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Posted by: djellison May 26 2008, 03:36 PM

This thread is for discussions AFTER the next press conf.

Doug

Posted by: Tesheiner May 26 2008, 04:18 PM

Next update briefing on NASA TV is scheduled to 2pm EDT (6pm UTC).
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html

Posted by: kungpostyle May 26 2008, 06:02 PM

Wow, MRO caught Phoenix in flight!

Posted by: David S. May 26 2008, 06:03 PM

Amazing !!!

Posted by: remcook May 26 2008, 06:03 PM

yeah, amazing!!

Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson May 26 2008, 06:04 PM

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I know you don't like our engineering images" - Barry Goldstein

Posted by: djellison May 26 2008, 06:11 PM

LOVING the 'odd couple' double act with Barry and Pete

Posted by: remcook May 26 2008, 06:14 PM

is that enhanced? it looks even better than the released image

Posted by: TheChemist May 26 2008, 06:18 PM

OMG, it is good that I only have to type.
Having problems speaking after looking at that HiRise image !!!
Amazing !!!!

Posted by: djellison May 26 2008, 06:19 PM

Straight from NASA. There's two versions - one is too stretched.

I would say that image is very close to the chute deployment - it doesn't - to my eyes - look 100% fully deployed.

Doug

Posted by: Sunspot May 26 2008, 06:19 PM

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images/9227-PHX_Lander.jpg

Posted by: elakdawalla May 26 2008, 06:20 PM

At high speed, would the chute have a different shape than at lower speed? (Don't know, just asking)

Posted by: remcook May 26 2008, 06:23 PM

sunspot - that was the one i was looking at...far less details.

yeah, the parachute looks pretty small (not fully extended), but my guess would be that a parachute would be half-opened only for a second or so. hmmmm...

Posted by: bgarlick May 26 2008, 06:23 PM

Was phoenix (while under parachute) near the edge of the MRO image? The animation in the press conference as it zoomed in seemed to indicate that Phoenix was very close to the edge of the image, which means that they may have been lucky to get an image at all and almost missed Could this be a result of it landing long?

(I.E. The press release image was a 420x446 crop of a much larger MRO image. Was this crop in the far right bottom corner, almost off the image, as it seemed to me from the zoom in animation?)

Posted by: mcaplinger May 26 2008, 06:24 PM

Chutes are subject to partial opening ("squidding") in some speed regimes. I'm wondering if this may be some evidence of that.

Posted by: Tman May 26 2008, 06:25 PM

Agree, looks still more angular than round.

Wow!!!

Posted by: djellison May 26 2008, 06:26 PM

It's a possibility - it would, after all, be a long shot to get it in that 1 or 2 seconds of deployment. Idle speculation (And I've got $5 that says that far field feature is the heatshied)

Posted by: imipak May 26 2008, 06:29 PM

scaled, no other processing.

Posted by: Ant103 May 26 2008, 06:30 PM

Incedible, just incredible, and amazing

Posted by: kungpostyle May 26 2008, 06:31 PM

Yeah, the MER chutes had some serious squidding issues in the design phase. There is some footage of this in the wind tunnel tests somewhere.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 26 2008, 06:36 PM

Emily has a good quality image up:

Posted by: remcook May 26 2008, 06:39 PM

the more i look at that image, the more it looks like phoenix is hanging under a giant muffin!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 26 2008, 06:43 PM

I was thinking how it looks like a jellyfish

Posted by: deglr6328 May 26 2008, 06:45 PM

Though they did have major squidding issues on the chute for the MERs I was under impression that the effect was much better understood now so if this MRO image is of squidding (as it does indeed look like it is) it either caught the chute JUST after deployment OR there is a ring included on the lines for the chute which forces squidding to occur at high speed until speed is lower so that tearing doesn't occur. A video of this mechanism is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAwET3Q9Og4 showing it on an emergency small plane chute. If this mechanism was included on the Phoenix EDL system it would DRASTICALLY increase the squidding time beyond the usual couple seconds intentionally..... though I don't know if this actually was part of the chute design. Here is a better video of the mechanism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt4biNan_JA

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 26 2008, 06:49 PM

Well Emily settled that - no squidding.

Posted by: remcook May 26 2008, 06:49 PM

haha good pick-up emily! aaaah gotto love the internet. no squidding then

Posted by: Sunspot May 26 2008, 06:58 PM

Did I hear them correctly? Phoenix landed just outside the landing ellipse?

Posted by: deglr6328 May 26 2008, 07:00 PM

He didn't really giver her a committal answer at all though. I'm sure they have information on the exact time the image was taken and they obviously have the exact chute deployment time from Phoenix transmissions and the image is certainly of sufficiently high resolution to to make measurements on deployment completeness, so the question of what is going on in this picture should be definitively answered in due time when they've had a chance to more carefully look at things.

Posted by: Marcel May 26 2008, 07:13 PM

What an amazing image. I am speechless. What humans can do !!!

The droptests on earth shows complete deployment in up to 15 seconds. In lower density (but higher speeds) i can imagine it takes even longer. But it looks like "the muffin" shows us it must have been taken in the first half of it's way down. I guess even on mars a parachute in equilibrium looks like a bowl, not like a muffin.

By the way: It's a pitty this doesn't work: looks like a new image to me of the workspace area, but i cannot open it !

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/multimedia/testindex.html

Marcel

Posted by: fredk May 26 2008, 07:14 PM

Stunning achievement, the parachute image. To my recollection, I'm not aware of any image of a spacecraft parachuting to Earth taken from Earth orbit. Can anyone correct me here? If I'm right, that would make this an even more remarkable achievement!

Posted by: pechisbeque May 26 2008, 07:17 PM

I thought the same at first, but I think is just a test page and that's a picture from one of the Mars Rovers!

Posted by: DFinfrock May 26 2008, 07:18 PM

I don't even remember seeing images of the Shuttle, taken by an earth orbiter. And just think how many times that could have been tried.

It was great seeing Enily at the Press Conference. And even better that she could interact with UMSF during the conference, and then have the ammo for a final question. What a great forum.

Posted by: djellison May 26 2008, 07:18 PM

That looks a LOT like an ORT test to me. Earth based testing pictures, not new imagery from Phoenix. Don't expect any new images for another 5 hours or so.

Posted by: um3k May 26 2008, 07:19 PM

Any suggestions for how to pass the time while waiting for new images?

Posted by: Sunspot May 26 2008, 07:34 PM

5 Hours!!!!! And I didnt get to bed until 6.30am this morning lol

Posted by: ugordan May 26 2008, 07:37 PM

Darn, Europe-friendly again...

Posted by: Sunspot May 26 2008, 07:41 PM

I wonder if MPL landed outside of it's landing ellipse, so they may have been looking in the wrong place. Also, it will be interesting to see how the visibility of the hardware changes over many Martian seasons, it may givemore clues on what to look for at the MPL site..

Posted by: dvandorn May 26 2008, 07:50 PM

Agreed on the issue of weathering parachutes, there, Sunspot. We know what the weathered Viking, MPF and MER 'chutes look like, but we've not seen one that was encased in dry ice for months and then "thawed" out.

-the other Doug

Posted by: dilo May 26 2008, 08:24 PM

Merge of the two versions with smoothed terrain and artificial colors:

Posted by: bcory May 26 2008, 08:51 PM

"This is the first time that a spacecraft has imaged the final descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body. "

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images.php?fileID=9257

Posted by: nprev May 26 2008, 09:03 PM

Marvelous...just utterly marvelous, is all. What an achievement!!!

Posted by: Gonzz May 26 2008, 09:15 PM

To see that image and imagine Pheonix blazing through the athmosphere at high speed, bracing itself for landing, caught in that instant, is absolutely spellbinding

Posted by: tasp May 26 2008, 09:46 PM

2 (?) ISS Soyuz missions ago, there was some nice footage of the capsule re-entry over earth's night side. The Soyuz re-entry module flight was not that spectacular, and as a manned vehicle, inappropriate for discussion here in any regard. However, the then unmanned orbital module was jettisoned and followed a similar trajectory and burned up very nicely. Amazing footage shot from orbit.

I don't think the footage ran past the 'burning up' part of the flight.

Posted by: tuvas May 26 2008, 09:47 PM

It blows the mind to image how complex this must have been. Pointing the spacecraft at the right place, the right time, getting it to move the right speed (It is, after all, a pushbroom), all while keeping radio contact with the spacecraft... It blows the mind, for sure. Can't wait till the whole image is released to see if we can see the heat shield plummeting as well.

Posted by: Stu May 26 2008, 09:50 PM

I take it there's no feedback re my idea that the bright feature seen on that Phoenix image might be a tall rock I pinpointed on a HiRISE image of the landing zone, then? Oh well, never mind. Maybe the new images - thought they were being released about now? - will shed some light on the matter... hope so... I'm really looking forward to seeing some more views of this intriguing landscape.

I'll have to catch up in the morning, I really need some sleep!

Posted by: MarsEngineer May 26 2008, 09:57 PM

I'm glad you all like that image The MRO/HiRISE team is so amazing. A couple of folks from MRO contacted me a few weeks ago and told me how easy it would be to get and then they asked if I would try to make it happen .. so I did. It almost didn't happen (it was a very late request on my part), but I pushed for it ... although it IS a cool image, I wanted to means to vindicate the parachute in the unlikely event that we lost contact with PHX then had a bad landing day .... this would have proven that the parachute still deployed properly and hence would have not been an additional burden for the MSL EDL team. I am thankful that the image is now only "cool" and not a key data point for fault reconstruction. (oh I am so happy about landing too!!!! it was a blast last ... my knees almost gave out)

Emily, I heard your question (I am in Tuscon now - just flew in from Pasadena) in the press conference on the shape of the chute. The pixel count looks about right for a properly inflated parachute (I did the image estimation a couple of weeks ago) but I promise that we will do the math and check that it is not doing anything odd. We need to correlate the image time with the EDL timeline ... work ahead. The PHX EDL gang is converging at JPL next week to -ahem- "work" (between cheers) on doing the full reconstruction and to write a paper on EDL (I failed to make this happen on MER)! I am so excited for them. I will hang out with them and watch over their shoulders (I am off PHX and working MSL except for this week).

I need to grab lunch before we start up in the SOC ... have fun! I am !!

-Rob Manning

********
Comments are those of the author and do not represent the views of NASA, JPL nor Caltech.

Posted by: jmknapp May 26 2008, 10:00 PM

This just in:



Seriously though, agreed--can't wait to see better photos of it. JPL et al have done it again!

Posted by: MarsEngineer May 26 2008, 10:03 PM

Me too! That heat shield is not far away.

(right on wrt the pushbroom ... we had to rotate MRO about the HiRISE boresight axis to get the image to not smear ... that was not in the plan until a couple of weeks ago.)

-Rob M.

Posted by: surreyguy May 26 2008, 10:08 PM

Rob, does the relative velocity between the pushbroom camera and Phoenix mean that the image is distorted at all (or, conversely, to get it accurate, you had to distort the background)? Like those weird pictures of athletes at the finishing line - not a bad analogy, come to think of it.

Posted by: Gonzz May 26 2008, 10:14 PM

Inspired by that photo (and Stu's poems) I decided to have a go


EDL

Flame licked
I carved a tunnel trough ice cold air
Awake. After sleep untold in darkness
Alone

Through my yellow haze I saw
Red
Plains and mountains, earth renewed
Looming closer

I bit into the air, mouthfuls
crashing into my stomach
made fire by my sheer might
spit sparks, ate heat

Ate heat till full
Until no more
Embraced the air. We fell together

Grabbed it like a jealous lover
Fought it, loved it, held it in my prison
Fast furious roar in my ears
Pulled back into the silence above

A sudden jolt
A sudden stillness, a red warm stilness
Then fall

The rushing emptiness below
me
Urgent cries from my belly
yellow cries of shouldering heat

I shouted fire towards the ground
told it run to me no more
run not my new friend
I will walk to you,

slowly

gently

the way you approach a dangerous animal
step by step against the wind

one two three four
sunken sounds against the sand
the air stopped
silence

Home

Posted by: dvandorn May 26 2008, 10:15 PM

Since I've heard two different sets of landing co-ordinates, one of which is something like 10km from the other, I'd like to get Phoenix located on the surface first, before speculating on connections between MRO images and any feature seen anywhere in the surface images.

The surface is pretty homogenous over most scales, it appears, so I bet you could find "evidence" for cross-connections between features in MRO pics and things seen in the surface pics for just about anywhere in the surrounding 100 square km... In other words, I think it's premature to start identifying things in MRO pics until we have an MRO pic that clearly contains the lander.

-the other Doug

Posted by: ugordan May 26 2008, 10:19 PM

If we're talking about the bright feature in image http://fawkes4.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_440.jpg, that very much looks like a cosmic ray hit to me, somewhat blurred by lossy compression on the uplink and further by JPEG compression.

Posted by: nprev May 26 2008, 10:25 PM

Very nice, Gonzz!

Rob, man, you're my new hero!!! Great call for all kinds of reasons; aside from the sheer coolness of it all, you guys now know what an inflated chute over Mars actually looks like!

Posted by: JRehling May 26 2008, 10:28 PM

This will definitely be cited when the prospect of rendezvous in Mars orbit ever comes up. It seems like this operation would be a lot easier against a black sky and with less time-criticality. And seeing the thing you want to rendezvous with is half the problem in getting there.

Posted by: brellis May 26 2008, 10:29 PM

'chute, man, that's some good stuff. Good days to be a human being.

Posted by: Phil Stooke May 26 2008, 10:35 PM

So here I am in this thread replying to a question posed in the EDL thread because that one is closed. Not sure that was the best way to do it.

Regarding Stu's suggestion - a rock and two low hills. I'm not sure about the rock - looks like an artifact as someone else said. Even if it's a rock, though, I would add this warning. That identification might look good, but it's probably not unique - you might find twenty other similar matches between rocks and subtle mounds. We really need more horizon coverage.

I'm travelling, with limited internet access, so mostly just enjoying the images.

Phil

Posted by: ngunn May 26 2008, 10:37 PM

It happened to me once, and I have the logbook. Only terrifying once you're safely on the ground and have time to think. I'm still terrified, when I think about it.

Posted by: PFK May 26 2008, 10:54 PM

Good stuff Gonzz, but I think Coleridge got there before you :
A few pertinent stanzas from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner...

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around :
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound !

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

Prescience or laudanum?

Posted by: JRehling May 26 2008, 10:59 PM

Speaking of moons, Phobos ought to be just above the horizon at the right time of day. We'll probably catch it in some side-looking images even without trying. Deimos will also be low in the sky. Of course, there's nothing but daytime viewing now, so it may be a few months before we get a chance to spot them.

Posted by: Phil Stooke May 26 2008, 11:17 PM

"Prescience or laudanum?"

Laudanum.

Phil

Posted by: Sunspot May 26 2008, 11:54 PM

Which website are the latest RAW images likely to appear on first? I'm looking here at the moment: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/raw/SSI/ssi_gallery_collection_archive_1.html

Posted by: Gladstoner May 26 2008, 11:56 PM

Does anyone yet know the proper orientation of the HiRISE parachute image?

I'm trying to make sense of the background striations.

Posted by: nasaman58 May 27 2008, 12:04 AM

I've been using http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=0&cID=8

Those are JPGs; maybe someone else can provide a link to non-compressed images or at least ones with lossless compression.

Posted by: Sunspot May 27 2008, 12:10 AM

Think it's worth waiting another half to see if anything shows up? Not sure I can stay awake much longer after going to bed at 6.30amm this morning!!

Posted by: algorimancer May 27 2008, 12:13 AM

I thought new ones were supposed to begin showing up a couple of hours ago. At this point I'm assuming there's been a delay of some sort.

Posted by: Sunspot May 27 2008, 12:17 AM

I think they said the Odyssey pass would be around 5-6pm PST ????

Posted by: Sunspot May 27 2008, 12:31 AM

Yayyy... images starting to come in http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=440&cID=8

Mostly of the instrument deck so far.

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 12:31 AM

New images seem to be hitting the ground. Deck shots so far.

Quite a few thumbnails of the near-ground

Posted by: mhoward May 27 2008, 12:31 AM

Twitter says: "Science team members (mostly in Tucson) are up and awaiting downlink of new images and data, coming down very soon."

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 12:34 AM

Nice!

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_458.jpg

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 12:38 AM

New images show a lot more rocks but still no BIG rocks.

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 12:39 AM

Topography on the horizon? Crater?
http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=467&cID=8

EDIT: More topography:

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=484&cID=8

Posted by: David May 27 2008, 12:43 AM

I'm seeing topography here: http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=484&cID=8

and here:
http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=467&cID=8

Hills? Crater rims? Edge of ice?

Posted by: bcory May 27 2008, 12:45 AM

Has anyone got a map or HiRes image yet of the plot of where the landers generally is?

great images

Posted by: Sunspot May 27 2008, 12:45 AM

Heres the parachute

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=509&cID=8

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 12:47 AM

Heat shield or parachute?

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=509&cID=8

Working on horizon mosaic ATM

Posted by: David May 27 2008, 12:50 AM

Somebody throw the Swear Jar my way; I have a pressing need to contribute.

Posted by: jmknapp May 27 2008, 12:54 AM

Re: local time at Phoenix site

Seems to be a discrepancy between the Mars time widgets on the JPL and LPL web sites.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/

At 27MAY2008 00:50 UTC, Mars time reported by the two websites:

JPL: 00:55

LPL: 16:53

Posted by: fredk May 27 2008, 12:54 AM

I love it!

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_457.jpg

Posted by: tim53 May 27 2008, 12:54 AM

These are mesas about 20 kilometers SSW of the landing site. The larger one is about 200 meters high.

This is so cool.

-Tim.

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 12:54 AM

Here's the DVD:

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_532.jpg

Some auto-mosaics are starting to show up, here's mine:

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 12:57 AM

Cool! I assumed this was the crater to the east of the landing site until I saw the azimuths in the automosaics.

Posted by: Gladstoner May 27 2008, 01:01 AM

Some of the rocks here look an awful lot like sandstone:

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=532&cID=8

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 01:02 AM

Color:

Posted by: fredk May 27 2008, 01:02 AM

Anaglyph from the new batch:

Posted by: tim53 May 27 2008, 01:04 AM

I'm hoping we'll see the crater, too. There's a 20 meter high rise in the plains east of the lander that might block it, though.


There's also a small crater or pedestal crater about 40 meters tall that should be less than 7 km to the WNW.

-Tim.

Posted by: tim53 May 27 2008, 01:09 AM

More likely to be the backshell, upside down. Could be the heatshield, but only if it's inside is facing the camera and it isn't mangled.

Since all our prior heatshields were mangled on impact, it's probably the backshell. Parachute must be out of sight from the lander.

We're fortunate this time, though. Only Opportunity was able to see it's backshell from the landing site. All other lader backshells/parachutes were out of sight behind intervening ridges.

-Tim.

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 01:10 AM

If you look at lg_527.jpg, it looks like there is a topographic feature near WSW that may match the crater you brought up in the rightmost frame (closer to the camera than the distant peaks).

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_527.jpg

Posted by: bcory May 27 2008, 01:12 AM

Looks like a rock got pushed along on the surface in the middle left of this mosaic. It seems to have left a trail

Possibly by thruster blast?

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_536.jpg

Posted by: tim53 May 27 2008, 01:19 AM

It sure does look like a trail. I suppose it could have been moved by the retro rockets. But it seems to have moved perpendicular to the wind tails behind other rocks.

-Tim.

Posted by: tim53 May 27 2008, 01:20 AM

I guess we'll soon see (hopefully). It seems too far south of west to be that hill. And I don't see anything in the MOLA topography in that direction, until you get to the big mesa.

-Tim.

Posted by: bcory May 27 2008, 01:23 AM

I am also thinking it may have been ejected by the force of a landing pad on the rocks edge and rolled a bit.

Posted by: tim53 May 27 2008, 01:27 AM

Yep, rolling probably makes more sense.

Posted by: belleraphon1 May 27 2008, 01:36 AM

DAMN... ANOTHER NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP.... (but loving it).....

Ok folks.... know I've said this before.... but I was 12 when Mariner 4 did it's flyby in 1965.... the images came down at 8.5 bits per second and took days to process ...this is SO mind boggling..... sitting here at my pc and watching these magnificent images pop into view, taken earlier today on Mars as I went about my daily tasks...... and we can all play with them.

There are no words for how I feel...

Craig

Posted by: algorimancer May 27 2008, 01:49 AM

But the trail it left really looks more like a slide than a roll. Looks to me like the thrusters angled off of that facet on its right to so that it effectively "tacked" to the left . Neat. Looks like some more sliding/rolling rock activity in the shadowed foreground.

Posted by: Gladstoner May 27 2008, 01:51 AM

Racetrack playa!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 27 2008, 02:04 AM

Was there supposed to be another press conference today?

Posted by: fredk May 27 2008, 02:10 AM

I'm very interested in this anaglyph: http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_540.jpg

It shows the north side of the lander, presumably areas that are accessible to the arm. Most of the surface looks quite flat, but there may be a trough to the left of "sliding rock". That would be exciting if true and if we could dig into the surface there. I'm not sure how the far side of this mosaic compares with the reach of the arm, though...

Posted by: bcory May 27 2008, 02:32 AM

Sort of makes one wonder if the DVD onboard the MPL will be obsolete by the time man gets to Mars and recovers it

-Dave

Posted by: nprev May 27 2008, 02:35 AM

No need to wonder...rest assured that it will be...but, they'll find a way to extract the data!

EDIT: Whups! Quick terminology check: you did mean Phoenix & not MPL, right? MPL's fate is unknown, do not recall if it carried a DVD or not.

Posted by: stewjack May 27 2008, 02:38 AM

There was a Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing at 2:00 p.m. EDT. Since I am posting this at 10:39 p.m. EDT you have missed it.

The next scheduled Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html

Edit: People who should know are claiming that both a tues and a wed 2:00 p.m. EDT Mars Phoenix Lander Briefing are scheduled. Apparently you can't trust everything you read on the web. However I have found it is far more accurate than my next door neighbor.

May 29, Thursday at 2:00 p.m. EDT.

May 30, Friday at 2:00 p.m. EDT.

**ALL PROGRAMS MAY BE PRE-EMPTED OR RESCHEDULED WITHOUT ADVANCE NOTICE**

Jack

Posted by: simonbp May 27 2008, 02:39 AM

Just in case you were wondering, How to Read the Phoenix Met Boom...

Simon

Posted by: nprev May 27 2008, 02:39 AM

What happened to the Tuesday brief?

Posted by: hal_9000 May 27 2008, 02:41 AM

backshell...

Posted by: jmjawors May 27 2008, 02:42 AM

http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3704&Itemid=1

Posted by: stewjack May 27 2008, 02:45 AM

**ALL PROGRAMS MAY BE PRE-EMPTED OR RESCHEDULED WITHOUT ADVANCE NOTICE**

Edit: People who should know are claiming that both a tues and a wed 2:00 p.m. EDT briefing is scheduled. Apparently you can't trust everything you read on the web. However I have found it is far more accurate than my next door neighbor.

Posted by: elakdawalla May 27 2008, 02:54 AM

That's odd. I don't know why the Tuesday briefing isn't showing up on the schedule. There is definitely one planned for 11 am tomorrow. It will be conducted from Tucson, with perhaps one person here at JPL -- the last day there will be any component from JPL (and hence the last day I'll be reporting from there).

There was never going to be another press conference today.

--Emily

Posted by: stewjack May 27 2008, 03:06 AM

OK Now lots of bandwidth will be available for streaming . Thank you NASA public affairs dept.

Posted by: dvandorn May 27 2008, 03:29 AM

MPL carried a disk with names, I know -- my name was one of them. But looking back at the time frame, I'd be more inclined to think it was a CD and not a DVD. Or it might even have been a little pack with microfilm in it... but my admittedly imperfect memory is telling me it was a CD.

Whatever happened to MPL, the names on it reached Mars, one way or another. They may not ever be readable, they may be embedded on shattered shards of a disk. But they're there.

-the other Doug

Posted by: bcory May 27 2008, 03:55 AM

Yes I meant the Phoenix

Sorry all

My bad

-Dave

Posted by: Stu May 27 2008, 05:15 AM

Thank you I was just wanting some feedback.

Posted by: tuvas May 27 2008, 05:45 AM

I'm trying to figure out exactly what was going on when the HiRISE picture of Phoenix was shot. The planned time of the photo was 23:34:40 SCET. It's really hard to work through the timing issues. I think it was about 2 minutes before landing, but I'm hoping you all can help me to get a better timeline.

Posted by: imipak May 27 2008, 06:13 AM

Rock? Looks more like a high-speed turtle to me

Posted by: mcaplinger May 27 2008, 06:22 AM

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-074a

Times in ERT, subtract OWLT of 15m20s for SCET. So chute deploy would have been at 23:34:55 SCET. Of course, since HiRISE is a line scanner you need to figure out the linetime of the line that has PHX in it, not the image start time.

If there are better timings available yet, I haven't seen them.

Posted by: dilo May 27 2008, 06:49 AM

Here two horizon stretches (both 2:1 ratio):

First one (from jg_543.jpg) has azimut between 154° and 218° and show pretty distant hills (crater walls?); I had to remove heavy jpeg artifacts, so image appear a little bit washed. Second one is from S0final.png, so quality is better; narrower azimut range should be between 336° and 352°, based on the following mosaic I made from all vertical projections available:

The pushed rock is really intriguing!

Posted by: n1ckdrake May 27 2008, 07:55 AM

Posted by: vmcgregor May 27 2008, 07:56 AM

Eeek! It should be on the schedule! Tuesday and Wednesday. Will check ASAP (and always feel free to contact me or my office if you think something isn't right):
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/media_contacts.cfm

Posted by: MarsEngineer May 27 2008, 08:01 AM

That was teasing me too until I realized (from Alfred) that the very large Heimdall crater is in the background. (distant background). MRO is working on an image update for you all .... More fun to come....

(Did I mention that I love HiRISE?)

I spent the evening with Peter Smith et al in the SOC trying to make sense of the images .... (hint: you can make out more EDL jetsam in the distance)

amazing. What a rush. Plus I found myself surrounded by many of the old Pathfinder science gang! We all look older, but the smiles are just as broad.

-Rob Manning

Posted by: Reckless May 27 2008, 08:26 AM

Hi all

just an idea on "sliding rock" Is there any chance that the Helium venting could have moved it?
Don't if the venting had enough oomf or if it happened it this direction.
Roy

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 08:32 AM

Rob,

It' SO good you're be around posting your thoughts and commenting for us.You're not ONLY good to land spacecrafts on Mars.

Posted by: SFJCody May 27 2008, 08:56 AM

Trivial, I know, but I wonder if anyone's thinking about rock/feature names yet.

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 09:47 AM

Here's my take on the color shot of the deck:

Posted by: SFJCody May 27 2008, 10:03 AM

Nice pic. I was expecting to see lots of vesicles in most of the rocks here a la Viking 2, but there aren't as many rocks of that appearance as I had thought there would be. Maybe the geology of this place is a bit more diverse than Utopia Planitia

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 10:08 AM

I'm in Milano at this time and it's hard to follow the meeting were I am and Phoenix progress at the same time
One collegue brought el "Corriere dela Sera" this morning and I sew a colored picture of Mars showing a deck in the foreground and a nice hill at the background. Also a B&W of Phoenix foot. So, thinking the picture has been release this night I jumped here to check for the nice colored picture and sew "only" a distant hill in B&W. I came back to the news paper and finally recognized Husband hill from Home Plate ... but they never said it was a picture from Spirit on the legend.
I've you seen this Dilo, Ilbaso, others in Italy?
I'm blown away. I thought we had seen everything with MERs, I was SO wrong! And the mission is only starting.
A big thanks to our pictures wizards here

Posted by: nprev May 27 2008, 10:14 AM

Didn't mean to make you "eeek", Veronica, but thanks for checking!

Posted by: jmknapp May 27 2008, 10:45 AM

Anyone know how to decipher the Phoenix image file names? For example:

SS001EDN896305593_10CF0L1M1.jpg



896305593 appears to be the spacecraft clock (SCLK). Not sure about the other fields.

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 10:59 AM

http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/filenames.html

First letter is S, R or O for SSI, RAC or Optical Microscope

The next S is for Surface
The next three are Sol Number ( in this case 001 )
EDN = downsampled raw
then the time, then a _ then the four digit observation code, then a single character for the observation type - leaving us with...

L1M1

M1 means MIPL, version 1

The L1 is the 'eye' and 'filter type'

http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/SSI_filter.html

Left eye - red stereo filter.

A useful tag is that for camera and filter, RA, RB and RC are right eye, RGB.

Doug

Posted by: Ant103 May 27 2008, 11:12 AM

Woaw Doug, a big thanks for you. This is exactly that was expected found. About the A, B & C filter, I had actually the sensation that it is RGB filters. Now, I'm sure. It will be easyer to compose color pics, no?

So, here is a try :

Posted by: MahFL May 27 2008, 12:02 PM

Looking at this picture blown up a bit, it looks like the hills have stripes or layers on them, did any one else notice that ?


http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_484.jpg

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 12:04 PM

Those look like classic binning/compression artifacts to me.

Posted by: jmknapp May 27 2008, 12:05 PM

Perfect!--thanks. Was thinking about making a web widget to do the decoding, unless maybe there's one out there already.

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 12:14 PM

Welcome back to the forum, Joe!

Posted by: slinted May 27 2008, 12:24 PM

I'm really impressed with the data release policy so far. The mosaics on the LPL site were showing up right alongside the raws, and the tags inside the jpg images will be a great tool for working with the raws. Huge kudos to the team for making the effort!

And finally, since it seems to be a regular old-timey color party in here...
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/processed/SS001EFF896308652_10D10RC.jpg

Posted by: Tesheiner May 27 2008, 12:33 PM

No site/drive numbers?

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 12:42 PM

Beautiful job Dan.


Looking at the surface, and speaking to Pete during our Marslive coverage - the surface looks very 'soft'.

Maybe ( and I'm guessing ) we'll have a fairly large layer of dust here - think about the dust falling onto the frost as it forms. As that frost goes away, it will gently drop the dust onto the surface. It'll only have half the time to be blown away during the year, and the frost forming will 'hide' dust from the wind. You know how cocoa powder sometimes barely feels like it's there - soft, fluffy, totally uncompacted. Totally unscientific guesswork, and we'll get answers soon enough I'm sure!

Doug

Posted by: SFJCody May 27 2008, 12:43 PM

I hope exploratorium starts carrying raw jpgs for Phoenix in the same way that it does for the MERs. Not that there's anything wrong with the main Phoenix site, I just like the 'one stop shop' aspect of things

Posted by: jaredGalen May 27 2008, 01:12 PM

Apparently there is a shot of the workspace ready to go up. Can't get the fullsize one though or the article.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/multimedia/testindex.html

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 01:22 PM

That is just MER testing imagery as a stand-in for putting together the website.

Doug

Posted by: jaredGalen May 27 2008, 01:24 PM

Ah nuts, thought I had a scoop!
Though looking closer at the image, I see it now.

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 01:33 PM

Yeah - I use "ESA" as probably too broad an umbrella title for the PI's of instruments not directly under the control of ESA per se. But I think the cultural difference is an across-the-pond difference. That the PI's are not held to a centralized outreach responsibility is the problem. 'ESA didn't pay for it' as their get out clause. My take on it is this, ESA did pay (and thus I paid), by bolting them onto a spacecraft and flying it to wherever it is going. As such, ESA should command from on high " You want to get on this spacecraft, you better start telling people about what you're doing, regularly, fully and quickly"

The best example of this I've found is Rosetta on the PDS. Alice data is there in full from the Earth flybys and the Mars Flyby. It's the only intrument to have put its data out.

It's good to have your thoughts though

Doug

Posted by: Skyrunner May 27 2008, 01:39 PM

I just build a windows program to do this. I could share it.

edit: I just uploaded the program here: http://www.olafzalm.nl/mars/
Comments are welcome

Posted by: ustrax May 27 2008, 02:00 PM

What a time for me to have problems in web access...

I have so much to catch up...

Amazing...just fantastically amazing...Phoenix, her images and you guys...just amazing...

Posted by: tuvas May 27 2008, 02:17 PM

Oh, BTW, I've been playing around with the timing a bit more, I think the real time of the observation was closer to 23:36:24 SCET. That translates to 23:51:44 ERT. That would put it right after the legs deployed, heat shield jettison, and radar being activated. Finding it's altitude is a bit more difficult at that moment, but I'm guessing 4 miles or so? Anyways, just thought I'd add this bit of analysis to the mix, thanks to mcaplinger for providing the web site!

Posted by: pechisbeque May 27 2008, 02:19 PM

I was not aware that the Mars Express team was also going to try to get an image from the EDL phase? I thought that their task was only to relay data.

Can someone tell me where is it stated that they were going for a picture?

Posted by: tuvas May 27 2008, 02:23 PM

See http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5140&st=0. Could it be false? Well, yah...

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 02:33 PM

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM3ZB1YUFF_0.html

" It is planned that two Mars Express instruments, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and the Ultraviolet and Infrared Atmospheric Spectrometer (SPICAM), will be turned on for observations during the Phoenix EDL."

Were the images taken, were they succesfull, what do they look like if they were. Someone knows. We don't.

Doug

Posted by: pechisbeque May 27 2008, 02:39 PM

Well thanks, through the text in that post I got to:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Operations/SEM1941YUFF_0.html

So I guess they really tried. Probably they pointed the instrument to the place where Phoenix was really supposed to be and they didn't catch it.

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 02:53 PM

I didn't see the comment here but, my opinion is that we can see one of the legs deployed on Emily's enhance image

Posted by: fredk May 27 2008, 02:58 PM

If I'm correct, the sol1 images included the workspace on the north side of the lander. I'm not sure about the distances, but I expect a large part of these mosaics to be in reach of the arm:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230713main_S_001EDN_POL_SR10D0E_R111M1.jpg

And the anaglyph which I already linked to yesterday:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230627main_S_001EDN_CYP_SR10D0E_A111M1.jpg

Based on the angles, I estimate that mosaic goes out to about 3 metres.

Posted by: Juramike May 27 2008, 03:06 PM

Why does this rock have so much dust on it?

Link to image: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230343main_SS001EDN896307254_10D0ER1M1.jpg

(It is located close to the "Rolling Rock")

-Mike

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 03:08 PM

Dust kicked up by rocket exhaust?

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 03:09 PM

Probably because Phoenix's engines blew dust onto it.

Posted by: remcook May 27 2008, 03:10 PM

yeah, dust definitely seems to have been moved around there and below (in the picture) it.

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 03:10 PM

In the time it took me to hit reply, two of you posted my exact thoughts

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 03:14 PM

Make that three, Doug.

Question: I didn't catch this in yesterday's press conference, when are they planning to take some serious multi-filter scenery shots? I recall them saying they're going to do an opposite view in one filter first, I guess this was it? A related question, does anyone know the typical data volume relayed per Odyssey pass?

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 03:18 PM

A typical MER 128kbps pass is 50 - 80 Megabits. Phoenix would, I imagine, be the same. It'll be interesting to see if they decide to do really good passes at 256kbps (like MER does from time to time). With that big helical UHF antenna, I can't imagine why they wouldn't - 256k passes are usually 90-130 Mbits. (info here - http://mgsw3.jpl.nasa.gov/seq/relay/srpr/08115-08129.s00.apgen.notes )

Doug

Posted by: ElkGroveDan May 27 2008, 03:19 PM

I haven't seen anything here yet (nor in the press conferences) about this problem with a covering on the arm. From an AP story:

The one snag on the lander occurred when the protective sheath around the trench-digging robotic arm failed to unwrap all the way after touchdown and now covers the arm's elbow joint. Deputy project scientist Deborah Bass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said scientists still planned to move the arm Tuesday, but it could take an extra day to fully stretch it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080527/ap_on_sc/phoenix_mars;_ylt=Ai3U7vadn99iyMkaJzS5TKNvzwcF

Anyone know anything more?

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 03:21 PM

Barry mentioned that the bio barrier might just be folder over the arm at one end, but that it wouldn't be a problem at all, they can just brush past as they deploy.

Doug

Posted by: jmjawors May 27 2008, 03:23 PM

It was mentioned in the presser yesterday that the cover didn't fully deploy. It was characterized as an inconvenience and not a show-stopper, and that they had prepared in their sims for situations far worse than this one.

Edit : Beat to it!

Posted by: remcook May 27 2008, 03:33 PM

no surprise that people say the same thing at the same time, since this thread gets about 1000 views an hour!

Posted by: Juramike May 27 2008, 03:38 PM

Wow! Consensus in 2 minutes!

Here's a graphic showing the Dusty Rock (along with the Rolling Rock). The original mosaic is found here (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230713main_S_001EDN_POL_SR10D0E_R111M1.jpg)

The red dotted line in the graphic appears to indicate a margin inside of which dust was deposited and scoured, probably by the thruster blast. The blue zone in the graphic is where I would guess dust was just deposited. Beyond the blue zone, it looks like the terrain is unaltered.



-Mike

Posted by: jmknapp May 27 2008, 03:44 PM

Thanks--could you post the source?

Posted by: ahecht May 27 2008, 03:48 PM

I did a color correction based on the known colors in the Phoenix Logo. It is attached below.

I also made up a couple of 3D images based on the famous landing leg image. The first is a crosseyed stereo image -- stand about 4 feet away from the monitor and cross your eyes to combine the two views. The second is a standard red-blue anaglyph. It is pretty neat to see the mount of dirt that piled up as the leg slid on landing.

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 03:51 PM

Did they sent a B&W Stars & Stripes?

Posted by: MahFL May 27 2008, 03:54 PM

I was wondering too about the Stars and Stripes. I can't imagine it would be B and W.

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 03:55 PM

It's in color, but is rather dark and the raw frames can play tricks in this case - contrast stretching coupled with CCD bias, nonlinear DN curve, etc.

See the brightened and saturated crop:

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 03:56 PM

It's colour, I'm sure, but perhaps it's an un-polished anodized aluminium, thus not too shiny or bright at this illumination.

Doug

Posted by: PhilCo126 May 27 2008, 04:01 PM

Unbelievable information in just one sol, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Phoenix Lander are two amazing spacecraft indeed!
Well done JPL !

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 04:01 PM

I would have not imagine it was not in colors. I mean, we've not got "real" colors scenery yet.

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 04:03 PM

This deck view is in fact the first RGB color set to get transmitted down. For "real" colors you'll have to wait for calibrated imagery.

Posted by: Skyrunner May 27 2008, 04:08 PM

No, but I can mail it to you, it's Delphi

Posted by: bgarlick May 27 2008, 04:08 PM

There seems to be alot of cobble sized rocks. What if the bottoms of some of these rocks are frozen in the ice layer below? Is the arm strong enough to pull a rock free of the ice? (I would image not). Is it a concern that the arm won't be able to get down to the ice beause of the armor of frozen in rocks above?
Do we expet the ice itself to be largely rock free (ie rocks have been expelled by freeze/thaw)?

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 04:14 PM

Some rocks already moved rather easily. It was a surprised to me. One possibility would be that Phoenix landed a bit sideway and moved soil and rocks. That could explain moved rocks, soil in the footplate and scratches in the soil. Just trying to propose another thought on what we see so far.

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 04:16 PM

At touch down - vertical velocity was 2.4m/s - horizontal velocity only 0.1m/s

Posted by: um3k May 27 2008, 04:18 PM

Looking at these images, it occurs to me that a significant part of the landing site is obscured by the solar panels. Does the RAC have the ability to observe these areas?

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 04:19 PM

I'm not that surprised several small rocks were moved by the thrusters. Remember this is 1/3 Earth gravity and those thrusters undoubtedly pack quite a punch. Not sure of the exhaust velocity, but it's bound to be in excess of a few Machs and that's fast.

Posted by: centsworth_II May 27 2008, 04:20 PM

I seem to recall mention at a press briefing that once the arm was extended, they would look at the other foot pads.

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 04:23 PM

2,4 m/s give 8,64 km/h which is more than anticipated (I guess it was 5 km/h). Can we say it was a "hard" landing?

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 04:26 PM

5 miles/h was anticipated. Any landing you can walk away from is a soft landing. Obviously, Phoenix can't walk away anywhere, but it still landed softly.

Posted by: ddeerrff May 27 2008, 04:29 PM

2.4 m/s = 5.37 miles per hour. Advertised landing speed was 5 MPH , not 5 km/h. It's important to keep units straight approaching mars

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 04:29 PM

Ah, once again km vs miles, I misunderstood so the landing speed was perfect in all directions. This drive me confident to skycrane system. Finally the "only" unknown will be to release the lander and not to stop at xxx meters from the ground.

Posted by: MahFL May 27 2008, 04:32 PM

I have a question about the Hi-rise images of all the proposed landing area's of Phoenix, many of them show lots of rocks, how big are the rocks ?
Where Phoenix landed, so far we see only fairly small rocks ( I know they chose it because of the lack of rocks ).

Posted by: djellison May 27 2008, 04:45 PM

Yes - I think they've mentioned observing the landers soft-underbelly with the RAC - and Mark Lemmon told Emily that they might even use the RAC for DD monitoring as it has quite a wide FOV compared to the SSI.

Doug

Posted by: volcanopele May 27 2008, 04:46 PM

Thanks for making that color correction. I posted my version of that image without color correction, but I tried doing it with the American flag as a "calibration target", though that failed. My guess is that the colors on the flag are not very saturated on the spacecraft. Would be nice to have a picture of the DVD from Earth to better "calibrate" the color.

Posted by: ugordan May 27 2008, 04:48 PM

This one could do: http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z213/effinglibrarian/phoenix_dvd.jpg
As a matter of fact, I based my color on that and also on the "true" false color Phoenix 3-frame mosaic.

Posted by: DFinfrock May 27 2008, 04:51 PM

Maybe I'm just slow. But I just now noticed the name of the web address displaying the Phoenix photos:

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_527.jpg

I wonder who on the Phoenix team is a Harry Potter fan? Fawkes was the name of Professor Dumbledore's phoenix.

Maybe this time, the nearby rocks and soil targets will be named for Harry Potter characters?

Posted by: Julius May 27 2008, 05:08 PM

Anyone knows a thing about a microphone on Phoenix?Seems like noone has mentioned it and I'm not sure now that theres one!

Posted by: JRehling May 27 2008, 05:23 PM

It's hard to get out of the MER mindset, isn't it? We see distant hills and want to see them closer. But just wait -- the story isn't "over there" -- it's "down there"!

Posted by: climber May 27 2008, 05:25 PM

Any chance they use MER's capability software for this?

Posted by: hal_9000 May 27 2008, 05:28 PM

no mics..

Posted by: stewjack May 27 2008, 05:49 PM

May 27, Tuesday
2 p.m. EDT - Mar Phoenix Lander Briefing - JPL/Tucson (Public and Media Channels)

I am posting this at 1:50 p.m. EDT


Jack

Posted by: gallen_53 May 27 2008, 05:59 PM

Great minds work alike. I found myself thinking:

"The terrain is a bit featureless here... It'll be a good thing when we can move to someplace more interesting... Oh wait a minute! That's not an option!"

I think after Phoenix it will be clear to everyone that you either want your lander to have mobility --or-- have the capability of precisely droping a rover next to an immobile lander. The second option might be a smart way to explore Mars:

Drop lots of cheap immobile landers to do an initial reconnaissance (very simple vehicles like the early Soviet Mars landers). If the area looks interesting then drop in a "cheap" rover like MER. If the area looks extremely interesting then drop in a billion dollar class rover or send astronauts.