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Posted by: djellison Dec 14 2004, 08:34 PM

http://www.msss.com/press_releases/mslselection/index.html

Some astonishing proposals there - full colour motion descent imagery

Not sure what use 10fps video is - as even MSL will still crawl along at a slow pace making it very boring viewing Notice the HDTV resolution of it though - James Cameron has got involved - should be interesting!

Doug

Posted by: dot.dk Dec 14 2004, 09:11 PM

Nice to see video from MARS!

Can't wait for MSL! It will use nuckclear power right? Any idea how far this thing can go?

Just so long before 2009
As we wait we will have MRO and Phoenix landers

NASA.. Please don't screw these missions. Way to exciting

Posted by: tedstryk Dec 14 2004, 10:14 PM

With the Mars Telcom orbiter in limbo or dead, how do they intend to downlink all this wonderful coverage? MRO?

Posted by: djellison Dec 14 2004, 10:32 PM

MRO has a huge capacity for downlink - not as much as MTO - but 4Mbit/sec DTE at least - and of course, the Electra UHF payload is designed for a relay between 4kb and 2Mbit/sec - the expected total relay is about 150MBits/day for MRO.

However MTO is expected to be able to relay 1.5GBit/sol

Doug

Posted by: tedstryk Dec 14 2004, 11:29 PM

Has anyone heard anything lately on the status of MTO?

Posted by: Sunspot Dec 15 2004, 12:10 AM

10:1 zoom.........cool, ive always wondered why they never had the those before. .....and single colour imaging

Posted by: Sunspot Dec 15 2004, 01:30 AM

A little more information on some of the other proposed science intruments:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2004-290

Selected investigations and principal investigators:

-- "Mars Science Laboratory Mast Camera," Michael Malin, Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif. Mast Camera would perform multi-spectral, stereo imaging at lengths ranging from kilometers to centimeters, and can acquire compressed high-definition video at 10 frames per second without the use of the rover computer.

-- "ChemCam: Laser Induced Remote Sensing for Chemistry and Micro-Imaging," Roger Wiens, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M. ChemCam would ablate surface coatings from materials at standoff distances of up to 10 meters and measure elemental composition of underlying rocks and soils.

-- "Mahli: Mars HandLens Imager for the Mars Science Laboratory," Kenneth Edgett, Malin Space Science Systems. Mahli would image rocks, soil, frost and ice at resolutions 2.4 times better, and with a wider field of view, than the Microscopic Imager on the Mars Exploration Rovers.

-- "The Alpha-Particle-X-ray-Spectrometer for Mars Science Laboratory," Ralf Gellert, Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany. This instrument would determine elemental abundance of rocks and soil. It will be provided by the Canadian Space Agency.

-- "CheMin: An X-ray Diffraction/X-ray Fluorescence instrument for definitive mineralogical analysis in the Analytical Laboratory of Mars Science Laboratory," David Blake, NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. CheMin, would identify and quantify all minerals in complex natural samples such as basalts, evaporites and soils, one of the principle objectives of Mars Science Laboratory.

-- "Radiation Assessment Detector," Donald Hassler, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. This instrument would characterize the broad spectrum of radiation at the surface of Mars, an essential precursor to human exploration of the planet. The instrument would be funded by the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

-- "Mars Descent Imager," Michael Malin, Malin Space Science Systems. The Mars Descent Imager would poduce high-resolution color-video imagery of the descent and landing phase, providing geological context information, as well as allowing for precise landing-site determination.

-- "Sample Analysis at Mars with an integrated suite consisting of a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, and a tunable laser spectrometer," Paul Mahaffy, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. This instrument would perform mineral and atmospheric analyses, detect a wide range of organic compounds and perform stable isotope analyses of organics and noble gases.

Posted by: Pando Dec 15 2004, 01:36 AM

I'm wondering what the actual CCD pixel resolution is for the MastCam? Yes it has been indicated that it can do 1280x720 HD video, but what is the resolution for stills? I can't believe they will attempt 1280x720 stills with this thing; it's gotta be in the order of 10+ megapixels, right??

Posted by: djellison Dec 15 2004, 08:11 AM

Well - if the hand lends is 2.4 more than the MER MI - and all three are using the same CCD Design - it's 2.4 megapixels - so perhaps not square pixels - but something in the order of 2000 x 1200 pixels - or 1500 square?

Remember - MER launched at a time when 3, 4, 5 megapixel cameras were normal commercial products - and has only 1 MSL will launch when 6, 8, 12, meg pixels is normal - so launching with 2-3 is to be expected.

Doug

Posted by: YesRushGen Dec 15 2004, 01:37 PM

That's one reason I really wish they were sending TWO MSL's. Since MSL is not using a tried and tested EDL sequence, there is far greater risk.

I mean, the lander just hovering and lowering the rover on a teather??? That sounds crazy to me. (Then of course, so did Pathfinder's EDL sequence in 1997!)

Posted by: djellison Dec 15 2004, 02:10 PM

Two $400M rovers - that's doable on the Mars Exploration budget

Two $800-1000M rovers. That's hardly doable on the ISS budget

Doug

Posted by: tedstryk Dec 15 2004, 02:50 PM

I don't know....I think if you include the nearly annual overruns, you could send several. I mean, at 1.2 Billion per shuttle mission, that's a rover and a part of another.

Posted by: YesRushGen Dec 15 2004, 03:15 PM

LOL. Well, that's true about MSL costing more than the MERs did. Still, the Viking spacecrafts were pretty pricey - and two of those were sent!

As a side note, it seems they could build more clones of MER for pretty cheap.

Now, I know that the MER design is now "obsolete" and that MSL's instrumentation/longevity will far outlast MER. In spite of that, it seems a shame to waste a perfectly good design.

It seems to me that if more MERs were built, each one would be cheaper than the last. The development cost is already done - spent on the initial development of Spirit and Oppy. The "how to operate them" is also done. The lessons of operation have been learned. Just build carbon copies. (Well, maybe plug in different instrumentation)

Let me re-iterate that I'm not arguing for a "MER-only" approach to exploring Mars. I'm simply suggesting that using additional MERs to "augment" the ongoing exploration of Mars would be a good thing.

regards,

Kelly

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Dec 21 2004, 06:03 PM

You must have access to some unique information, especially since JPL is deep in the design and subcontracting process for MTO. Indeed, a science definition team (SDT) has already forwarded its recommendation to NASA prioritizing potential areas of interest that could utilize the minor mass allocation for science investigations MTO currently has.

Posted by: djellison Dec 21 2004, 06:16 PM

Good point Alex - when I read his post i thought he meant a failed mission - and not a cancellation. MTO is a go, and a necessity for future landers

Doug

Posted by: Sunspot Dec 21 2004, 06:34 PM

MTO gets a brief mention on the JPL future missions page - but I couldn't find any information on it at http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/

Posted by: djellison Dec 21 2004, 08:36 PM

http://acquisition.jpl.nasa.gov/rfp/mtodesignstudies/

The JPL Aquisition site is fantastic

Doug

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Dec 21 2004, 09:30 PM

There isn't a great deal of information on the Web but there is some. Below are a few links:

Request for Proposal
Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) Flight System
VTD-2672-MTO
http://acquisition.jpl.nasa.gov/rfp/VTD-2672-MTO/default.htm

Mars Telecommunications Orbiter Science Definition Team Report from the Mars Aeronomy Conference, August 18-19, 2004 (3.9 Mb PPT)
http://argyre.colorado.edu/life/aeronomy_workshop/zurek-mto-sdt-report.ppt

Abstract from the 35th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/1775.pdf

Posted by: djellison Dec 21 2004, 10:25 PM

It's an interesting challenge. 5W and 5KG - but, compared to missions of today - an almost limitless data budget - what would YOU do I think some sort of multispectral global imager would be fairly doable - Pushbroom on multiple channels - nIR, G, B, nUV type stuff - or other particular spectral windows that would tell us something interesting - at the km-scale res. HiRISE heritage CCD's to save cash.

Doug

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Dec 28 2004, 09:49 AM

Actually, there's one extremely detailed Web description of MTO at http://acquisition.jpl.nasa.gov/rfp/mtodesignstudies/exhibit1.pdf (45 pg.), and an 11-page one at http://techreports.jpl.nasa.gov/2003/03-2287.pdf .

As for its science payload: the Science Definition Team report mentioned by Alex goes into considerable detail on what useful things they might be able to cram into that 5 kg, 5 watt, $5 million design limit. The top priorities would seem to be (as expected) a weather-pattern imager (which might be multispectral and include IR wavelengths), along with a follow-up to Mars Odyssey's MARIE radiation environment studies, and a detector of "pickup ions" torn away from Mars' upper atmosphere by the solar wind, to follow up on the studies by Phobos 2 and Mars Express of the rate at which this is causing Mars to lose its air. A multi-channel IR sounder to follow up on MRO's detailed altitude profiles of Mars' weather, and a UV imager to inspect the corona of H and O atoms being expelled from its atmosphere by solar UV, are probably too heavy to squeeze into that tiny weight margin with the other instruments.

Posted by: DEChengst Dec 30 2004, 10:55 AM

The JPL press release also states that MAHLI will have a wider field of view than the MI on MER, so it would need to be more than 2.4 megapixel.

Posted by: DEChengst Dec 30 2004, 11:04 AM

There's another reason why it's smart to send at least two rovers. It makes the chance for discovery better. The best evidence for a watery past was provided by Opportunity. Spirit didn't find real evidence until she reached the Columbia hills. If NASA would only have launched Spirit and she would have landed a few kilometers further away from the hills I don't think she would have made it to the hills to find all the rocks altered by water. A site can look great from orbit, but once on the ground it can turn out you just can't get to the evidence.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Dec 31 2004, 03:38 AM

There are, however, good reasons to think that a single rover of the MSL type (cost considerations aside) can be far more scientifically cost-effective than a single MER could be. For one thing, it can drive vastly farther, sampling more types of geology. For another, MSL will have a precision-targeting landing system to bring it down reliably within 10 km of its landing point -- whereas the big landing ellipses for MER, which had to have survivable landing terrain throughout their areas, ruled out a huge number of extremely interesting scientific spots on Mars.

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Jan 2 2005, 05:46 PM

MSSS is providing http://www.msss.com/msl/ on the three camera they are providing for 2009 MSL.

Posted by: DEChengst Jan 2 2005, 06:30 PM

The MastCam is going to be incredible. The PanCam on MER can be used to create a 22,000 x 4000 pixels panorama. The MastCam CCD will be 1200x1200 pixels. With maximum zoom the FOV will be only 6 degrees. So a full panorama should be 72,000 x 13,000 pixels. That's about 935 Mpixel or 2.8 GB It looks like we're all going to need a new PC with several GBs of memory to create those panoramas.

Posted by: djellison Jan 2 2005, 06:34 PM

Well - we'll all have new computers by then anyway

Doug

Posted by: DEChengst Jan 2 2005, 06:48 PM

And we will be playing Racing Legends on them

Posted by: DEChengst Jan 6 2005, 08:04 PM

They should make the HDTV recording automatic. Have the MastCam at the widest zoom take a picture every second or so. Analyse the image to see if there is a dust devil in it. If there is one use a stereo image to determine where it is. Point the PanCam at it, zoom to the 6 degrees FOV and start making a HDTV movie.

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 6 2005, 08:12 PM

Except that by the time the dust devil had been identified on earth and the command to zoom in on it had been returned to the spacecraft, the dust devil would be long gone.

Ted

Posted by: DEChengst Jan 6 2005, 08:16 PM

You missed the word "automatic" With "analyse the image" I mean that the rover itself does the analyses.

Posted by: slinted Jan 7 2005, 08:50 PM

I'm particularily interested in the MastCam using the Kodak KAI-2001CM interline CCD, which has a good writeup by Kodak at : http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/digital/ccd/products/interline/KAI-2001LongSpec.pdf

Some things I picked up from reading this...

This document lists a minimum storage temperature of -55 C, which would mean that some sort of heating would be required to prevent the temps from dropping that low during the night.

The 3 color bayer pattern on the CM model does allow some IR imaging, same as MER, but its efficiency is much lower from 800nm on, only 10% as compared to 30% at 800nm on MER.

There's a ton more info in there, for those who are intersted.

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 7 2005, 09:07 PM

It seems quite difficult to imagine a rover picking such things out automatically. It took much processing of the Pathfinder images before dust devils were identified.

Posted by: DEChengst Jan 9 2005, 05:19 PM

That all ofcourse depends on the distance to the dust devil. If it's far away and at the resolution limit of the camera it will be hard to spot a dust devil. If it's close it shouldn't be to hard to see that there is a dust devil. It may be more difficult to have a computer recognise it, but if you don't even try to develop such technology you can be sure you'll never catch a dust devil in a movie.

Posted by: DEChengst Feb 21 2005, 06:31 PM

Shortly after the announcment was made that MSSS would supply three camera's for MSL I wrote an email to Michael Ravine with some questions regarding the technical specs of the cameras. It took a while and finally recieved a reply yesterday. All the details are in the three PDF files that appeared on the MSSS website in the meantime, but here is his reply anyway:

Posted by: jamescanvin Feb 28 2005, 06:28 AM

I'm guessing this is going to be on the rover itself as it's using the skycrane EDL method? If so, could this flashy colour video be used on the surface post landing? I guess the big question is can it even focus on objects that close? If so, it could provide some nice close up pictures of the terrain it's crossing.

Another thought: If they mounted one of these on the skycrane we would get the coolest video ever made as the rover is lowered to the surface!

JC

Posted by: centsworth_II Feb 28 2005, 07:32 AM

"could this flashy colour video be used on the surface post landing?"

There will be video on the rover. I don't know if its the same as the decent video. My guess is no.

Posted by: djellison Feb 28 2005, 09:10 AM

The descent camera will make a movie - and the mastcam can make movies as well

Doug

Posted by: MiniTES Feb 28 2005, 11:50 PM

But is the descent imager on the rover or the Skycrane? I'd imagine it's on the rover as it would have an unobstructed view donward.

Posted by: lyford Mar 25 2005, 04:01 AM

Does anyone know the proposed height for the mast of the mast cam? After seeing Meridiani creep along from 2 meters high, it would be nice to have a periscope see out from a higher vantage point....
Some earlier designs seemed to have quite an extendable boom for the cameras, but I can't find any current info. Plenty specs for the camera, but not for the mount....

This one seems to feature an extendable mast:



This one doesn't:

Posted by: lyford Mar 25 2005, 05:40 PM

Well, I found this http://centauri.larc.nasa.gov/msl/MSL_cfg-dwg_040608.pdf

Looks like the mast is no longer El Super Mast, but only a MER style unit. - And we are limited to 2m again.... Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

Posted by: erwan Mar 25 2005, 07:15 PM

Seems Batman will be on board?!

Posted by: lyford Mar 25 2005, 07:50 PM

Yes.
The RTG Heat Exchanger looks even cooler (no pun intended) in isometric view:

Posted by: cIclops Mar 25 2005, 08:34 PM

This drawing was around back in August last year and note that the filename indicates a date of 8 June 2004 ... a lot has happened since then and a lot will happen, it's too early to say what the final design will be.

Posted by: Mark Rejhon Apr 18 2005, 05:40 AM

Actually, it's easier than you think.

It's Mathematics 101.
(1) Verify rover is stationary (otherwise, don't bother executing motion detect)
(2) Verify camera is stationary (otherwise, don't bother executing motion detect)
(3) Snap picture X
(4) Snap picture X+1 about 0.25 seconds later. (Or you could even do 1 second intervals)
(5) Do simple mathematics of subtracting the corresponding pixels of image X+1 from X
(Optimization: Do this only for every Nth pixel horizontally and vertically, say every 4 or 8 pixels.)
(6) Total up all the differences between the corresponding pixel values between image X+1 from X, from the above step.
(7) If this numeric total SPIKES (either positive or negative bias).... there's motion! Start recording immediately.
(8) If numeric total is pretty close to 0, keep repeating steps 1-7.

With the suggested optimization included, this is easily doable on a slow 10 megahertz radiation-hardened processor, even for 2 megapixel images, processed every 0.25ms, using simplified assembly language. And this still leaves plenty of CPU overhead.

If the motion-detect performance optimization is included, it may miss dust devils smaller than 4 pixels across, but it will catch dust devils bigger than that. (Adjust performance optimizations to suit the needs of the down-clocked radiation-hardened CPU used.)

Noise will affect results, but noise can be measured in advance, and be used as a cutoff value, between motion versus no-motion. (i.e. how far away from zero, before motion is declared and video is automatically recorded)

Memory will definitely need to be big enough to hold two uncompressed images, for doing mathematics with at sufficiently realtime speeds.

MER had more powerful processors than 10Mhz, as I understand it (20 MIPS). Plus, memory was most certainly big enough (Something like 128MB). So assuming MSL has better specs, it is well positioned to almost certainly include automatic motion detection software. Even at its slow speeds, MER definitely has a CPU and RAM powerful enough to do motion detection -- if it weren't for the very slow pancam frame capture rate.

Checking every 4th pixel of a 2 megapixel image (4-step horizontally and vertically) only checks 1/16th of the pixels. You'd only need to watch a scant 90,000 pixels of a 2 megapixel image, to detect motion of objects bigger than 4 pixels. (Variables do apply here like noise, how faint the object is, so the object may need to be bigger to compensate for the faintness and still be above noise threshold, but you engineers get the idea of what I am talking about).

At approximately only 5 instructions per pixel (pixel load from X, pixel load from X+1, subtract the two, add result to an accumulator, increment pixel counter to load from next pixel), required for motion-detection mathematics, that's only 450,000 instructions. Plus a few instructions for end-of-row loop counter, and finally the cutoff value check. Let's be generous and throw in a crazy codebloat of 300%, by programming it in C++ instead of assembly, or waitstates caused by radiation-hardened ECC-type memory, etc. That's 2,000,000 instructions. A 20,000,000 instructions-per-second CPU can easily do the math, the same CPU used in the MER's. (At 0.25 seconds, you've got time to execute 5,000,000 instructions.) You can easily see where I am getting at, the MER hardware have specs capable of doing motion detection - if the cameras were able to capture fast enough.

Experimentation will be needed -- you may need to poll the image at different intervals such as -- every 1 second instead of 0.25 second, because the dust devils may not have moved much in 0.25 seconds. This makes it an even easier load on a CPU -- you'd only need to execute 450,000 instructions once a second -- a CPU load of less than 3%. (Or less than 12% for the 'bloated-code' version). In fact, there might even be enough CPU left to execute simultaneous motion detection algorithms for slow and fast moving objects, so that recording begins more quickly for fast moving objects, but still being able to detect slow moving objects or fainter objects.

Motion detection ain't rocket science -- even a high school graduate can do it.

Heck, even I can do it -- and there's no doubt the professional engineers will definitely do motion detection in MSL. It'd be stupid not to inlcude it, if you've got cameras capable of doing 10fps!

I programmed for an open-source realtime image video processor, at http://www.dscaler.org so I can vouch for what I am saying here. I'm listed in the 'Authors' credits. Go check it out.

Posted by: Mark Rejhon Apr 23 2005, 08:07 PM

JPL succeeded in a crude form of motion-sensing on the original MER rovers.

DUST DEVIL MOVIE by SPIRIT MER
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main.html

It is low framerate though, but it shows frames of the same dust devil (and its shadow) in motion.

According to article I read about this, they used some kind of an image combination technique, not too different from what I just described above. Similiar "simple mathematics" is used to determine changed pixels. While not exactly the same algorithms as the technique I described above, and this was done on Planet Earth on a series of 21 thumbnails, that even the 'lowly' MER can successfully capture a movie of dust devils - exercised in actual practice!

If MER can successfully capture a dust devil movie, I see no problem for MSL doing it!



These frames were captured 20 seconds apart. Now, imagine this at 10 frames per second from MSL! That'd be something to see.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 23 2005, 09:24 PM

On the identifying dust devils front, perhaps optical identification is a bit of a red herring. Rather than having the cameras staring constantly in the hope of picking up the subtle hints of one starting, why not link the imaging system (however smart it may be) to the meteorological instruments and simply start the intensive optical analyses when the pressure changes start. After all, Pathfinder recorded a fair number of such events purely through the instrumentation...

Posted by: deglr6328 Apr 23 2005, 09:49 PM

It might even be simpler than using meteorological instruments like anemometers etc and then waiting untill a devil is right on top of you. The swirling fine dust in a dust devil is thought to produce (through triboelectric processes) high electrostatic field gradients exceeding thousands of V/m. An electric field measurement device would be ideal. Very simple construction, no moving parts, temperature insensitive, small, very low power consumption, very fast response times and it would be potentially capable of detecting the dust devil from at least a few 10s of meters away giving ample time for imaging.

Posted by: tedstryk May 3 2005, 02:00 PM

So did Viking, though unlike Pathfinder it never photographed one (not because they weren't there, but because with the Vikings' slow line scanning camera, a dust devil would be impossible to indentify.

Posted by: djellison May 3 2005, 02:26 PM

Once you measure a pressure drop - the devil is 'on' you literally - and then you start taking picture in ...well..which direction I guess you could have pseudo code like...

if delta-pressure > X over Y seconds then....
point cameras in direction of wind from 1 minute ago ( i.e prevailing downwind )
take movies for 5 minutes

but - far better would simply be to point the camera in a direction - and then when it notices something different in the field of view, start taking pictures - then once the 'difference' in frames is in the middle of the f.o.v., start moving the camera in the direction of travel.

Doug

Posted by: Phil Stooke May 3 2005, 04:46 PM

In the case of a rock or a 'ripple' etc., you can make a case that the closer you view it the more you can see. From Navcam to Pancam to MI we see more and more on these targets. But is this true for a dust devil? Up to a point, certainly - it's better to see it from 500 m than 5 km. Recently we have had these 'movies' in which a fair bit of structure is visible.

But I would suggest there's no advantage to getting much closer than that. A big diffuse object is seen better from a distance than close up. So I think a strategy of viewing across a wide area from a good vantage point - e.g. looking west from Larry's Lookout - is the best way to view dust devils. You may see a bit of structure in the nearer ones - though that doesn't teach you much... but you get good stats on occurrence, direction, height, optical depth and so on. Waiting until a rover experiences a wind/pressure signature and then taking images is the worst way to study them. (IMHO)

Phil

Posted by: dvandorn May 3 2005, 06:49 PM

If I'm not mistaken, didn't Pathfinder actually detect a dust devil pass nearly over it? I remember reading a report of the event -- the wind direction changed through 360 degrees over less than a minute and the pressure shifted at all three spots along the mast where the meteorological pressure sensors were located, consistent with a dust devil passing.

IIRC, there were no visible changes in Pathfinder's area after its devil passed -- perhaps it passed overhead (i.e., a funnel that lifted off the ground and passed over Pathfinder itself)? So it's possible that instruments to detect a dust devil passing directly overhead might still not manage to let a probe capture images of it.

I think the only really effective way of capturing images of the little devils is a synoptic survey. But, hey -- any rover worth its salt can do that while performing other tasks, right? Like while doing a long Mossbauer or APXS integration?

-the other Doug

Posted by: Mark Rejhon May 7 2005, 02:39 AM

Spirit just captured a spetacular series of dust devils:



That's 20 seconds between most frames. Wait till MSL with full color high-def at 0.1 seconds between frames!

Posted by: dilo May 15 2005, 11:08 PM

OK, I'm a little bit disappointed why NASA didn't consider also some kind of "panospherc" camera, in order to take fast 360-deg panoramas and eventually detect transient events like dust devils... This kind of "super fish-eye" is easy to make putting a vertically mounted camera below a spherical or conical reflector:
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/projects/vista/images/newpanomirror1.jpg
System is widely employed and was successfully used on "pseudo mars rover" traversing the Acatama desert: http://www.ri.cmu.edu/projects/project_153.html
One more sophisticated version could be done with a "column scanning" device made by a rotating wide angle lens joined to a linear sensor; if we put in the focal plan more than one sensor row, each with different coated filter, we could realize fast panoramic multi-spectral images of all around objects, easily identifyng geologically interesting targets!
For example, a system with 70 deg vertical field of view and a dozen of 4kpixel linear sensors could easly accomplish all MER Panoramic Camera functions in terms of spatial/spectral resolution!
Yes, there some small side effects (small compared to advantages):
1) Rover shouldn't move during aquisition of image.
2) In case of rotating system, this introduce a moving part, more prone to fail...
3) All people that partecipate to this Forum dooing MER images stitching (like me) should find something else to do!