Oppys going to have some ENORMOUS power budget's with that tilt on

I never thought they'd make it this far

Doug

Oh - that picture isnt mine It's from the PDS. Justin Maki et.al made some 'real colour' pics using the 'insurance pan' that was taken before IMP Mast deployment using quite low compression.

But yeah - I think Sojourners picture resources are under-used LOTS of pictures in there A lot of mosaics that never made it into the public domain to be made I think

Doug

Top stuff then The smell of Spring in the air, earlier mornings, later nights, the sun high in the sky - even WITH arthritic limbs, Spirit may still make good progress

Doug

Most likely a dead lander battery.

Yup - Sojourner was still working perfectly well - and they had plans to send if off on quite a long drive.

Sojourner would, after a few sols of no comms, gone back to its previous position to see if it had gone somewhere that blocked the radio waves and waited for instructions there.

If that hadnt worked - it would then have started attempting to circle the lander at about a 5m radius.

How or when Sojourner died is probably never going to be known, unless someone can actually pick the thing up, and inspect the contents of the memory

If and how-much it started to circle Pathfinder might POSSIBLY be visible by MRO in 18 months time.

To me - Sojourner still is the most amazing little contraption that man has ever made. Given the scales of time/money/volume/mass - it's a greater feat than the MER's imho.

There's something about being able to see it in motion that makes it more emotive than MER....



Doug

We just cant say what they are Could just as well be bits of dirt that have fallen off the wheels etc.

Doug

Oo - more cool images - the only colour image taken of the lander..




http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/mpfr-m-rvr...lr/r1557518.htm



I might play 'mosaic-o-rama' with some of the stuff in here

Doug

Just finished reading the excellent Sojourner book - and it mentioned the rover taking images of its laser stripes - which I'd never seen - so I went and hunted for them

http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/data/mpfr-m-rvr...ft/r7377913.htm



How cool

Doug

One has to wonder how much mobility they might rescue from a 5 wheeled, arthritic rover

Doug

I think compartmenting things better here - but changing it from mer. to something else is probably the way to go. One forum - with wider content

Doug

Maybe it's annoying, maybe it isnt, I think I'll just leave you hanging on that one

It's quite clear a new site is what 'the people' want - so I'll put something together - the posts here will probably get copied over somehow - no idea how yet though

Oh - and THIS one isnt going anywhere


Doug

Just thinking, as MER interest falls off ( understandably ) - and we have 4 years of Cassini joy ahead of us - would it make sense to start a new url ( cassini.rlproject.com, or a dedicated URl as part of moving hosting firms ) - and a new forum, dedicated to Cassini / Huygens? It'd make sense to me, cull Cassini / huygens from here, move it all into a dedicated home for it?

Opinions?

Doug

Looks more like lavery Ice to me

Doug

I dont know if it's me, my browser ( Firefox ), my internet connection or what - but I dont get ANY images appearing on the saturn.jpl.nasa.gov site - until I click on the actual JPG link and I see that just fine.

Awesome picture



Doug

(ps - found that it's the browser. Firefox doesnt work, IE does. BOOO NASA - BOOOOOOO )

We dont know how big that f.o.v. is

Doug

They're putting a lot of stress on the mobility mechanisms in doing all these unscheduled trenches - to do what? Go and look at the same layers of rock they looked at on the way into the crater Look at the big pan - you can see that we're just looking at the same layers we've seen before.

Doug

Yeah - the idea of a specular reflection is a bit of a long one to me It requires a point source of light really- and that point source will be fuzzed-fuzzed-fuzzed all the way down to the surface, and then any specular reflection will be fuzzed fuzzed fuzzed back again

I'm not sure if look at an atmospheric window with the ISS means that we'd be seing light that wasnt fuzzed or not.

Also - if you had a lot of large waves - you wouldnt get MUCH of a specular reflection either - as the specularity will be being reflect in a whole lot of different direction, of which you are only one.

Of course, it may be that the sun-cassini-titan angle meant that any spec.ref was simply on what we're all thinking is 'land' and not on what we think is 'ocean'



Doug

Further unscheduled trenching it would appear Wonder how many times they'll do it before giving up

Doug

Woo yay - it's MER RGB goodness all over again - found these at the Cassini raw site and put it together



Doug

Because you're trying to do an [IMG] straight to the upload folder which the sever wont allow ( with good reason )

Doug

There's no more danger here than as with a trenching operation as I see it. Sure - they're never going to make it to Burns Cliff - but they'll leave the crater the same way they came in I'd imagine.


Doug

Holy CACK

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...5/N00023183.jpg

Doug

I think they might be having an encounter of opportunity on the way out again

Doug

Might be slightly different weight distribution perhaps? I dunno. I guess we'll find out next week

Here's that flat rock from the rear hazcam



Doug

If you consider that Cassini's trajectory will take it past Titan very VERY closely, then you can infer that Hyperion and titan have both got quite a way to go around their respective orbits before Cassini gets there.

Doug

That image is from today ( about 7 hrs ago - the end of Oppy's last sol ) - and I cant for the life of me figure out why they're facing that way - ...

AHH - unlESS.....

Part of the three day plan over the w'end includes doing MOSS/APXS measurements on the dust magnets - and they just backed off into a position favourable for power for the weekend while they do that ?

Maybe they're going to try going up to burnsie backwards?

Doug