dxf, 3ds, obj, stl - all good for me

Feel free to attach a file or two so people can try them out.


Doug

I wonder what might be feasable using the Juno platform, but augmented with a larger capacity for Delta V - perhaps under an New Frontiers budget.


Doug

Oh - a full Navcam pan will have been taken at the end of the drive, but the forward facing images are a higher priority than the backward facing ones, so they'll come down overnight or tomorrow.

Doug

I knew you'd appear in here I was thinking to my self "what will MC say.." when I made it..

Thus the phrase "Quoted resolutions simulated...." at the end there, and not 'Simulated resolving power' or something like that. It's simply answering the questions "what does X m/pixel look like". I remember my old MOC / HiRISE MER simulation - and that was exactly .25cm per pixel and 1.5x0.5 m/pixel - not softened in any way - basically saying "if they actually got the figure mentioned, then it would look like this" - and to be fair, the most recent MOC CPROTO image of Spirit on Husband Hill is pretty close to my simulation.

I was sure I was on the money with the figures (somehow I got 12 in my head with Odyssey - that figure is around somewhere, but 18 is around a lot more - and is too close to HRSC's 12 to bother demonstrating, I may just drop the Themis VIS reference...no offense ) , I'm hoping to do a second version that includes TES and CRISM footprints, and something about Omega as well.

Good points well made though - and a disclaimer on the end shot is probably appropriate next time around.

Doug

I think you might be missing the problem. The problem is driving the wheel, not turning it. They can turn the wheel left and right, i.e. have it in the direction it would normally be for driving. What they can't do is DRIVE the wheel.

For comparison, Opportunity has a wheel that is steering-locked just off centre, but still driveable - and they're doing quite well with it.

Doug

I actual visited it. Bloody terrible it was.

I picked it because I needed a big object of known size to measure to cross check the scale on google maps, that, and I knew the kids in the lecture I gave last week would enjoy whistling the East Enders themetune as I zoomed in

Doug

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...s_orbit_res.wmv ( 8 Meg )

Simulated resolution of the various cameras on orbit at Mars right now - all the way from 100000 to 30 cm

At least - once the FTP is back up and running. Grrrr..

I just hope Google Maps don't try and send me to jail for using their pictures

Doug

Sorry - that's mine with 'S1K' (like Y2k, but for Mars Rovers )

Doug

As I understand it - every X metres, the rover does a single visidom to measure actual progress compared to commanded progress. If there's above Y% slip, the drive aborts.

Doug

S1K



Doug

Listen to or read the Steve Squyres Q'n'A I did .

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1683

Doug

I can't believe I'm saying this again....there is no evidence that a dust devil ever cleaned Spirit. Some of the cleaning events happened overnight. You don't get DD's at night. Further more - the fact that there was a clear lack of cleaning 'downwind' from the HGA shows that it wasnt a spiralling whirlwind, but simply strong local winds in a constant direction that cleaned Spirit.

What we need is a big hill - the sort of place that has strong winds - not a DD - not to mention the fact that the DD season is long finished.

Doug

Your member title has been suitably adjusted

Doug

Keep us informed

Doug

But with solar panels - you can still get unlucky - a bad dust storm and you're done. Good night. So long. You don't know if you'll have 1000 Whr's in a months time, or 300. You can't plan long term.

RTG's are the only sensible power platform currently available for long term surface exploration. You know exactly what power you're going to have, every single day, for the next 10 years.

Doug

Nope. Charging day

Doug

<360 Whr's per sol and decreasing quite rapidly

Doug

Go on - give us your Phoenix analysis before the event. Will it work or wont it work, and will you end up saying that whatever science it returns was far short of the intended goals and that everyone but yourself failed to figure that out before hand?

Doug

OK - I am DESPERATE to do a lot of interesting work with this - but the 'point cloud' is just too hard to get into 3ds max as a mesh - it just dies. I am sure we are very very close to having something magnificent here - but we just need to go one tiny step further to get something that a lot of people will be able to use and do amazing work with - I just don't know what that step requires

Doug

Need to see some of the look-back-Navcams to really call it, but the driving actually looks a lot easier than I was expecting around here

Doug

What we need is Esawatch - I'm not a Cowing fan, but at least he asks the awkward questions from time to time.

Doug

Is that a precursor to a Bruce after-the-event-prediction that you knew it would crash all along?

Doug

Spirits wheel wasnt stuck back in the 150-350 sol region.The motor pulled more current when driven, 3x more than the others, and they thought that if it got worse they'd kill the motor - but it DID work when commanded to.

So - they commanded it to not turn about 90% of the time, and just turn it 10% of the time to clear the little trench it was digging.

What we have here is when you command the wheel to turn, it doesnt, a different problem, and possibly not even a related problem to the trouble of 500 sols ago.

Doug

The day time temps might be getting to -60 instead of say, -20 - but it still goes down to lots more than -100 at night. And even then - all the wheels have heaters.

Doug

Somehow, they get away with that excuse across the whole of ESA.

Doug