SLAP

I'm not pinning down a date - already made that clear (for the sake of impartiality when the arguments start over 'arrival' ) - all I'm doing is laying out a best guess at progress over the next two weeks.

Doug

I think that's the point Those are Mike Browns words - and I think the majority in this forum disagree with them.

Doug

LRO will use derivatives of the CTX on MRO to do approx 50cm/pixel panchromatic imaging of the surface - and then a derivative of MARCI on MRO to do 500m/pixel @ 7 different wavelengths.

http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/index.html

I'd have thought we'd see data going online in the usual fashion, 6 or maybe 3 months chunks - 6 months later.

Doug

You can tell it's a good projection because the tracks stay parallel and dont diverge of converge...good work!

Doug

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...056&st=465# - as I said

We don't know if it'll be a short drive or something significant. Either way I think next w'end will be at Epsilon and then the weekend after at Victoria.

Doug

Yup - by casting a shadow onto the black/grey rings it allows one to calculate the direct illumination and indirect illumination properties

And the times when the gnomen ( to give it a technical name ) might cast shadows on the arrays are only very close to sunrise and sunset - a time when the angle if incidence between sun and array is such that you're barely going to drop any power at all.

Doug

Oh - a bit of tweaking here and there

The thing with this is that you can do a 1:1 scale and not be totally oversized for a home project - MER would be too big at 1:1

Doug

Oh - I totally agree.

However - the pie has to be cut up between the major players, and I would be shocked to see the 'LEM' contract go anywhere else.

I did like KC's prediction before the announcement which was basically that one or more groups would get the contract for some or all of it...i.e. every possible base covered

In an ideal world the contracts would be given to whoever provides the best technical proposal...but the world is far from ideal.

DOug

The crater is expected to be 3 x 10m..... you're not going to see if from the ground. You're not going to see if with Hubble. You're not going to see it until LRO starts mapping at 50cm/pixel in a few years time.

Doug

It ties in with the change from small dunes to the flat surface we're on now - you could see it from Beagle if you stretched vertically, as a 'sheen' on the terrain where we now see it to be very flat.

Doug

2% of 280 Whrs = 5.6 Whrs...

Via UHF - data costs about 0.8 Whr / Mbit - so you could get perhaps 7 Mbits of data home via UHF

But of course, with onlly 5.6 Whrs - you've not got enough to warm up some instruments to take data to fill that 7 Mbits

However - to put this into some sort of context..

Shadowing causes losses of up to around 20% per sol

Doug

And hence why all Opportunitys images have a 1 serial number, and Spirits have 2

Doug

It looks like they intend to sell it in 7 chunks of 90 odd euros.

Can anyone who speaks italian help me find out how to subscribe?

I've emailed the contact page to see what they say.

I HAVE TO BUILD ONE (and customize it a bit to look a bit better )

Doug

We've not moved since the IDD problem. The churn you can see is what happens when you do a turn-in-place with one stuck steering actuator.

I was having a hack at it myself as well

Doug

WOAHHH....

I hope to hell that that gets to the UK in some way.

Doug

It's soil pushed flat by the mossbauer.

Doug

I've had a look through for HGA and other deck details.

I share your frustration at IDD detail - there's not a lot out there - so all the more kudos for you for doing a great job on the APXS and RAT.....

Here's some of the best I've found.
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19010
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19006
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19003
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19001
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19002
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19039
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19216
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19459
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19458
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=19456
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=21566
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=21561

Doug

There are a LOT of high res images at the KSC website

Use the advances search option here
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/index.cfm

And search for images, in reverse date order, having selected Mars Exploration Rovers under the Expend. LV drop box.

This is the first image that includes a rover
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=18623

There are a LOT of images in there.

Doug

The choice of Lo-Mart for CEV was obvious once you consider that N-G-Boe was always going to do the 'LEM' section of VSE.

Doug

Not really the end of its window. July 8th on a June 25th till July 15th window. Day 14 of a 21 day window. Spirit was day 3 of a 17 day window

Doug

Not to mention that the distance is twice the distance we've covered in the last 900 sols. With an aging rover, and a significant investigation of Victoria yet to do - there's no real merit to the suggestion that we can average much more than 2x faster than that. So those peaks are a serious 'ask'. There's optimism, and there's sending a rover on a journey to a target that realistically - it's not going to reach.

Once we're done with Victoria - lets see how the Rover is doing, and then consider where we might go.

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/0...Ellipse_25m.gif

However - to be honest - there's not much else worth aiming for post-Victoria. It is the closest interesting feature. I would want some HiRISE imagery before making that choice though. Perhaps we might identify something else comparatively locally that's interesting in those images.

Doug

Well - not all 'fixed' - the windings will forever remain broken...but at least they've discovered nothing else is wrong

Doug

Sol 927
IDD still in place
Pancam 8 pointing L257 of Tracks

Sol 928
Further IDD MI work
IDD APXS Placement

Sol 929
DRIVING With a 360 Navcam mosaic afterwards, but no Drive Dir Pancam (suggesting 930 will be untargetted remote observations)

Doug

The 30" edges are the same size as the 24 and 20 amazingly - perhaps 15-20mm

I do agree on the 'seam' porblem though - at work we all use a 19 or 18" + a 15". A 'working' monitor and a 'reference' monitor - My plan for home is a 24" working monitor and my current 19" Hitachi as the 'ref' monitor.

Doug

I guess one could use the Earth / Moon formation as an analogy. We don't see a enormous crater on Earth from the impact that created our moon.

(and yes - that's the real Alan )

Doug