Ahh - the bag is there to take off some of the weight of the HGA mounting, so it can undergo deployment testing

The eclipse imagery I features in my talk on Saturday ( "It was a smash!" - The front bumper of Chris's Elise" )

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im.../v1_eclipse.jpg

The images used were....
http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/vl1_vl2-m-...xx/12f136bu.htm and the two following.

What I know about the Viking imaging system stems from about 4 hours of mad panic research last week

I think I may have to learn how to do this 'programning' lark - I'm slowly becoming more and more of a 'confused artist' when trying to do some of the things I'd like to do

Doug

I must admit - I did occasionally think "well, why not just to colour scans much slower?" when wondering about high res colour

Doug

Bigger wheels I think that's probably the way to go - spread out the load a little more. Not sure how feasable the inflateable wheel ideas are in the long-term, but they would offer fantastic grip, and whatever the vehicle equiv of 'wing loading' would be, it would be very low. That has to be the way to go - prevention instead of cure.

But I agree - a direct way to measure wheel slip is a must - and the optical mouse derived idea would surely work very well - seems a no-brainer. Just depends if it's implimentable on a spacecraft easily.

Doug

I wouldnt say less optimistic. Clearly they still think they can get out - and saying it'll take a week, or two weeks, is consistant with the progress we've been making and consistant with the predictions from Steve.

Doug

Ahh - I thought it was more complicated that that

Doug

Yes - instead of trying to fight the 7 degree toe-out on that FR wheel, i think they're 'giving in' to it and letting the rover turn to the left as it pushes back

If they were to go straight back down their own trenches, the wheels could end up just churning all the way. By turning the craft a little to 'push' against the left side of the trenches, it gives them something 'new' to have a bite at and pull up out the trenches I guess.

Doug

No - 20:20 is the 'score' your eyes get. 20:20 Human vision = perfect healthy human vision. You can have 18:17 - which is a little bit off perfect, and the lower the numbers the worse the quality of the persons eyesight, it's not a factor of zoom. 20:20 human vision just means 'good' human vision - wthout any 'aids'

Doug

iirc - R, G and B were actually scanned at the same time, together. This is how I read the operation of the cameras anyway. The scanning of three channels at the same time ( R,G,B or IR1,IR2,IR3 ) would generate data at the same rate as the high resolution sensors in monochrome ( i.e. 3 channels of .12 degrees = 1 channel of .04 degrees )

i.e.

http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/vl1_vl2-m-...xx/12a006bu.htm

http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/vl1_vl2-m-...xx/12a006gn.htm

http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/vl1_vl2-m-...xx/12a006rd.htm

are all part of the same sequence and all started and finished at the same times.

Doug

I think the best analogy is the eye-sight test that you can do..

If Pancam were to do this test..

http://www.goacupuncture.com/Product-picture/F-006.JPG

then it would score about as well as a human with good eyesight

As for the 'view' - well - the typical f.o.v. of human eyesight at its very limits is almost 200 x 120 degrees, when Pancam is only 16.6 x 16.6 degrees. But it is only about the central third of that is really 'usefull' and even less, a tiny central area, which can be used to really 'look at' things. i.e. look at the X in the corner of a window in windows - and you cant actually read the text IN that window - you have to look at the text to do that.

I think it's safe to say that perhaps two navcam frames side by side is about as much of mars as you'd see when looking around normally ( 90 x 45 deg ) and a single pancam frame is as much of mars as you'd see properly to 'look at' and identify things.

Doug

Well - I'll certainly go thru and start making all the RGB combos I can find for V1 and V2 - but the only problem I have is the same problem I have with Pathfinder .img's

They're not exactly RAD's are they Some will come out looking about right but many are obviously not properly calibrated as one would find with an MER RAD with img2png -r

I think this might be an investigation for super-bjorn

If you wish to grab a burnable-to-CD .img of each Viking archive..

http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/vl1_vl2-m-lcs-2-edr-v1.0/

The folders of the same names are simply the full content of the .img (which is a sort of .iso)

Looking here - http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/vl1_vl2-m-.../vl_0001/calib/

and especially here
http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/vl1_vl2-m-...lib/calinfo.htm

I'm sure the information to generate radiometrically calibrated data is there - I think Bjorn may just need to re-do a bit of IMG2PNG to do it. If he can do that - I'll happily generate every RGB set I can find.

I think MPF's IMP needs the same attention in Img2Png'ing


Doug

Pancam is just about the resolution of 20:20 human vision. There are some images on the Athena site that show a mosaic from inside one of the clean rooms and you can see subsamples of the same imagery at full res. A briefcase, a label, a cranes etc - things we're used to seing so that they give a sense of performance.

Navcam is about 1/9th of that resolution iirc

Doug

When I first saw it as a thumbnail, I thought it was the feint reflection of a fat guys shirt in a window

They use them to try and simulated weightlessness for some deployments - possibly sharad on MRO?

I've saved an image and attached it.

Doug

Shouldnt someone like the Planetary Society or similar be looking into saving this stuff?

Perhaps there's scope for a society dedicated simply to the finding, saving, recovering, and storing of this sort of data - not just imagery but any other instrumentation as well? With 300 Gig HDD's being roughly £100 - storage is disgustingly cheap - and now would be the time to recover this stuff for future generations!

For any of this stuff to be lost for good would be a crime beyond description!

Doug

There we go - THAT's what I'm talking about Middle wheel is nowhere near as deep as the rest.


Doug

Not to mention it's also quite usefull practice for orbital rendezvous w.r.t. MSR in the not TOO distant future. MRO has a nav camera - and MTO will do some on orbit rendezvous experiments.

Doug

When it's a fiesta or a mondeo or a civic or something - you go "meh" - but when it's something like yours - it almost hurts

Doug

Come on - where are the embarrasing pics

eek - any damage to the front

I've been trying to understand the 'means' of entry in getting stuck - based on the fact that the front and rear wheels track just about together - and the middle wheels are about 1/3rd of a wheels-width inboard of that. It's plausable that they're not nearly as dug in, but that they're not taking much of the load. It would be interesting to see some graphics based on the articulation of the rocker/bogie (they have this data, it has been reconstructed into movies in the past)

Doug

Much-info...

http://www.msss.com/mars/observer/camera/p...MOC/mgs_moc.gif

and

http://www.msss.com/mars/observer/camera/p.../moc_ijist.html


Doug

There are two WA cams on MOC - but they're almost identical - one is red, one is blue, they both have approx 140deg FOV, and about 3500 pixel CCD's. The context images are simply using the middle 400 or so pixels of the Red WA camera (thus the 250ish m/pixel resolution)

Doug

That went swimmingly - and probably another talk now scheduled for Rotherham in the near future Was great to meet up with Chris who was there all day - and worryingly was armed with a camera - I'm expecting pictures to appear soon


Doug

Now now..be fair... some times you dont see rain...you see clouds

Doug

from beagle2.com

I wasnt sure about the Russian ones - I've been doing SO much reading for this talk I'm giving tomrrow that they all sort of fuzz into one Before you know it i'll have MRO deploying Netlander and MO2k1 CPROTO'ing the MEX landing site....bluehghghghg

Doug

Viking 1 & 2, and Russias Mars 2, 3 and 5 all entered orbit - and then deployed landers. I dont think any of them imaged the landers after seperation however

doug