Once shape-file data is out there, I'll certainly make a 3D printable STL file that people can get printed at Shapeways or other 3D printing sites.

I've already done Eros, Itokawa and Vesta ( and others )

http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/search/ellison/model

And for those of us familiar with Cassini or MER/MSL sized sensors - good news...OSIRIS cameras are 2k x 2k (i.e. 4 megapixels)

Doug

705 Toe Dip!

(Full Size - http://dougellison.smugmug.com/Landscapes/...ity/i-QRFgw57/O )

I was pondering the same thing over lunch - and came to the same conclusion.... the flat 'bottom' of the rubber-duck is likely the place with the most consistent gravity field. As Philae will be in free-fall, you want something reliable to fall thru. There are places where you could end up taking big turns and landing sideways etc.

Doug

And the R view

http://dougellison.smugmug.com/Landscapes/...ity/i-FCfqmNm/O

Sol 703 Hidden Valley view from L MastCam

Full Size : http://dougellison.smugmug.com/Landscapes/...osity/i-bpjLJkd

I believe their shape file is here : ftp://ssols01.esac.esa.int/pub/data/SPICE...LSSP/LSSP_TEST/
as RS_GLOBAL_DTM_20m.ROS

(edit - that's a very old one - CREATION_DATE = 2014-04-30T18:11:30 )

The Sol 696 View is beautiful indeed - it'll take a few Sols to get to, and couple of sols to get down into Hidden Valley....but it'll be a fabulous ride when we're there!

http://dougellison.smugmug.com/Landscapes/...ity/i-skmhg56/O

I believe it would be attached to the lander itself ( think the MER lander ) - as there are artists impressions that show the lander to not be a dead piece of hardware post-rover departure, but a standalone spacecraft of its own with solar panels etc.

It's been in it's current orbit for about 55 years - or nearly 9 perihelion passes. It's not broken apart yet.

The recipe used for early Opportunity purgatory extraction efforts was equal parts play sand (which is fine sand) clay and diatomaceous earth.

Often a drive can end either by timing out, by reaching a goal, or by stopping itself- and post drive activities will all be carried out the same.

The top right of this - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/mult...a/pia16070.html

They can also do passive spectroscopy without using the laser - lots of atmospheric obs can be done with it.

I would urge caution in interpreting any data release schedule. The only thing we've learned over the 11 years since launch is that most of the instrument teams are in no hurry at all to release their data.

And this 'statement' is contrary to the two peer reviewed articles I cited above. Despite being from different scientists using instruments on different spacecraft, 7 years apart, on different parts of the planet - the Pathfinder and MER (both A and B ) results are in excellent agreement regarding the color of the sky on Mars.

Of the entire 4 page work - this is the part that I find most obviously factually incorrect....


From section 4 - "there are actually very few perspectives within Gale that show the sky directly above the horizon"

This is patently false. Every image you include after that comment has the sky in it. Every. single. one. There are hundreds - hundreds and hundreds that do - as well as the end-of-drive MAHLI postcards that get taken after each significant drive. Your claim is just totally false.

"NASA now seems to have wised up to what the actual sky color of Mars is, has quietly dropped its former references to the “pink” or “salmon” sky of Mars, and recently there have been photos and panoramas released from earlier surface missions, apparently re-calibrated, that show a green-tinted sky similar to Curiosity’s"

Also false - and the images you include are not NASA's - infact, I think they're Olivier de Goursac's - but you don't credit him appropriately. Many are manual colorizations of navcam mosaics.

And finally - I'm really not sure how it's possibly attempt to conduct a discussion on the color of the Martian sky without including references such as...

BELL ET AL.: CHROMATICITY OF THE MARTIAN SKY
http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/Bell_etal_SkyColor_06.pdf

or
MAKI ET AL. : The color of Mars: Spectrophotometric measurements at the Pathfinder landing site
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029...E01767/abstract

You can have you own opinion - but please don't simply brush aside careful scientific analysis because it doesn't match your opinion. That's not scientific. If you think they're wrong - then you have to do the work to explain why. 30+year old anecdotes that have nothing to do with Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity or Curiosity do not constitute scientific discourse.

I tried - and I'm afraid I had to give up.

You've clearly done a lot of work David - but the devil is in the detail when it comes to gaining professional traction.

You've included images that I know are not NASA's that do not have a credit in the text, next to the image, or anywhere else.

There is no way to know if an image is NASA's or not.

Moreover - the images that do originate from NASA - "All photos courtesy of NASA/JPL" for most of the images you use - that is an insufficient and in many cases an incorrect credit.

Just one example - the last image of Page 1 is clearly an HRSC image. I see no credit whatsoever.

The image credit should, at the very least, be



And more properly in a publication should be



If you want to retain flow.... put a one line caption and credit with every single image.

It also is very very easy to miss your references, because they're only at the end of the fourth webpage. Ideally - they should be at the bottom of each section as appropriate.

Seriously - they'll get there when they get there. Attempting to guestimate it at this point is really rather pointless.

We'll find out when we get there. Once that happens, perhaps there can be a meritorious discussion on the various means of establishing a shape model from light curves and how well they match the actual nucleus.

Sol 663 Mastcam thumb-pan.

Normal? Yes.
Impact the mission? No.

One need only look at the Dumont Dunes testing that has appeared in MSL videos and many team member twitter feeds to realize that they have, quite obviously, considered dune mobility at some length.

ISEE3 should show up as ICE on DSN Now at http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn

Currently it's scheduled from 1945 UTC tomorrow with 100 minutes of setup time. It may be 2045 until we therefore see a signal - but it might be earlier than that.