Whats a pity? The middle of the ring magnet is rather clean. That's the point of them.

Given that the primary purpose of these images is for people to look at them as they are, without photoshop to stretch them - they have done the right thing.

Many of the previous images were too dark.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/ra...0424M_&s=40
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...NCAM00418M_.JPG
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...NCAM00302M_.JPG
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...NCAM00417M_.JPG

These images would be 'better' for people to look at with the newer stretch. Yes - we get clipping at each end as a result, but the image occupies a larger part of the histogram and, combined with lower compression, is far better for people to actually look at.

Every MARDI frame of landing IS down. How do you think he made that video, or indeed the versions that JPL have released?

Wow - a load of fuss over a bit of photoshop in half a second of video.

Obviously the team at JPL are doing just that, and the amateur efforts will appear here when people have had the time to figure it out
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...20&start=20

What do you mean? It's just the MastCam mosaic from Bradbury landing. Nothing looks out of place.

Blue filters on a bayer filter can often be nIR transparent.

Exactly that. It consumes more than 110Watts to 'run' the rover - and some activities use much much more than that. You use up battery power during the day, and then recharge with the RTG over night.



That information is probably out of date. Richard was MSL ProjMang for a while a few years back as Pete had some medical issues to deal with. Then Pete took the position again. At the moment, it's still Pete at the top and Richard as his deputy.

I've never seen figures that high quoted anywhere. Where do you get that number from?

'Eyes...' has nothing for surface operations. We intend to replace the EDL trajectory with a reconstructed trajectory of actual events in a few weeks time when the team's had a chance to process all that data.

No, it didn't. It was a predict from 3 weeks before landing. There was a realtime visualization via Mars Odyssey telemetry - but it wasn't Eyes on the Solar System and it updated at something under 1hz.

D

It would have resulted in failure. They needed that thrust.

The problem with the thrust/acceleration problem is that you're not exactly sure what the performance of the thrusters is any more. It's uncertainty is probably more than our fuel uncertainty. F=MA and all that...but while IMU's will give you A, F has error bars that then induce errors in M.

The thermal inertia idea is one that's been put out there as an option for Cassini as well.

Oh - glad something got published on that - thanks for the ref Mike.

The challenges on keeping track on the exact amount of fuel remaining was one of the reasons why the burned Stardust to depletion when they switched it off...to find out exactly how much was left compared to their various means of measuring it. It's not easy.

I would not do that. It's an abrasive tool. It would do far more harm than good.

In a talk by Marc last week for the EPO folk on lab - he echoed what you describe Floyd. Marz - I think you have things wrong.

Correct - we just don't have the time.

Just changing lighting conditions. It would have to be one heck of a cloud to move like that over a 12 day period.

We already know the answer. They're going to do it at some point.

During a first-time checkout of instruments is not the time.

That paper is slightly outdated. I believe the throttle level ended up being 60% ( about twice what it was during the hover phase...which is actually a continual .75m/sec downward motion of the descent stage toward the ground ) And it ran for approx 6 seconds.

D

No motion between +6 and +12 sols.

So - time warp for a thread time but...

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakda.../2008/1673.html

In that awesome article, Emily mentioned that it would need to be reactivated in 2012 for a 2014 recapture.

Any news on that? I've heard nothing.

The Scarecrow rover yes.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetaryblog/7197573662/


VSTB, no.
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15876

(Some of my own photos of the VSTB are here : http://dougellison.smugmug.com/Machines/Ma...9&k=ZnpCztC )

Regarding wheel damage....the VSTB (test rover) is effectively 3x too heavy for its wheels....it's eaten its way thru a set already and they've been replaced with an extra beefy set.

There will be dings and dents on the wheels on Mars, but I wouldn't expect anything as bad as is in that video.