huumm...promising...somehow it reminded me of Southern Elysium's "frozen sea"...
...And every man has the right and the moral obligation of having an "El Dorado" of his own...

I'm guessing a whole bunch of "Anatolia-like" features. Paolo better get plenty of sleep so as not to nod off as he puts down the lead foot through this region.

Paolo, welcome, good to see you here!

Could you possibly elaborate on the "new driving techniques that will enable up to 100 m. daily drives" that Steve S. mentioned in the radio programme? - Does it involve the autonomous navigation or something completely different? HiRise image integration with MER roving software?

Good luck in the coming endeavour, I wish you six healthy !

Poor Spirit the Forgotten Rover

Before we start heading south of Victoria.
I wish they could stop at the small crater
on the Southern Part of Victoria Crater.
I think that would be an amazing picture.

Then time to rove onto The Yellow Brick Road
to Endeavour

Sweet!

Still one of my favorite features. I hope we get a chance to study more of these in detail.

Oh, you are so wrong! It is a heart attack every time I drive her but I would not miss any drive with her. It will take a few weeks before we spin her wheels and we have some interesting tricks we would like to try.

Paolo

We have several tricks we learned in Duck Bay and while driving Spirit on her way to WH3. The D* planner will allow more intelligent navigation around obstacles and we have also learned to write "intelligent" sequences that react to events that we have found can be recognized by the on-board sensors. As an example, during our treck from Cape Verde to the outcrop in Duck Bay we had some instances where the right side of the vehicle was sinking, therefore slowing down and the rover would stop. The recovery was simple: pull back, turn left, drive forward and then resume the drive. Well, this technique was easy to recognize on board, and the recovery easy enough that we felt confident to let the rover to autonomously do it. I can't recall the sol number, but that technique was actually triggered and recovered the rover from one of these events. It saved us only one sol, but that's the type of tricks we will probably implement.

Also, we are prepared (and so should you ) to have embedding events (not like Purgatory, but more like Jammerbugt). We surely will have some other accidents on our way there. The only sensible thing to do is to minimize the consequences!

Paolo

Thanks for the insights Paolo. I continue to be somewhat in awe of the way the movement control capabilities of the rover are progressively enhanced. What you guys have achieved with a robotic (as opposed to remote control) vehicle, despite all the risk factors involved in pre-programmed logic, is almost unbelievable.

But as with the poets take on Odysseus' journey to Ithaka, don't hurry because wealth (knowledge) will accumulate during the trip. So it is better if the journey lasts for years, then he will not expect Ithaka to make him rich.

This is excellent. Thanks to you all who contributed so far. It will take me a few days to digest all this. I will keep you posted.

Paolo

Fantastic idea Phil. I love it.

Thanks, Phil for the comparison shots, and Tman for that viewer. Due south does seem a lot more attractive now.

Thought it might be interesting to compare different orbiter views of Endeavour...

ENDEAVOUR IMAGES

MGS:

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/moc/images/E0200373

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/moc/images/large/E0200373 (east side)

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/moc/images/large/E0200372

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/moc/images/E0502642

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/moc/images/large/E0502643


http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/moc/images/E0500801

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/moc/images/large/E0500800



THEMIS:

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/I16825047.html

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/browse/I16825047

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V16826001.html

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/browse/V168...&stretch=S2


CTX

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/ctx/img/P0...1780_XI_02S005W

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/ctx/img/P0...1780_XI_02S005W

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/ctx/img/T0...1780_XI_02S005W

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/ctx/img/P1...1789_XN_01S005W


HiRISE:

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/hirise/img...5779_1775_COLOR

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/hirise/img...005779_1775_RED

http://global-data.mars.asu.edu/hirise/img...007849_1775_RED

I spent most of the night reconsidering this, and I still agree with you and mhoward, Phil. Your array of HiRise crops was a genius idea for those people who don't have the IAS software or know of the viewer page previously posted for zooming and panning. That general route seems to almost be a no-brainer if the overriding goal to minimize risk, which I think it should be. As we've seen in the past, opportunistic science targets like the cobbles and meteorites are randomly distributed. Ancient craters like Erebus are seen everywhere that bedrock is exposed. Once the rover gets closer to Endeavor, there are some very interesting, previously buried craters that might be worth a visit.

I also find the Anatolia-like fractures fascinating. It appears we will see many of them once Opportunity is as far south as mini-Endurance. I'm not sure how important they will be to the scientists unless we find some that are large enough and safe enough to drive down into where Oppy can study a vertical section of rock.

Paolo: I hate to add another question to the many being thrown at you, but I think this is an easy one, being MER trivia. Some of us occasionally refer to Opportunity as Oppy, as I did above. It's partially an abbreviation convenience, but also an endearing expression. I always wondered if those of you on the MER team had any nicknames for the rovers, or if nicknames were considered to be in bad form.

A consensus is forming! South it is!

I like Phil's comparison shots. What I'm thinking of doing now is taking this and extending it by making a colour coded geologic map overlay for the HiRISE frames based purely on ripple types. I just want to check first to see if anyone else is already working on it because it seems to be the obvious next step.

I'd say, if you can do that, there are many here who would very much like to see your map. I, for one, am dying to see it.