Paolo, Thanks a lot for all your prompt and informative answers to our questions !

Yeah, this is what worries me ... not just the wheels, but the longer Oppy takes to get to Endeavour, the more likely it is some other critical thing will break.

How is the decision made about risk of losing the RF wheel vs. how much losing the RF wheel would damage the mission vs. other potential breakdowns from waiting longer?

A chance (planned?) shot from the micro-imager looking into Oppy's wheel.

Scott's idea. This is the LF wheel.

Paolo

There're some shots of Endeavor on the latest downlink. The most detailed up to date.
01881::p2568::22::3::3::0::0::1::7::pancam_endeavor_rim_1_L257
01881::p2569::22::3::3::0::0::1::7::pancam_endeavor_rim_2_L257
01881::p2570::22::3::3::0::0::1::7::pancam_endeavor_rim_3_L257

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2568L5M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2569L5M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2570L5M1.JPG

Looking for a rock or something stuck in the hub? Is there a once-a-wheel-rev periodicity in the excess current draw?

Just a quick one for perspective:

No this was purely to verify we can image the inside of the wheel well. It is a reference image in case we have a problem later on. I'm not sure, but I believe we will image the right wheel as well.

Paolo

Thanks for that image Mhoward

It really brings home just how HUGE Endeavor crater is!

I think the bit on the far right may actually be Iazu Crater. But still.

I've been waiting for pancam views of the north and far rims! These views show us more of these parts of the rim than we've seen before (we're a bit higher relative to the horizon), but the atmospheric clarity is still far worse than around sol 950 when we imaged Endeavour from Victoria. We may have to wait for winter to get good clarity again.

I've been waiting because the current view of the north rim gives us an excellent long baseline to compare with the sol 950 view. The north rim is close to 20 km away. We are just over 3 km from our sol 950 location, with movement close to orthogonal to the line of sight. I've made a long-baseline anaglyph (the longest baseline I've ever done!) and we can see real 3D structure in the rim. Here's a standard anaglyph, followed by a 2x vertical stretch version, and finally a flicker gif (the different horizon heights between the images may be distracting in the anaglyph versions):



The anaglyphs are aligned on the leftmost peak, and you can see that the rightmost peak is farther away, as you'd expect for the geometry of the north rim. (Both frames are pancam, presented at 100% scale.)

I moved the MI self portrait stuff here : http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5996
With her arm being more arthritic that Spirit's - I didn't think it very polite to leave it in an Opportunity thread .

Sol 1884: There was a "bump" to a new site about 5m away. Another science stop?

Looks like a big cobble called "Kasos," presumably after the Greek island Kasos. Nice drive.

Very cool. Nicely done Are long baseline pics of the west rim (where Oppy's heading) available? Being closer, I would expect to be able to see a bit more detail. I tried doing something similar around the time of arrival at Victoria, but wasn't able tease-out more than "those things are farther away than the foreground"