Oh - they could still do a lot of science without moving. MiniTES alone could produce some astonishing atmospheric science, of course some veyr long integrations with the other two spectrometers - and full super-pan techniques a-la pathfinder.

I'm sure they can free it. It got in - it can always get out. A series of bangs back and forth - whilst steering the wheel left to right should shift it I'm sure.

Doug

Ditto - my initial reaction was "well - surely the cruise stage didnt seperate properly or something?" - but actually- the DS2 probes would have still been released as they deployed just before the main spacecraft.

What amased me is to see how amazingly easy it was to spot the MER's from MOC, yet nothing of MSL, the DS2 probes, or B2

Doug

This is the 'other' Phoenix website - to be honest, neither are any good

http://planetary.chem.tufts.edu/Phoenix/

A real pity that Marie Curie got dropped from the '01 payload - I hope she finds a good home somewhere

Yup - the lander pad sensor thing was the most popular reason for the '98 failure - however - there are suggestions that fuel sloshing might have had something to do with it as well

doug

To be honest - it's unlikely to go ahead. It would be slightly larger than MER - solar powered - and have a payload a little more like MSL called 'Pasteur' - for biology research.

However imho - before dedicating E500m+ to it, they need to prove they can do ANY EDL to mars with a Beagle follow up - in the mould of Netlander.

Doug

The 'feature' of imapact and leftovers is a lot larger than we thought - there's a little bit of heatshield way off to the left. From there, to the main heatshield - is about 20 metres ( using the L7 frame that catches it - I make it only 132m to the heatshield )

Doug

Oh - static landers still have their place - but I think Phoenix may be the last 'primary' martian mission without wheels.

i.e. Netlander or a similar mission would be hugely worth while - you dont HAVE to have wheels to do good science, and they cost you a LOT of volume, mass, power, and money

Doug

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/guest/...23_phoenix.html

Some of those areas have NO features at all!! Even with a descent camera - I wonder how easy localisation will be

Actually - given MRO's huge swath width and resolution, easy

Doug

Going on the recent news ( i LOVE looking at really old forum posts ) the answer involves any and all of the following words

Order of Magnitude

Can of Whoop Ass

Mike Malin

VIDEOS

Where did all my bandwidth go



Doug

I'd suggest that, usual practice dictates no Rear Hazcam images when they're not driving. An end of drive pattern is typically a front and rear hazcam pair from 1m before the end of the drive, and the end of the drive itself - and navcam pan or partial pan, and, if drives are planned for the following day - one or more L7/R1 stereo pairs with pancam looking forward

However - when they're just IDDign, it's Navcam, Pancam, and FHC - not rear. So - given that the rear hazcam isnt taking pictures - I'd assume the issue to be fixed.

Doug

I didnt think it would be THIS far - but the Parallax calculator says that, using these two images

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2356R1M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2356L7M1.JPG

That the heatshield is still 165 +/12m away, and the main feature is 3.8m across ( the size is about right )

Using Navcam images..

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P0705L0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P0705R0M1.JPG

It reports

object distance: 122.5 m, one-pixel error: 40.834 m
object dimension: 271.2 cm

Pancam range is just about within the Navcam error - although navcam error is huge at that range.

I'd trust the Pancam report though

Doug

Sods law eh

Well - they were VERY good with the crater-exit pics, I think we can let them off this one. It IS the last weekend before Christmas, and even rover managers have to do their Christmas Shopping

Doug

$800m to build the, and run them for NINETY SOLS.

We're now running into the fourth 'life' of these rovers - and they're running on fiscal-fumes. The rovers still do work on weekends - but, as is often the case, the Exploratorium and other raw updates are slow or delayed by a sol or three.

Doug

First image taken after the flash error - signs that yes, Spirit WAS going to come back to life and perhaps even do some more science in the future. What a moment it was, and what a very very long time ago that was.

Doug

Sol 002 - Back of HGA - Columbia dedication

This is mine. Shortly after the Columbia accident - I emailed the Athena team at Cornell, begging them to put some sort of dedication to the crew on the rover - a tiny little decal of the mission patch on the lander base or some detail like that - and they did. I was one of the few people to spot that they'd done this when I saw a pcture of this on the KSC media website - but kept fairly quiet about it. I THINK they actually posted one on the back of both rovers HGA's - to ensure that if they met mission success ( one lander landing safely ) they'd be able to do the dedication.

Doug

Moved - posted by Sunspot:

It's GOT to be this one from Opportunity on SOL 180, front hazcam biggrin.gif I suppose it's a kind of self portrait - the only one we'll see.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...2P1214L0M1.HTML

Any camera, any mosaic - be it from JPL, from here, from the PDS, from wherever - nominations ideally in the form of a URL to a mosaic image - with a descriptor of sol and subject

A single MI image from Spirit - nominations in the form of a URL to a JPL or Exploratorium raw jpg :0

A single MI image from Oppy - nominations in the form of a URL to a JPL or Exploratorium raw jpg :0

A single colour frame ( if you dont have the colour frame itself - list the three frames with links to Exploratorium or JPL raw images ) from Pancam . No Hazcam or Navcam images here - just a single composite frame from Pancam. - Must be one of L256, L257, L456 or L457 (others struggle to remotely represent real colours )

A single frame, be it Front Hazcam, Rear Hazcam or Navcam - a single frame taken by any one of those - NOT pancam or mosaics - please give a JPL or Exploratorium link - plus list the Sol, what camera it is, and what the subject matter or what's interesting in the image.

A single colour frame ( if you dont have the colour frame itself - list the three frames with links to Exploratorium or JPL raw images ) from Pancam . No Hazcam or Navcam images here - just a single composite frame from Pancam. - Must be one of L256, L257, L456 or L457 (others struggle to remotely represent real colours )

A single frame, be it Front Hazcam, Rear Hazcam or Navcam - a single frame taken by any one of those - NOT pancam or mosaics - please give a JPL or Exploratorium link - plus list the Sol, what camera it is, and what the subject matter or what's interesting in the image.

Tthere's HUGE numbers of baby-navcam images of the navigation around End. - from Wopmay, up to burns cliff - along burns cliff - etc etc.

Top stuff

As for the time taken to move the soil around - there's evidence that not only has this happened on the tracks -but also on Opportunity itself! Remember - several MAJOR cleaning events that cleared the solar array of very nearly ALL the dust that had settled on them. I see no reason that if conditions can clean the dust from a rover to reveal the solar cells to the sun more clearly - they can clean it from the ground to show the squished berries more clearly Perhaps a strong weather system went thru, perhaps it was a dust devil or two - but something shifted a lot of dust around while Oppy was in the hole

Now - in patent CRapovisiON

http://mer.rlproject.com/track_test.wmv - 200kb



Doug

We've got dark soil, with lighter berries.

The status quo over thousands of years one assumes, is berries on top of soil - and thus almost shielding the soil from most of the wind.

Rover drives over - squishes berries into soil - so there's only really soil left visible ( darker)

Wind, over a few months, moves the soil - revealing a lot of berries just squished under the surface - so if gets lighter again

Compare new tracks with old - is to compare more soil, with more berries - dark, with light.

Makes sense I think?

I may do a 3ds max anim to explain as I did with the grey looking planes and the redder looking close-ranger soil on landing


Doug

The one with the hold-down clamp at the top

Doug