity *7* - ...continuing...

Shaun Barrett · 2004-09-19 19:41:53

Yes, Dicktice! I think your logic about dust devils is persuasive and probably sufficient to knock over my own suggestion! :bars:

Doug's two pictures of THAT BLOODY SUNDIAL(!!! ), as Stu used to put it so fondly, certainly support your argument, Dicktice. Even in the absence of a dust storm, considerable amounts of dust are evidently being spread around by general wind action (unless the actual locomotion of the MERs across the terrain is stirring up much more dust than one might get ordinarily .. ? )
If you're right though, Dicktice, why aren't we seeing more dust devils in the MER photos?

Incidentally, thanks very much Doug for those two sundial shots, which certainly give a graphic indication of why the solar panels gradually produce less and less power as Mars surface missions progress.

Palomar · 2004-09-19 20:38:19

Doug's two pictures of THAT BLOODY SUNDIAL(!!! ), as Stu used to put it so fondly,

*I propose The Official MER Song be a variation of the '80s hit song "Sunglasses at Night" /=/ "Sundial at Night"

How about it, Cory Hart?

"I wear my sundial at night
so I can
so they can
take lots of pics of it to p.o.
the folks back home!"...

(Okay, I'm not a songwriter...hey, maybe we could call in Weird Al Yankovic) :laugh:

--Cindy

djellison · 2004-09-20 01:46:32

I get bored of the sundial as well - but it has a lot of scientific value - and hell, without it, we wouldnt have as accurate images of the surface in terms of colour

Doug

Palomar · 2004-09-21 09:15:53

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … tml]Mosaic of Endurance Crater

*Sorry if this mosaic has been posted previously. Says it's newly released.

Those ripples of sand in the bottom are so funky. Have seen them before in different pics, of course. But reminds me again of one of the MOC or ME (can't recall which off-hand) images...a crater with a little rash of dunes in one section of it.

Guess I'd better brush up on how wind can cause this sort of thing inside a crater!

Oh...and there's a link to a high-resolution image as well.

--Cindy

dicktice · 2004-09-21 09:29:22

Shaun: I imagine that Mars's dustdevils are as shortlived as Earth's, which we know are really the result of "bubbles" of air building up in contact with solar-heated ground surfaces, surrounded by cooler areas, until bouyant enough to rise (sucking up the dust) as spinning toroidal air masses into the cooler air. Groups of soaring birds separated "columns" as they rise to form those cumulus clouds at condense level, that keep forming and dissipating over the same place above the ground, dispite the wind, on good soaring days. The "Hoovered" tracks in the dust cease, when the surrounding cooler air periodically replaces the rising warm air masses. (Sorry, I've got the flying bug, and just got carried away.)

SpaceNut · 2004-09-21 10:56:38

Well here is another Mars web site for all to enjoy.

http://www.mars.tv/

Palomar · 2004-09-22 05:49:46

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ro … .html]More funding, extended mission

*2.8 million dollars, extension of 6 months. Oppy will make a 3-mile journey to Victoria Crater next. :up:

They're beginning to get "snippets of communication" again after the blackout (Sun between Earth and Mars).

--Cindy

REB · 2004-09-22 05:56:35

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … a.html]New map of Opportunity's journey

I heard that during the winter they are going to try and park the MERs on slopes with angles perpendicular to the sun. In effect, counteracting the low angle of the winter Sun. This will allow the MERs to operate all winter. There is a catch. They have to find the right slope at the end of the day.

REB · 2004-09-22 06:00:58

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … .html]Here is a new map for Spirit

Palomar · 2004-09-22 06:47:27

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040922.html]Spirit Art

*Doodles and shadow. :;):

I'll have to refresh the pic tomorrow (Astropix updates daily)...does anyone know where else this pic might be hosted?

I'll re-insert the link very early tomorrow a.m.

--Cindy

::edit:: Link re-inserted a.m. 9/23. Pic is now permanent.

SpaceNut · 2004-09-22 08:08:53

NASA Extends Mars Rover Mission 6 Months
The space agency has funded another extension of their mission, for an additional six months, if they last.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...._rovers

djellison · 2004-09-22 08:57:01

They're going for victoria crater - thats a HUGE 700m+ crater some miles away - THAT - will be a panorama worth waiting for

Doug

REB · 2004-09-22 09:31:23

Hey NASA! Send more MERs to Mars!

Send a few to some other places, like the Moon and Mercury.

They should be mass producing those things.

Palomar · 2004-09-22 09:44:55

They're going for victoria crater - thats a HUGE 700m+ crater some miles away - THAT - will be a panorama worth waiting for
Doug

*A 3-mile trip...how long (in Sols) should it take Oppy to reach it? I can't remember how far (in general) the MERs can travel in a day...

--Cindy

REB · 2004-09-22 09:55:04

Opportunity can cover a lot a ground in a day. Very few obstacles in the way, out on the planes.

SpaceNut · 2004-09-22 09:55:32

Hey NASA! Send more MERs to Mars!
Send a few to some other places, like the Moon and Mercury.
They should be mass producing those things.

I agree, since making more than a few of something usually drives down the cost. Make only slight alterations to functional blocks of tools or of testing apperatus for what it is that we wish to learn from each mission.

SpaceNut · 2004-09-22 10:31:00

It only took 12 days of radio silence but they are back and Nasa has found a way to fund them for continued research.
Both rovers have done a great job.

Could the next rovers have a side car, I want to take a short ride while they explore the surface just joking I am sort of tired of arm chair viewing.

Rover Missions Renewed as Mars Emerges from Behind Sun
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/se … erges.html

Opportunity's Travels During its First 205 Martian Days
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....1a.html

Spirit's Travels During its First 238 Martian Days
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 0921a.html

atomoid · 2004-09-22 14:17:35

They're going for victoria crater - thats a HUGE 700m+ crater some miles away - THAT - will be a panorama worth waiting for
Doug
*A 3-mile trip...how long (in Sols) should it take Oppy to reach it? I can't remember how far (in general) the MERs can travel in a day...
--Cindy

Spirit's one-sol distance record: 123.7 meters (405.8 feet). even on that tricky Gusev terrain.
Opportunity's one-sol driving record: 140 meters (459.3 feet).
im not sure if these still stand. this data is from April 5th. i'm Googled...
At a 'cruising' speed of 400 feet/day, 3 miles could be crossed in 40 days, although we all know how long it took to go about a mile to get to the hills... im sure theyll crank it up a notch but i think there will be plenty of very worthwhile "distractions" along the way...

Engineers hope to put Spirit atop Husband Hill so it can get a view all the way to the edge of vast Gusev Crater, in which it landed. Opportunity will soon leave Endurance Crater, visiting its discarded heat shield along the way(thank you!), and make a 3-mile journey to Victoria Crater. in other good news: Opportunity's mini-thermal emission spectrometer, which identifies the composition of rocks, so far has survived the cold.

Now, does anybody know where to find an orbiter image of Victoria crater to get context of where we are in relation to where we want to get to? im looking at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsit … e.html]the marsoweb site and http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsit … .html]this part too and i cant find a view to find which crater is Victoria... could be anywhere... i couldnt find that link to the mars image database thing mentioned in some thread in the last few weeks and noticed that you could seek by feature name but i forgot to bookmark it

djellison · 2004-09-23 05:02:08

Of course - those speed 'records' were made with month-old-rovers with high sun-angles and spanking new wheels

We've now got 8 month old rovers ( 3x design life ), very low sun angles and clapped out old wheels. The power is very low at the moment - but it will certainly get no worse - and may improve over the next 4 - 5 months back towards summer again. Rememeber - we landed in Autumn - and obviously - seasons are twice as long on mars - so 12 months takes you from Autumn to Spring.

If you go on a 3 sol cycle. Drive, Science, Recharge - and put 100m on every driving sol. Then 5km will take 150 sols - roughtly.

Thus - give them another fortnight inside the crater - I say they get to Victoria in March.

Doug

djellison · 2004-09-23 06:18:47

I've put together a 2m/pixel map using THEMIS and some MOC imagery of the area where Opp is now - down to Victoria.

It's 5700 metres from the southern rim of Endurance to the Northern rim of Victoria.

To give a sense of scale - from Eagle Crater to the point they entered Endurance - is 700 Metres.

I've reduced the map down to 4m/pixel ( still 4x great than the Themis res )

atomoid · 2004-09-24 20:56:24

djellison,
Thanks for the great map, i guess opp will be going slower because of the dusty solar panels as well, so your probably right about MArch, even into June i think might be the case if theres a lot (hopefully!) to check out along the way...

Were you the one who initially gave that link (that i cant find) to the searchable image database? if so can you repost it? You probably have a far better method of finding the right images than i do (i just hunt and get frustrated). I want to find more context of the map you just made for us to see 'further back'. im interested in its proximity to the aformentioned Meridianna 'etched terrain'... thx!

moby · 2004-09-25 01:50:53

thats the best pic of Victoria crater I've seen so far, are those dunes in the bottom or just wishful thinking on my part?
Wonder how hard it would be to get down into it without yelling Geranomo ! and jumping off a cliff?

djellison · 2004-09-25 05:19:08

The themis data is presented MUCH better than MOC data - and is simply point and click till you find the area you want...
http://themis-data.asu.edu/mars-bin/mar … OOM]Themis Search Page

I ended up finding these images

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V0741600 … 16001.html 35m res multi-spectral - the colour image shows that we can expect the terrain to become a little more typically martian as we get closer to Victoria

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V0630500 … 05001.html 18m res mono-spectral image - this is the one I used in my map - Victoria is near the bottom - with Endurance on a bearing of about 355 degrees

I also found that the entire area is imaged in the IR spectrum - but the resolution is typically 100m/pixel - and thus isnt much use. Victoria is easily visible as a quite bright - sharp crater in this image - http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/browse/i … 415019.png - approx half way down - just left of centre - in a slightly darker area.

At 18m/pixel for the Visible imagery - I doubt that it could resolved dunes as we know them - they'd have to be on the order of 30 odd metres across to be resolved above 'noise'

There's also MOC imagery to look at (afterall - for every Themis VIS image pixel - MOC will have 144 - and up to 400ish using CPROTO) - the easiest way is via the MarsOWeb interface at http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsit … 2003/mocs/ -

Skip the crappy java map and go straight to - http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsit … ion08.html if you want Meridiani
As you can see however - Victoria hasnt been caught on any publicly available MOC imagery yet.

I verified this using the Malin Space Science interface ( they built and 'drive' MOC ) http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/]http:/ … c_gallery/

For each release 'batch' - you want section 19 ( http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e19_r02 … /mc19.html for example )

You can see the Opportunity ellipse is well imaged up the top right there (2deg S, 5 Deg W ) and similarly is quite well imaged in a few other image releases. However - Victoria hasnt been 'got' yet ( it's outside the landing elipse for goodness sake!! ) -but I'm fairly confident that since Sept. '03 - it WILL have been imaged and we can expect the MOC images from Sept '03-> Feb '04 to be released early October (I think) - and when that happens - It'll be full of ROTO targetted images of both landing sites ( and Beagle 2 as well ) - at which point I'll try and augment my map - and even go up to 1m/pixel with some of the CPROTO imagery

Doug

Shaun Barrett · 2004-09-25 07:53:50

Many thanks, Doug!
That map certainly puts the upcoming journey into sharp perspective .. and what a journey!

My gast has rarely been so flabbered.

I'm not quite sure Oppy's up to it but I'm impressed with NASA's chutzpah in trying for it. Go little rover,go!!!
:up:

Rxke · 2004-09-25 08:07:03

Yes, truly gabberflastingly impressive the people that built/are operating the rovers are considering such a journey... And all that waaaay beyond the 'best before' date on the lid...

I guess they have a real good feeling about the hardware platform, hope to see it re-used one day, maybe on Luna or another moon?
Maybe in a licenced version?
Hey, they could even be used on Earth? Remote, cold enviro's etc... If you'd make em in series, as has been discussed before, they'd probably come in quite cheap to boot...

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