Because the landing site HiRISE images are targeted, they're often off-nadir. End result - you get quite a range of viewing angles.

That was going to be my response - Spirit's landing site has been images, I think, about 10 times.

They are just to hold it onto that inclined stand so they could do arm tests with the rover tilted over without the rover moving.

Rule of thumb... Bright red stuff is remove-before-flight.

From this angle, it looks like an eroded bronze sculpture of a pigs stomach. Maybe that says more about me than the meteorite.

Curiosities wheels are not tied down.

Until the skycrane maneuver, the wheels are infact bolted 'up' onto brackets extending out from the rover chassis itself that tie in to the top of the suspension system just inboard of the front and rear wheels.. Then as it drops from the backshell on the ropes, they wheels are deployed. The holes in the wheels are to let the dust and pebbles out, and to leave marks in the soil for slip checking.

The MER wheels are designed to be slightly flexible as well. It helps just take the edge of the worst of the jarring from driving over rocks ( if you remember Emily's videos of the MSL Scarecrow driving around the remodelled Mars Yard....there are thuds and drops and bangs and crunches)

And despite the MER wheels being designed with that flight flex, I've seen a grown man stand on one on one leg and do everything short of jump up and down on it.


Which bit of the crane don't you understand? The radar can identify and then use the liquid rockets to zero-out the horizontal velocity. Think of the Phoenix landing. Now instead of stopping at an altitude of 0 metres, you just stop slightly higher whilst lowering the rover on the bridle.

In a primary mission with a healthy ops budget and a healthy outreach budget - yeah. 6.75 years into a 90 day mission, not so much.

It's probably just a cropped screengrab from autonomous stitching software.

Nothing weird, unusual, strange or troubling about it in any way shape or form whatsoever.

For those wondering - I think they're doing something with MARDI during those tests - that spot pattern is right underneath it.

No, NASA HQ.

You will see mention of having to march up the chain of command when making decisions such as entering Endurance, setting off for Victoria etc.

I don't see much value in a discussion that's guesswork based on forecasts based on assumptions, all of which are probably based on misconceptions.

Speak to headquarters.

The best reception facilities are still on the ground. TDRSS helps with LEO assets, but not out at Pluto.

I almost miss the old-school MSSS website - it takes me back to 1997 all over again.

But on the upside - a huge thanks the the additional content, amazing to see MastCAM video

I wouldn't even give this a TRL of 1, let alone say ' could be ready in time to support...' w.r.t. the next flagships. That's crazy. There is a tradition of slightly crazy papers getting the attention of the media office at Europlanet though

If we had known Spirit and Opportunity would last years - would their first 90 sols have been any different?

Maybe - slightly. They might have taken more time in Eagle crater, perhaps. BUT - you CAN NOT run a mission with a primary mission of 2 years, under the assumption you will last 3, or 5 , or 11. Those two years you run the rover as hard as you can, get the most you can out of it. Then and only then as you approach the possibility of an extended mission do you start thinking about how to run beyond that. The engineering and science teams will begin to shrink, the abilities of the rover diminish. It's a moving goal.

And further. Consider the Cassini launch.... the DSN was reserved for SOI and the Huygens entry at that time.

It's not that you 'can' book it. You just do.

There are many many documents about how the DSN is scheduled in the JPL tech reports server and the Descanso JPL website.

They will know, now, what dishes are available for NH at key events 5 year from now. And they will also schedule maintenance to avoid having an antenna offline at a critical moment ( such as a flyby, a critical burn, a landing etc etc )


Volunteer? The projects pay...barely enough to keep the DSN running, but they do pay. The formulae for calculating the costs are in the last round of discovery program AO's.

There's a test image here
http://www.msss.com/news/index.php?id=14

And for MAHLI
http://www.msss.com/science/msl-mahli-pre-launch-images.php

And MARDI
http://www.msss.com/science/msl-mardi-pre-launch-images.php

And I just learnt that, like MastCAM and MARDI - MAHLI can record video as well.


http://www.msss.com/msl/mahli/references/E...l_MarsMicro.pdf

Personally, I think the addition of an asteroid is a drastic improvement.

It's charred terrain from the eyes burning a gaze into the distance.

Or a DD. Infact, we saw one not that long ago - in this very direction!

There are a few DD trails around looking at CTX and HiRISE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25143_Itokawa

Dimensions 535 × 294 × 209 m

Very roughly - call it a 300m sphere, Surface area, very roughly, about a quarter of a million square metres

I'm going to go to the PCC one on the Friday.

The transition from A to B is the same we saw before the Victoria annulus. Basically it's where the bedrock+ripples ends, and the true parking lot, like the Victoria Annulus, or the stretch from Eagle to Endurance, begins.

You're right about the seamless - you could loop for ever and not notice! Awesome

Imaging, yes. Driving, no. I know the arm was loaded with heaters to allow an overnight tool change, but I don't recall it ever actually being done.

Quick solution for you....





...use different drivers.