Here is an updated table with the latest information.

Fernando

Hi Phil,

I highlighted the word just because there has been an ESA report on parachute failure dated from June 28.Are you referring to a different, more recent, test?
Fernando

The Chadrayaan-2 mission seems to be proceeding according to plan, the probe having successfully completed all the Earth orbit raising manoeuvres on August 6. The next orbital change is the trans-lunar injection, scheduled for August 14.
Here is a comparison table for the attained and planed orbits.


The information is taken from the Updates web site and the mission plan
Fernando

Many thanks for the feedback Paul
Fernando

Happy Anniversary Curiosity! 7 Earth years on Mars!

Update to sol 2481. Both the 16 miles and the 21 km marks are already in the "rear mirror".
The problem with the distance grid is solved. Thanks again to Phil and Gerald for the information shared here.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2481_2019AUG06.kmz ( 748.08K ) Number of downloads: 277

Mars Science Laboratory Release 21

The NASA Planetary Data System announces the 21st release of data from the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, covering data acquired from
Sol 2225 through Sol 2358 (November 8, 2018, to March 26, 2019).

This release consists of raw and derived data sets from the following
instruments:
Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)
Chemistry & Micro-Imaging (ChemCam)
Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin)
Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN)
Hazard Avoidance Cameras (Hazcam)
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)
Mars Descent Imager (MARDI)
Mast-mounted Cameras (Mastcam)
Navigation Cameras (Navcam)
Position Localization and Attitude Correction Estimate Storage (PLACES)
Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD)
Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS)
Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)
Spacecraft, Planet, Instrument, Pointing C-Matrix, and Event kernels (SPICE)

To access the above data, please visit the following link:
https://pds.nasa.gov/datasearch/subscriptio...-20190801.shtml

Links to all MSL data sets may be found on the PDS Geosciences Node web
site http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/msl/. The data may also
be reached from the main PDS home page, https://pds.nasa.gov/. MSL data
are archived at the PDS Atmospheres, Planetary Plasma Interactions
(PPI), Geosciences, Imaging, and Navigation and Ancillary Information
Facility (NAIF) Nodes.

PDS offers two services for searching the MSL archives:
The Planetary Image Atlas at the Imaging Node allows selection of MSL
image data by specific search criteria.
http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/search/

The MSL Analyst's Notebook at the Geosciences Node allows searching and
downloading of all MSL data in the context of mission events.
http://an.rsl.wustl.edu/msl

The PDS Team

Mailto: pds_operator@jpl.nasa.gov
Phone: (818) 393-7165

Thanks Gerald. This apprentice skater has ventured out on the surface of this lake, ignorant of its depth, and now feels the ice cracking under his skates....
Fernando

Following Phil's suggestion I measured 1 degree arcs along the 0 meridian at latitudes of 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, and 75 degrees. I also measured 1 degree arcs along several parallels, between 0ºE and 1ºE at the same latitudes. Measurements were made with the GE ruler and having the arc's end-points fully zoomed in (eye altitude of 7m). The results are... interesting.

From the measured arc's length the radius can be derived. Oddly, I obtained an equatorial radius approximately equal to the known polar radius (3,376,200 m).
As expected, the arc segment's length along the parallels steadily diminished from the equator to 75ºN, by a factor of nearly 4, but did not follow too closely the scale of cos(lat) Phil mentions.

As for the meridian arcs, their measured lengths increased with the latitude. Having the derived radius increase with the latitude seems to imply an ellipsoid like a rugby ball with the big axis vertical. Strange.

Here is the arc-generating kml file:  TestGrid.kml ( 6.85K ) Number of downloads: 242

and the measurement data:  TestGrid.txt ( 1.16K ) Number of downloads: 234


All of those measurements depend on how good GE's ruler is. I found the following on the measurement accuracy of the Google Earth ruler:
https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/951...oogle-earth-pro
https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/103...in-google-earth

Now what? For the time being I'm sticking with that 1% deficient grid, unless you vote it completely unacceptable. Cheers.
Fernando

Thank you Phil for the explanation. You gave me an idea and I want to do some tests, but I'm too busy at the moment.I thought that being so close to the equator the effect would be negligible but it is not. I do have to warp the images when creating GE overlays (such as Curiosity's orbital map) as they are equirectangular projections. Cheers
Fernando

This update introduces a feature I've been wanting to implement for some time: a distance grid. I thought it would be easy, but it turned out to be trickier than I anticipated. The real cartographers, I'm sure, won't fail to find that distances (using GE ruler) are only approximate to within 1%. Despite using 15 digit precision in calculations, and the meters per degree value of HiRISE images, I could not achieve exact distances (without cheating!). I don't know what causes it, I hope to be forgiven!
Grids can be cluttering so I implemented both one 1-km-spaced grid, which is good at zoomed out distances, and a 100m grid, best used at zoomed-in distances. Both are labeled on their edges with the distance in km, North/South and East/West, from the origin - Bradbury Landing. When the location, or amount of zooming, does not allow to see an edge, the grid looses a bit of its value. A solution would be to label each intersection of grid lines, but this generates a lot of cluttering.
The solution is, thus, to still mark each grid lines' intersection but make the label visible only when placing the cursor over it. On the 100m grid the km lines and the labels have a different color from the other lines and labels.
The grids are not visible when initially loading the file but can be enabled from the left side panel: open the twistie named "Distance Grids" and select one (the 100m grid includes the 1km one, so there is no need to have both simultaneously visible).

Update to sol 2449, with the latest names from Phil and the distance grids. Enjoy and send in your comments!

Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2449_2019JUN30.kmz ( 709.28K ) Number of downloads: 236

Update to sol 2444 (location is still that of sol 2439).
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2439_2019JUN22.kmz ( 663.61K ) Number of downloads: 228

On June 17 BepiColombo used its on-board monitoring cameras to take some selfies.Here is the ESA release link
The release includes a link to a cool tool: BepiColombo Attitude Viewer I find it requires a screen larger than that of a mobile phone.
Fernando

Update to sol 2436. Per the Mission Updates, Curiosity should by now have reached the Teal ridge, southwest of the 2436 location, but I don't have the path.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2436_2019JUN15.kmz ( 663.26K ) Number of downloads: 237

Above the blog entry for June 6 there is an animated GIF (of the June 14 entry).
The shadow of the grapple helped me understand the SSA's hook capture.
Fernando

Update to sol 2429. Curiosity moved about 50m in an easterly direction.
Fernando

 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2429_2019JUN09.kmz ( 661.21K ) Number of downloads: 207

Update to sol 2408, including the latest target names from Phil.
The next update will be in June, as I'll be off for a couple of weeks.
Fruitful exploration Curiosity!
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2408_2019MAY17.kmz ( 657.38K ) Number of downloads: 258

Update to sol 2380.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2380_2019APR27.kmz ( 656.51K ) Number of downloads: 288

In the early 1970s I used the FORTRAN IV level F compiler first with the IBM 44-PS than with the DOS 26.2 operating system. Though, as mcaplinger says, there was not a string or character data type, we would do string manipulation using arrays of the LOGICAL type. Young students can be quite inventive... We did what we needed to do in order get the required results, using the tools at hand.

I no longer have the IBM language manual for FORTRAN IV but was able to locate my "A guide to Fortran IV programming" by Daniel D. McCracken.

Fernando

I worked a lot with FORTRAN IV on an IBM 360 Model 44. The architecture seems to be quite different from the 7094 (which I never worked with). As mcaplinger says the compiler would handle these subtleties.

If the need to peek inside a floating-point number word or double word would arise, in FORTRAN IV, we would set up overlapping COMMON areas in different program modules (for instance main and a subroutine) one with real numbers defined and the other with an overlapping string. Using the string we could manipulate any byte (character) - this was devil-daring code!

Looks like the 7094 mantissa for floating-point numbers was in binary (base 2) but the 360 one was in base 16. So 6 hexadecimal numbers (or 14 in the double precision case) allowed representation of numbers between 16⁻⁶⁵ to 16⁶³ (approx. 5.39761 × 10⁻⁷⁹ to 7.237005 × 10⁷⁵). The 360 exponent had a bias of 64, while the 7094 seems to have had biases of 128 (short precision) and 1024 (double precision).

In the 360 the hardware would operate directly on the single or double word and those would have to start on a "word boundary" - a byte with an address multiple of four - or "double word boundary". The compiler would allocate the areas according to the variable's type definition.

Post here or PM me if I can be of further assistance. Cheers
Fernando

Update to sol 2368 (sol 2365 location).
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2368_2019APR05.kmz ( 656.12K ) Number of downloads: 301

BepiColombo continues to work well. Here is an excerpt from the latest ESA release:

And the release: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Sc...its_long_cruise

Fernando

Update to sol 2361.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2361_2019MAR29.kmz ( 655.28K ) Number of downloads: 188

Update to sol 2354. Initial viewpoint changed.
This update includes the location data from PDS Release 20:
- Path data for sols 0-2313 has been reviewed and updated
- The path for the Vera Rubin ridge traverse has been segmented, to improve visibility
- Analyst's Notebook data for sols 1-2224 was included
Fernando

 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2354_2019MAR23.kmz ( 653.35K ) Number of downloads: 241

Mars Science Laboratory Release 20

The NASA Planetary Data System announces the 20th release of data from
the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, covering data acquired from
Sol 2128 through Sol 2224 (August 1, 2018, to November 8, 2018).

This release consists of raw and derived data sets from the following
instruments:
Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)
Chemistry & Micro-Imaging (ChemCam)
Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin)
Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN)
Hazard Avoidance Cameras (Hazcam)
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)
Mars Descent Imager (MARDI)
Mast-mounted Cameras (Mastcam)
Navigation Cameras (Navcam)
Position Localization and Attitude Correction Estimate Storage (PLACES)
Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD)
Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS)
Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)
Spacecraft, Planet, Instrument, Pointing C-Matrix, and Event kernels (SPICE)

To access the above data, please visit the following link:
https://pds.nasa.gov/datasearch/subscriptio...-20190316.shtml

Links to all MSL data sets may be found on the PDS Geosciences Node web
site http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/msl/. The data may also
be reached from the main PDS home page, https://pds.nasa.gov/. MSL data
are archived at the PDS Atmospheres, Planetary Plasma Interactions
(PPI), Geosciences, Imaging, and Navigation and Ancillary Information
Facility (NAIF) Nodes.

PDS offers two services for searching the MSL archives:
The Planetary Image Atlas at the Imaging Node allows selection of MSL
image data by specific search criteria.
http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/search/

The MSL Analyst's Notebook at the Geosciences Node allows searching and
downloading of all MSL data in the context of mission events.
http://an.rsl.wustl.edu/msl

The PDS Team

Mailto: pds_operator@jpl.nasa.gov
Phone: (818) 393-7165

Update to sol 2338.
Fernando
 The_Martian_Way_MSL_Curiosity_Sol_2338_2019MAR09.kmz ( 653.13K ) Number of downloads: 225