Well - it's going to take about six months to get to Victoria - at which point we'll be on sol 550+

Given that there was 6 months of science in visiting Endurance - I think the same can be said of Victoria

That's sol 700. More than a martian year - back into Autumn and getting on toward winter again

By then - APXS and Mossbauer integrations will take a couple of days at least - so doing science will take a lot longer.

To ask the question 'where next' - is, dare one say it, a little pre-emptive

BUT - I'd do new auto-nav code that generates much smaller data volumes and can be used for multiple sols on the trot - I'd get code in there to use MRO as a relay - I'd do a full 14 filter panorama at Victoria with the extra downlink bandwidth, and head WSW - using the new autonav to cover 700m a week Get down to a core staf f barely in double digits - get automated data onto the PDS more rapidly - and cover 3km per month minimum. My aim would be to see as many different terrain types as possible to give ground-truths for Orbital Imagery.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre...2A-A0R1_br2.jpg

To that very dark crater + ejecta - looks interesting. Dont ask me where-next after there - I'd probably need therapy if they lasted that long. My answer would probably be "Oh I dont know - send them to bloody Ares Vallis for all I care!"

The tempation at that point would be to comman a drive sequence that writes "EARTHLINGS GO HOME" in the dirt and have it imaged by MRO.


Doug

Yup - when that map was made - they didnt have MOC imagery of Endurance - and so you can see it as a low-res bit just to the right of a high res MOC bit

That image also shows how the 'etched' got eaten by Victoria

Doug

Vostok Nav

http://mer.rlproject.com/vostok_nav.jpg

If Mars ever has hippies - they'll be dancing round it naked before too long

Doug

That's looking WSW I think - and if you look on this image

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/0...Ellipse_25m.gif ( Endurance is along the centre line - 3/4s the way to the east end )

You can see a crater twice the size of Victoria just outside the ellipse near the centre - it's probably the rim of that we're seing way out there

Doug

Ahh - now that IS amazing - is there any way you could sort out a .wrl or a .3ds or a any other 3d model format of that?

The climb up west spur and around to Larrys Lookout is a very difficult traverse to explain in a lecture with just pictures - and if I could use a 3D model and put the MOC imagery over the top, then I could have a flyaround that shows it much MUCH clearer!

Doug

I think that deserves a mars bar

Doug

Yup - the different shades just reminded me of the NEAR earth flyby movie's R,G and B filters

Doug

Do those images look like they're thru different filters to you?

I make the colour frames first - then make the mosaic - THEN tweak the colours - although I'm really not happy with the colours in that image at all

Doug

I hope not - otherwise I wont get in to do the talk

I've emailed the meetings sec. and ask - it would be great to meet someone from this forum and have them 'review' my talk

I'm only charging the BAA for my train fair ( and then the money I get back goes to Comic Relief ) so I dont suppose they'd mind if I brought a 'guest'.

As far as I know - it's at about 4pm-ish on the Sat - would be good to meet up for Lunch before or something?

Doug

At least we can see the thing now

Doug

quite possibly - it would be an obvious reason.

Doug

Oh yeah - it's L2 + L5 only as well

Doug

A little something I put together whilst waiting for the Australian Grand Prix - this is two sections ( a 4x4 and a 4x3 ) of the full Panorama taken at Larrys Leap. I'm hoping to be able to do the section looking into Ten.Val next week.

Doug

www.polygonworlds.com

I made the little airplane

Doug

Mars One would assume about 100-150m SE of the Triplets

DOug

You cant - you need to upload to your own webspace if you want to do that.

Doug

We're still waiting to see ANY of those 1500 frames on the ESA Website apart from that one, I believe of Phobos. ESA has much to learn to be honest. I never got a response from Southwood

Anyone know of the schedule for PDS releases of the Data?

Doug

Just a 16.6 FOV for Pancam and a 45 FOV for Navcam - Navcam never stitches particularly well though. It's all in the instrument description PDF's at the athena website, and the workbook.

Doug

If you're looking at the raw images for the panorama Spirit's taken at its current location and gone "WTF is L6 or L7" - panic not - they've been taken and thumbnails are down

Doug

Following on from my talk at Northampton Natural History Society earlier in the week - I've been invited to talk at the British Astronomical Association at the English Heritage Lecture Theatre, London - on April 23rd

Doug

(Edit - I will be doing about an hour - but just on Spirit, not Opportunity. My talks are typically 80-90 mins, so I thought it best to cull Opportunity and do that as a seperate talk later in the year, and do a good job on Spirit, which is the better ' story ' - and more classically martian! )

Doug

Hmm - anyone know how to find out the actual pointing direction of Pancam from a pds header?


/* DERIVED GEOMETRY DATA ELEMENTS: ROVER FRAME */

GROUP = ROVER_DERIVED_GEOMETRY_PARMS
INSTRUMENT_AZIMUTH = -61.9729 <deg>
INSTRUMENT_ELEVATION = -16.6434 <deg>
REFERENCE_COORD_SYSTEM_INDEX = (85, 0, 323, 552, 272)
REFERENCE_COORD_SYSTEM_NAME = ROVER_FRAME
END_GROUP = ROVER_DERIVED_GEOMETRY_PARMS

/* DERIVED GEOMETRY DATA ELEMENTS: SITE FRAME */

GROUP = SITE_DERIVED_GEOMETRY_PARMS
INSTRUMENT_AZIMUTH = -67.1847 <deg>
INSTRUMENT_ELEVATION = 5.26536 <deg>
REFERENCE_COORD_SYSTEM_INDEX = 85
REFERENCE_COORD_SYSTEM_NAME = SITE_FRAME
SOLAR_AZIMUTH = 17.0203 <deg>
SOLAR_ELEVATION = -49.2353 <deg>
END_GROUP = SITE_DERIVED_GEOMETRY_PARMS


I'm asuming -67 is 67 deg left of looking straight forward - but is there anywhere that shows the pointing of the rover itself allowing to calculate a bearing for a pancam image?

Doug

Doh - answered own question

It'll be 360 - about 114 - so 246ish

Doug

Anyone got a good bearing angle for the lander from the pan position at Clovis - to within a couple of degrees?

Doug

www.ptgui.com

Doug