Looking at the Phil-O-Vision image I thikn Erebus could actually be a nice panorama - several feet of outcropping it looks like. A strange, new, and unusual vista I am sure

Doug

Some L2/L7's came down and I've done a whole lot of channel-mixing to get something fairly nice.



http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/o533_71.jpg (600kb)

And because it highlights the features ahead so brilliantly - i've done the interesting section in 500% Phil-O-Vision

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...o533_71_pov.jpg (60kb)

Who wants to play 'match the feature' with that and MOC imagery

Doug

Someone else who's read 'Star Cross Orbits'. Excellent read.

Doug

Well - I live in the UK But I've not been anywhere that required an airline flight to get there for a while. Possibly a Paris trip later this year ( my other half will have been to NYC, Milan, London and Paris inside of 12 months if we do ) but that will probably Eurostar (not been on that yet). My favorite holiday destination in the world is Mull in Scotland, and that's just 2 days driving and a short ferry.

Last overseas holiday was tenerife about 8 years ago, and the flight out was astonishing - Teide sticking up out the cloud deck as we approached the new airport - and on the way out, it was just gone sunset, and the top of Teide was still lit as we head out north - fabulous.

Doug

I'm yet to see a piece of NASA imagery that isnt allowed to be used freely for any purpose, save for the credit "Courtesy NASA/XXX" where XXX is JPL, JHU, Cornell etc etc etc

Doug

Looks like it's from Meridiani

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...56P2571L7M1.jpg

Doug

I've not been overseas for a few years - but in flights to holiday destinations - the highlight of the holiday was ALWAYS the flight.



Doug

I believe the UHF package on MER is only equiped to do up to 256k, but what MRO may offer - if the MER's are still up and running in 12 months time - is a new relay path

They've dropped MGS - prefering to use every ounce of its downlink for imaging - but Odyssey can do between 1 and 4 passes every day - up around 60-200 Mbits a go - and it would take about 25 minutes to send back a full 200mbits down to earth.

If MRO is put into service, even if just as an end to end test of the UHF system on board before Phoenix gets there, then it will be able to recieve a little less than Odyssey ( courtesy of being in a lower orbit of about 300 x 200 instead of 400 x 400 km) - perhaps 50-150Mbits, but - it could send that 150Mbits back down to earth in as little as 30 seconds ( but perhaps as long as 8 minutes )

What I would like to see is MRO being used during the long loops of aerobraking to do some UHF relay - because that might give, say, 30, 40 minutes of pass time - which could be as much as 5 or 600 Mbits ( the entire volume of the rovers ) - and dump that to earth in around 5-30 minutes.

BUT - given that they are doing no science during aerobraking - I find it unlikely that they'd do relay ops during aerobraking either.

Doug

Oh - Bob - have no fear - I have a special administrating/moderating hat just for net kooks It comes with a large bat marked "ban"

They all know about this place but they've never come in here....because they know their arguments would be smashed to pieces.

Doug

That the feature about 75% across, 30% down was artificial

Stop laughing.

I explained that the CCD pixels were non square so a small feature could appear stretched after processing. I explained that deconvolution would artificilaly enhance features like that....and I showed the orig raw imagery and the re-sized imagery, yadda yadda yadda - but you know what these loonies are like, once they latch onto something...


I say debate...they proposed a quite rediculous theory - I counter it with evidence - they ignore the evidence and carry on. It's totally futile to be honest, but it's good 'sport' if nothing else

To give you an idea - the same person suggested that there are hangers on the moon, glass worms on mars, that he KNOWS Mars had a civilization in the past etc etc etc...

Doug

Relay capacity guestimates...

Odyssey : 0.1 - 0.4 Gbits
MRO : 1 - 2.5 Gbits
MTO : 18 - 64 Gbits

This is why I laughed out loud at the press conf when they said the
loss of MTO wouldnt affect MSL.

Things such as MARDI with it's 2 Gbits of memory for the 100 second, 5fps 1600 x 1200 colour movie, or the 9 Gig of memory built into Mastcam...

Doug

GRRrrrrrrrrrrrr bloody Hubble. Dont even get me started.

I'm just gutted they didnt go for a downsized MTO - use the same hardware as MRO, but by dropping all the science instruments, having more, but smaller solar array panels the 2kw budget could be generated at mars on a spacecraft somewhere between the scale of MRO and MGS.

It's the duration of the overflights that was the bonus for MTO - not 10 minutes, but many tens of minutes.

By dropping MTO, we drop a lot of extended mission science for MRO, we drop the on orbit rendezvous experiments, the optical comms experiment, the small instrument opportunity, and the redundency it offered over and above MRO.

Doug

MTO, because of being in a higher orbit - would have allowed more like 10Gbit/sol



Doug

Quite simply - for MSL to have any hope in hell of achieving what it's setting out to - MRO HAS to work. It's that simple.

Doug

Just listening to the MRO conference. Highlights included...

1) 5.4 Mbits is the highest MRO data rate (not the 4 I thought)
2) An extra 50-ish KG of fuel puts it's low-altitude orbit life thru to the next decade.
3) MTO HAS BEEN CANCELLED

What the HELL!

They say that MSL can still do its mission with just MRO as it's relay capacity will suffice.

But that means less science data during an MRO extension

Seems a bit short sighted.

Doug

Looks like it's much higher resolution that the actual image in question, and thus could well be an artifact introduced while printing the book?

ODug

No money ( PHX has already dropped the active entry iirc, because the money simply isnt there)

No volume - already a tight squeeze inside the payload - which is way way beyond PDR, and thus not changeable.

No mass - it'll be calculated to the last kg - the launch vehicle is probably undergoing manufacture already - A Delta II - which flavour I'm not sure.

I think people very very easily underestimate the complexity of spacecraft.

And lest we forget - we dont NEED months and months of extended mission. Take the full panorama, do the trenching, enjoy the LIDAR - job done.

It's not like an extra year would be usefull so we can drive 5km to a different area...and NO...we cant put wheels on it

Doug

I wouldnt expect a view out to the S / SW properly until next week to be honest.

Doug

I'm doing the cheap and cheerfull version - the BAA Out of London weekend

Doug

My two favorite MGS colour images are these

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...gs_r1303897.jpg
I simply trawled every batch, and every section of mars for WA colour pairs - and this was one of them. I love it - a brilliant Astronauts view of Meridiani

and this one
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...gs_sp239201.jpg

Rather famous - this is my version of it - again it's the astronauts view that William Hartmann push Mike Malin to take - and much kudos to him for doing so

Doug

Unexpecteds are where it has more time than expected - so it fills it with something like atmospheric science I think.

i.e. a drive it quicker than expected - so it has time and power to spare - so it will do some opacity measurements or extra navcam frames or that sort of thing. Or if a drive is actually aborted by the rover - it'll be a different set of post-drive images.

Doug

I think we'll 'emerge' between the summits to be honest - so it's difficult to identify them at this point. We will barely spot them when we're there as well

Doug

Carefull of saying 'by....' - because you never know, they might stop at more rocks on the way

Doug

3360 Whrs - is a lot more than MER

Doug

Make sure you zoom ALL the way in

Doug