GENIUS

We've got one at home.

I wonder if you could make a dial? I could get some b'n'w stuff photocopied onto transparancies and then cut it out to fit.

Doug

I started a thread about ESA's Press and Public Outreach 'ability' here
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1117

What I may do is put together a more verbose questionare about ESA - compile the findings, perhaps get the BBC behind me ( they'll pick up on anything like that ) and present to ESA saying "look - you're not pulling your weight - we dont mind paying taxes for ESA - infact we do it gladly - but you HAVE to spend a little bit of that telling us what you're up to!"

Doug

Sojourner was in a Simpsons episode - Bart used her as a skateboard

Doug

Well - a helecopter pilot has cross winds to worry about

Not only that - he also has to get the payload down on a specific point.

SKycrane can simply hover in any safe place - it doesnt have to drop MSL onto a big red X on the martian surface

Doug

Given the sort of imagery we'll get from MRO - I dont think we really need to be able to look 'further' from the ground.

Doug

Mars Dead or Alive is fantastic - if you can, get the follow on -called "Year One" or something.

Doug

JPL's not had anything since last week either

Doug

Ahh - I see - it works as well - fab way to keep up to speed on progress etc when there's no expl/jpl updates.

Doug

Tman - could you explain the syntax to put in that display_jpeg box?

Doug

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/multimedia/...nimation_hq.mov

Basically - I think it's like that - but the whole thing will come to a dead stop above the ground and do the skycrane 'thing'

You could always drop out the backshell whilst still on the 'chute I guess - that might eliminate an opportunity for instability

Doug

Well - in the same way that I called Erebus ' Albert ' for months - in the absence of a name coming out of the MER team - there's nothing wrong with calling it Ultreya.

I agree with your conclusions on what it might be though. I'm not expecting anything amazing - but there is a cool factor in just seing what's around the corner.

Doug

I dont believe there's any skycrane-backshell tether. It would just jetison the backshell like Viking/Phoenix

Doug

That sounds like an independance day panorama to me - a full 360+overlap

Doug

I've not heard any figures that large. Perhaps 1% of that, but certainly not multiple km's per sol

Doug

Payload fairing

One of the cunning things about the Atlas integration process is that instead of putting the payload in a canister, taking the canister to the pad, open the canister, put the payload on top of the rocket, get the fairing, and fit it around the payload....

You simply put the payload in the fairing here, then take the whole lot, fairing and spacecraft inside - over to the tower and plop it on top - the fairing acting as a pseudo-cannister protecting the payload.

Doug

http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/merweb/merweb.pl

Using that - you can see that Spirit is FINE - and has been imaging a LOT

Sol Expected EDRs Actual EDRs %EDRs Down # EDRs Marked Bad # DPs Created # DPs Marked As Sent # DPs Received (Partial or Full) # Full DPs Received Total DataVol Received (Mb) Total DataVol NOT Received (Mb) Total DP Data ALL
534 238 232 97.48 1 232 232 232 232 194.74 0.00 194.74
535 109 103 94.50 0 103 103 103 103 22.14 0.00 22.14
536 125 140 112.00 0 147 141 140 140 55.78 4.48 60.26
537 469 444 94.67 3 469 427 444 425 187.78 24.99 212.78
538 250 220 88.00 0 251 220 220 220 50.19 31.36 81.55
539 346 240 69.36 0 318 245 242 232 100.08 63.00 163.08
540 366 152 41.53 0 320 0 152 151 9.75 128.10 137.85

444 images in a single sol must be a pancam record - perhaps a lot of EDN images - I dont know - we'll find out soon enough - expect a "1978 images added" on JPL at some point

Same with oppy
514 225 99 44.00 0 185 99 99 99 1.69 36.91 38.59
515 57 57 100.00 0 57 57 57 57 36.79 0.00 36.79
516 76 66 86.84 3 70 66 66 66 37.10 3.20 40.29
517 32 22 68.75 0 26 22 22 22 0.91 3.19 4.10
518 144 159 110.42 0 174 159 159 159 4.23 6.93 11.15
519 132 104 78.79 0 162 104 104 104 1.39 1.80 3.19
520 33 42 127.27 0 42 0 42 42 0.58 0.00 0.58
521 6 0 0.00 0 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00


So whilst we're not getting any news from 'home' (sometimes I almost swop my reality so 'home' is where the rovers are ) we can see that there is activity going on, and data coming home.

Someone more up to speed on site-numbers and drive-numbers could actually see if any driving has gone on as well

Doug

Phil - going to be about for the September Cambridge meetings? Check the news forum for the BAA line up the weekend before

They do look a little..er..'vivid' in places.

Am I right in thinking that most of the stuff from the Whale pan did make it into the explor, but not onto the JPL site ?

Given that the 'Legacy' pan from Middle Ground ( near Humphrey ) was taken, downlinked, stitched, and sent to the JPL web team more than a year before it actually ended up appearing on the JPL website - it's not suprising that the Pancam team are doing something on their own.

Doug

And in doing so - make MSL unfeasable.

Doug

Lovely pic of the near-complete spacecraft on slide 3, and great shot of the spin test on 41. Sound like everything is on schedule, much better and you'd be shooing MRO out the way to make room at the Atlas LC

You look at the cutaway drawing of the launch vehcile and I honestly cant remember the payload being a smaller percentage of the LV - it really highlights just how much energy is required.

Doug

I almost cried when they ripped sojourner apart in that film. Fortunately, I was brought back to hails of derasive laughter when a mars sample return spacecraft has a colour GUi with a bear on it

Doug

You're going to cake the entire spacecraft in dust, and ask the rocker-bogie to deal with the whole lot at some point as well.

I think skycrane is easily dismissed as mad - but so was the Pathfinder plan

Doug

Occasionally

Doug

I just discovered that the collective IQ of the Borders staff here in Leicester is about 7

However - they HAVE carried it in the past - so I'll give it a week and see what happens

Doug

Can you just buy an edition of Nature?

I think having exclusivity on mosaics is a bit of a stretch of the imagination - we'll have done them ourselves in a few weeks/months

Doug