Looks like a 'look back' to El-D to me - I'm desperate to see that as we're in some comparatively 'Alan is lost' type terrain here

Doug

Given that these rocks (well, the ones we looked at when we first got to Erebus) have this very salt-rich rind on them, something not seen in the sections at Eagle or Endurance afaik, then they should be higher in the pile shouldnt they?

This very fine Xbedding indicitive of flowing water in the rocks here at Olympia would suggest being at the top end of the story at the very least. Go much down the stack and you hit the wind blown deposits that we saw in Burns cliff.

Doug

Large versions and others
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Mars

Doug

Just found out - I've got 40 minutes in the 25th- just about right to cover Spirit properly since last April

Doug

Not really - NASA press releases can be a bit 'hollywood' - but they dont tend to lay claim to something that's already been investigated.

Doug

Jim's been busy...


http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solars...103-images.html

Shows how much the raw jpg's are stretched, I had so much more contrast than that, but I just didnt know it.

Doug

Well - you could infer one from overlaying an older image that does have an image scale couldnt you?

I guess you use photoshop and layers, scale the whole thing 200% - then put the new image over the top and scale it to fit you current base map perhaps?

Doug

Yup - the maths could get quite interesting. Is it worth spending perhaps $10m upgrading to a slightly heavier version of your ELV to get larger solar arrays so you can have a more powerfull transmitter and thus get more kbps and thus fewer sessions.

Might have had my maths a bit wrong earlier.....but this is all very very 'ballpark guestimation'

say 14 1hr passes of 35m coverage per week ( i.e. the daily uplink for MER plus beep back ) would be something like $2424/hr, or about $34k/week ( $1.7m/year ). The finances for doing MER Relay with Odyssey is probably quite interesting, I think it would probably be something like 1 hr of Odysseys downlink per day is MER related - so a similar figure.



Voyager


Say it's 28 sessions a week, 7 on 70m, 21 on 35m

$6745/hr for the 70m - $400k (as near as makes no difference)
$527k for the 35m - so that week's Voyager DSN ops cost about $927K.

Youch.

Very rough maths - probably very wrong to be honest.

7 x 8hr 70m passes per week, at 5kbps is $377,220 per week, for 984 MBytes - or $552 per floppy disk

Doug

Sounds like Harvard PAO went on an ESA 'claim something we already know' press release writing course.

Doug

Looks to me like alternate driving days and imaging days, perhaps it's a bit restricted at the moment.

Doug

The ELV doc is very interesting....I wonder how close that figure they quote for each performance target matches the bill from Boeing or LoMart.

Very interesting chart for DSN charges as well - trying to figure out a rough value - but with 5 contacts a week, 70m DSN access is about $2114 per hour *, with the 34m access being 1/4 of that. It must get to a point where the design of a telecoms system to go onboard a spacecraft is an exercise in accounting more than engineering.

Lots of excellent reading to be had in there - it'll be interesting to see the applications in a few months time.

Doug

(*PS - at say 128kbps, $2114/hr is roughly $37 / megabyte )

I agree Emily, ISIS for Win would be good, but in the mean time I've had luck using the 'Gimp' and a PDS plugin for it....it's worked for Themis files.

Gimp for Windows http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/
PDS Plugin http://registry.gimp.org/plugin?id=445

But so far, it just makes pds.exe ( the plugin ) crash with VIMS cubes

Doug

I think I've managed to find a copy of the guide on Ebay

But I dont know they did the DVD's at all Where on earth can one get them?

Doug

All the documentation says there are guides to the current status of Stardust and DI at the library
http://discovery.larc.nasa.gov/discovery/dpl.html

but I cant find them

Doug

What I especially like is that if you blow it right up, it looks quite a lot like my CPROTO simulation of Oppy @ Purg, which was a precursor to my simulation of HIRISE




Doug

Another BAA meeting, another Doug Talk. I'm only giving a short update on Spirit, but if any of you are in or around London on the evening of the 25th, pop along

It's at New Hunts House, Guys Hospital, near London Bridge Tube Station - 17:00 for 17:30 till 20:00. The other speakers are the ever entertaining Martin Mobberley with his Sky Notes, and Chris Lintott (yes, the guy from The Sky at Night) talking on Cosmology:Into the Unknown - and....me doing an Update on the last year of Spirit (just about, the last time I talked to the BAA about Spirit was last April, so it'll be everything from Larrys Lookout to now really)

Would be great to see anyone who can make it down there

I'm also talking at the Out of London Weekend ( Fri 21st to Sun 23rd of April in Liverpool) , York AS on the night of June 2nd giving Spirits full story, and Opportunity's full story on Sat, Dec 16th (1430 - 1730) at the London Bridge venue again

More info, ish, at www.britastro.org

Doug

They DVD'd the Beagle programs from the OU

DOUG WANT! Not found that anywhere - any pointers?

I cant actually see any 'stuff' on your blog, just lots of images down each side - there's a Beagle 2 Guide it seems ( after CP's book Beagle which I have ) - what on earth's that?

Doug

Oh - I've known about Jims book plan for some time, and he has given me his blessing to do my own book as well. What I'm aiming for is very very specific, and nothing published or planned is similar as far as I know.

Doug

Oh - I've flown enough Orbiter to understand all that What I was trying to demonstrate was the fact that getting high, and getting to orbit, are very very different ballparks

Doug

Actually - for once, JPL's up to date as well

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-spirit/index.html

Doug

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...pe=post&id=3100 has it down perfectly imho

Doug

This item might have made it into space - but never into orbit.

Ignoring the fall off of gravity, and ignoring air resistance, getting into orbit is a two fold issue. Getting high, and getting fast.

Say you need 200km and 7500 m/sec

The pot.energy of, say, 1kg @ 200km is 200,000 J
The Kinetic Energy of that 1kg doing 7500 m/s (orbital velocity) is 28,125,000 J

Those are the two things you need to add to something to get it into orbit.

So even if they gave it enough shove to overcome friction, and it survived the massive heating, it might have got into space, but it would never have got into orbit

Doug

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/01/03/index.html


Doug

I think we'll get a good view of all of El-D from the home plate area, till then it's just a side-on view I guess.

I still cant figure out where that BIG drive was without any same-sol-post-drive-imaging.

It looks like the saved the post drive imaging for the following sol.

Doug

I'm not a geologist, but I'll put my $5 on Olivine rich basaltic sand

Doug