You could calculate that yourself very easily just by looking at ET's maps, and by reading the odometry updates at the JPL site.

2m/pixel = 250,000 per sq Km.

4 color channels plus 2 stereo channels (guessing here ) at 8 bit depth ( assuming a 12 bit to 8 bit LUT ) and 2:1 compression ( about what is done for HiRISE I think )

Those 250000 pixels over six channels become 1.5 megapixels - at 8 bits becomes 12 megabits compressed to 6 megabits. Per Sq Km

Approx 145 million sq km on Mars. Which means 870,000 gigabits or 870 terrabits of data.

At an optimistic average of say, 2 megabits per second - 5034 days of continuous downlink.

Make you own call on that one.

Alternatively - consider it this way. CTX on MRO is 6m/pixel and single channel. So it's 1/9th the number of pixels and 1/6th the number of channels - so 1/54th the amount of data per sqKM and in 3 years they've managed something over half the planet.

The recent swath of Cassini maps doesn't have this problem, nor the MOLA GDR's in my experience.

But yes - I'm talking about the LOLA GDR's

Humph. Still some major problems with this imho - the ends still don't match when you wrap it around or cut'n'paste in photoshop to drop the meridian in the middle.

When we see that ( and it's happened once ) we'll have a long normal drive - and then a drive that's like the old drunken sailor walk, but magnified a LOT. It'll be 17.5 deg turn off direction and then back again, then 1m drive, then 17.5 deg off, 17.5 deg back - 1m drive.

==/\==/\==/\==/\ that sort of thing. HOWEVER - because the rover itself is more than 1m long, it'll result in a messy trail. It'll be very obvious out the rear mirror once we've done it for 10-20m or so.

Why are you assuming they'll move in and APXS every ChemCam target?

"The fact that the Mars program already gets billions of dollars per year" you say.

As a Mars researcher, you should know that to be entirely false. It's between $500 and 600M per year. A factor of at least 4 less than 'billions'.

The fact is this - the budget can't afford the scout program any more. If there's some exceptional science to be done within that budget, it can fight with other missions. If it can't beat those missions to the cash, then so be it.

So you think they're using it too quickly? Where is your MTBF number to suggest that's the case? 500,000 pulses is 'a lot of operation' ?

MOLA fired 390,000,000+ times in its primary mission.

What is it that makes you think the ChemCam team are going to do more with the laser than it is designed to do, or that they have designed it to do less than is required?

In short - what are you going on about?

From the very article you cite...

How, exactly?

I would have thought so - notice the density increasing to the poles. It would have imaged, roughly speaking, the same spot over the north pole every single orbit just about

Take out the repeats, and it looks fairly normal

I gave up rather quickly - I just couldn't get anything useful from it at all.

I've posted elsewhere - these are 'Earth-like' planets, in the same way a cow is 'Car-like'

I'm assuming Europlanet. And then it'll be an image or two in papers and nothing more.

I've going a different route. Rosetta has an awesome Navigation camera - in the hands of the same sorts of people who look after MEX's VMC. I wonder if they'll be more data share friendly.

Well - Cassini did it, NH did it, MSL will do it - I'd called it standard procedure to be honest.

Hey - at least he doesn't come back asking for another fish.

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Give him a net, he'll feed himself for a lifetime. Or something.

You could measure it yourself with Google Earth and ET's maps.

There isn't an RTG of any sort fitted on the back right now. Weight corrected or otherwise. What you're seing is the radiator fins. The gap between them is where the RTG goes.

And these tests are only an experiment in so far as making sure everything works. There is the scarecrow MSL that is literally just suspension and an electronics box for the purpose of mobility testing with an equiv 1/3rd mass.

There will be a model of the RTG fitted for thermal-vac testing I would guess, but the real one will not get fitted - as with Cassini and New Horizons - until it's on the rocket read for launch. There will be a door on the rockets fairing and there's a door on the back of the backshell to let them insert it into the back of the rover whilst in the fairing on the Atlas V in Florida.

Sorry - yes - I should have been more specific - I meant seen from the ground.

If it were inside endeavour - then it would be utterly utterly enormous. It's probably a KM or two away, no more than that.

Yup - I think that's our first obvious Meridiani DD

Live a bit early - http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

First drive expected at about 2pm