I'm sure I asked this somewhere else at some point..I've searched but no luck - anyway

I've got all the Pancam data up to 270, and am DVDiffying the lot.

HOWEVER

Has anyone found an FTP server that has the Navcam and Hazcam RAD's? I have the MI rad's coming down at the moment - but cant find Nav/Hazcam anywhere. I dont think I could handle the pain of downloading them individually ;P

Doug

What mechanism was used for the booms on Cassini - they're what, 10m each?

I dont think booms this size have been deployed on a spacecraft that wasnt spin-stable ( Ulysses for example - just roll out a very long wire of 75m length)

Worryingly, MRO's Sharad is considered MARSIS heritage - it looks to be a smaller antenna (cant find figures (edit - might have done - 7m perhaps ) ) but one has to ask if it's a similar type of deployment mechanism?

Doug

I think the software onboard is able enough - but I do share the thoughts of others here...what is so special about the Autonav data ( equiv of a 360 4 filter panorama generated in about 4 sols ) that dictates it must be downlinked? Surely after a succefull autonav, the data isnt THAT important?

Doug

cough-three-cough

Doug

They also lack to flatfield/dark frame processing that renders the properly RAD'd files much smoother and 'better' to look at

Doug

Autonav is not the same as Visual Odometry

Auotnav takes a stereo hazcam pair - checks for hazards, continues driving, checks for hazards, continues driving, checks for hazards, continues driving, checks for hazards.

Visual Od has been used a few times to line the rover up infront of an IDD target - it takes hazcam images, identifies key features as identified on the ground, and drives until they match the positions requested by the ground. It was used in Eagle crater I believe.


Just to check I hadnt gone mad...

"Spirit began sol 178 by stowing the robotic arm and then backing up 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) from "Hank's Hollow" in order to properly place the miniature thermal emission spectrometer to get a good view of "Pot of Gold" and nearby rover tracks.

Engineers also took this opportunity to use visual odometry for the first time on Spirit. This is a technique in which the rover takes successive images of its surroundings during a drive and then matches features in those images on-board to compute how far and in what direction it has moved." - It had been auto-naving for almost 5 months by this point.





It aint autonav

the VisOd Navcam work that has been done has been done in areas of high slippage (Burns Cliff, climbing to Larry's Lookout etc) - and whilst I'm unsure of the exact data-volume burden - these have always been short drives of a few metres and not the 50-100m+ Autonav drives that Spirit and Opportunity have both managed.


Doug

They're one and the same - it's near as damn it a grey lump

Doug

Interesting concept - I wonder if such a system could be deployed so as to be far enough away from the ground to not risk being 'ground out' - but close enough to work well.

Could make an interesting science instrument as well actually - partway between PC and MI

Doug

I wouldnt say "today" or "this week" or "thursday" or anything to be honest. We'll see what we see, when we see it.

Remember - it's likely to be a many-sol procedure to get out of the dune - including pauses for a sol or two to look at and compare the data from short drive commands

Doug

Yup - the difference between Surveying and Recon work I guess

Doug

Visual Odometry would work - but it would be PAINFULLY slow, and I mean

"Today we covered 18 metres" would be a remarkable achievment

Doug

I think every probe that leaves the earth and is so-equiped should image the earth on departure - simply as a reminder of where and what we are. It may be only a few pixels, or even just a pale blue dot - but it speaks volumes

Doug

If you had a 12 inch telescope with a 2048 x 2048 CCD installed - you might get a view a little like this



http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r03_r09/im...5/R0500763.html for the raw data

Doug

No batteries, no minites, no insulation, no solar arrays, no heaters, and infact, it might well have an empty WEB - with all the electronics situated at the other end of those cables

There in engineering model with none of the instrumentation - it's just for mobility - and that compensates very nicely for the gravity difference I'm sure.

Doug

Here is the official line...

http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/Admin/reso...ms_cassini.html

But as you will discover - neither of the interesting documents are available.

Might be worth an email - the PDS is usually quite repsonsive

Doug

'

Doug

No - it's already using a similar technique to do its observations

Doug

A nice slope in the background from testing Spirit's cilmbing-up-the-hills ability

Note the 7 degree toe-in on the FR wheel

Doug

Being too young to have experienced Apollo - I just like to listen to the 40-odd minutes of Opportunity landing chatter that's on the dvd that came with the 2nd volume of the mars misison reports

Does anyone know if similar footage for pathfinder exists?

Doug

Thats the genius of MGS, Odyssey and MRO...

MGS does 250m/pixel with its context imager, and 1.5m/pixel with MOC
Mars Odyssey does 12m/pixel in Visible, and 100m/pixel in IR
MRO will do 0.3m/pixel with HiRise, 6m/pixel with CTX and global colour imagery with MARCI at a couple of K/pixel....

So we have imagery at

K's/pixel
100's m/pixel
12m/pixel
6m/pixel
1.5m/pixel
0.3m/pixel

Just about every order of magnitude from a medium pizza to a small county

Doug

There was capacity for MERA, MERB, MEX, B2 and Nozomi in '03

Doug

Think of a tape measure - rolled fully out

Then get a box the shape of a laptop PC

Fold the tape measure into the box, put some tape of the end.

Now take the box into space, and rip the tape off

http://www.st.northropgrumman.com/astro-ae...marsispaper.pdf

Doug

They've taken off one solary array and mounted it on a stand.

They now appear to me attaching the HGA gimbal assembley on the platform above HiRise

doug

I'll see if it can easily be reproduced using Dreamscape in 3ds max

Doug

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/instrument.html

The PDF's in particular.

Check out the CCD array - it's HUGE

It's so advanced, I dont think 'push broom' is a sufficient descriptor anymore, it's more like an array of 22 brooms, eash with 2000 bristles with....ah..pah

I cant figure out a metaphor for the TDI technique which is very clever.


Doug