YES!! Really. It's a refly - not a redesign.

Mike has pointed people to the 2020 proposal documentation - one of the best documents to read is this.

http://soma.larc.nasa.gov/mars2020/pdf_fil...8Signatures.pdf

Explicitly...
"The MSL heritage design includes Rover Compute Elements (RCEs) and Rover Power/Analog Modules (RPAMs). "

Same computer. Period.

Note some of the level of MSL reuse - down to using an identical flex cable to go up the mast to mast mounted instruments, for example. The power budgets offered are the same. The thermal conditions the same. Data volumes the same. The available peak current for instruments is the same. Do a search for the word heritage - it appears 50 times. MSL appears 61 times.

A negligible amount that could be entirely swallowed ( and then some ) by a less equatorial landing site and the resultant heating requirements etc.

The RAD750 is pretty ubiquitous in planetary spaceflight now. MRO, Kepler, LRO, WISE, SDO, Juno, Curiosity. I would expect 2020 to fly with the same hardware.

The only step-change you might see is if auto-nav processing is handed off to an FPGA configured to do the job. The increase in performance would probably mean there would be a negligible difference between driving with autonav on, compared to blind-drives. However - there is a risk, cost, power etc etc associated with flying such a development.

Yes. Indeed if you look at the ellipse from before launch, and the ellipse just before landing you'll notice that it both shrunk AND moved closer to the target based on in-flight performance of the vehicle. They didn't leave anything on the table - they did the best the system could reliable support.

- planning cycle
There is nothing that's going to change that. It'll still take a full working shift to plan a rovers day of activities. It's going to basically be the same vehicle, so it's going to be basically as complex to use.


- power available for driving
Will almost certainly be a similar MMRTG to MSL. Anything else would require significant (and expensive) changes to the vehicle design. The waste heat from the MMRTG on MSL is an integral part of the entire thermal architecture of the vehicle. Anything else would be a huge alteration that would throw any notion of build-to-print out the window.

- maximum wheel speed
You'll be seeing the same suspension, the same motors. It'll be doing the same speed.

- effectiveness of auto navigation and our trust in it
2020 will almost certainly fly the same avionics with the same performance as MSL. There may be mild improvements in Autonav - but the code is about as good as it's going to get - it's been running on Mars for years and years (more than half a decade on MER before MSL)

If you expect any of those to change for Mars 2020, you are going to be disappointed.

That doesn't preclude using MODY for Opportunity whatsoever. The PM pass will just be a little later in the day (after which the rover can then deep-sleep)

The total amount of power generated by the arrays and the power consumed by doing a UHF pass don't change if you decide to do a UHF pass at 4pm or 6.30pm or 2pm. It's not like doing it later would require the heating of actuators etc.Turn it on. Use it. Turn it off. Same Whr comsumption be it 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 4am...whatever.

The AM Odyssey passes ( typically 4am ) are only used when the rover has enough power to not do a deep-sleep. That will remain true if the AM pass is at 6.30am.

Apart from changing a few timings - I don't see any significant impact to Opportunity operations whatsoever.

They did. With success :-O

Yup - I was surprised as well.

https://twitter.com/uhf_satcom/status/433709448717033472

Yeah - I couldn't help myself either...

I think Jim ran out of grad students

Some of these may have been processed well and put up on the Pancam Page...

http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_ins...projects_2.html

http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_ins...projects_3.html

For those wondering where the UMSF logo came from - the little stylized spacecraft is a 3D version of the spacecraft icon from the plaque onboard the Pioneer spacecraft....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pioneer_...olar_system.svg

10 years ago. That's what we're celebrating. It's the same forum, it just got it's name changed after about a year.

Who would have thought that the scrappy forum I threw up on spare webspace back in February 2004 would still be around today. I'm e a little bit proud, but largely astonished that people have stuck around despite my bombastic efforts as an admin I know of at least two people who now have careers within the fields of space exploration and planetary science because of this place. That's probably what I'm most proud this place has achieved.

A huge thank you to the admin team - especially Glen, Emily, Dan - who do a far far better job of keeping this place in shape than I could ever have imagined doing myself.

Thanks must also go to Emily and the rest of The Planetary Society staff for giving UMSF a roof over its head since 2010

To the members, this dysfunctional, creative, brilliant, knowledgeable and inquisitive bunch crazy enough to call this place their exploration home - thanks for sharing your creativity with us and helping share the excitement of exploration with the rest of the world.

But the most thanks of all have to go to Steve Squyres and Jim Bell - for being brave enough to let us come along for the ride when Spirit and Opportunity landed ten years ago.

Who knows what adventures we will have, what landscapes we will see and what incredible discoveries will be made in the next ten years.

Cheers

Doug

CRISM data is online and searchable. http://crism-map.jhuapl.edu/ couldn't be easier to use.

http://crism-map.jhuapl.edu/?map=crismmap&...n%20Short%20Obs

Would suggest there isn't a CRISM observation of that exact spot yet released. I would expect a CRISM follow up to have been commanded at the same time as the HiRISE follow up following the discovery. It's just not out yet.

The nearest CRISM observation, purely by chance, about 9/10ths of a degree north.... is a follow up fresh-impact observation
http://crism-map.jhuapl.edu/details.php?da...1&y=3.12226

I don't think anyone was expecting to see a 'crater' ( this location was, after all, directly under the rover when Pinnacle Island showed up so you would have needed a neat hole straight thru the rover to cause it ) - the 'crater' hypothesis was such that somewhere nearby ( 10's of meters, hundreds of meters, km's away perhaps ) a crater was formed and PI was a piece of ejecta from that.

However - I think we have a smoking gun in the form of wheel/rock/digup/tiddlywink interaction.

It's a differential that links the mobility system across the two sides of the rover.

A simple search on the JPL tech report server will show a lot of documentation about rover mobility - here's just two.

Mars Science Laboratory differential restraint : the devil is in the details
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/42431

Introduction to mobility for MSL
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/43242

You enter a world of many many unknowns when you start trying to shove things around. Will it move at the toque the arm can handle - will something roll back and put torque on the system etc etc.

http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/publicati..._2005_final.pdf has some good IDD spec - including typical preload forces on the RAT of around 30N. The IDD is a very fragile thing. The Phoenix arm was a brute of a thing that could really bring some torque to the game, MSL's is about inbetween I believe.

We have the RAT ( on MER ) and DRT ( on MSL ) for that. Using a wheel for it would be a messy affair.

And with all the notions of a 'rake'....you have to consider what would you take off MSL or MER to make room for it in terms of mass, volume, power..and budget. Such notions are not free...and you have to consider the cost to the vehicle.

The wheels do a great job when required for simple trenching, crude abrasion....and at the same time are useful for getting around. Extra hardware really isn't justified.

Probably referencing moments in the Viking 'chute test vids where hardware related to the test itself falls back into the 'chute puncturing it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7zMeQG8L-E#t=118

A test program analogous to the Viking 'chute test program will be taking place later this year as part of the LDSD project. Inflatable heatshield extension, larger parachutes, and lots and lots of photo-documentation.

And it would have been dark.

Pre or post Hubble....physics is physics.....the laws of optics still apply. The short answer is no. The long answer is in the physics described here : http://www.telescope-optics.net/telescope_resolution.htm

I survived long enough to get a picture of M99's supernova as well.

Here's both sides