Yes, and we had Yankee Clipper and Intrepid shortly before arriving at Santa Maria. Plus we can't forget that the very first crater we saw was named Eagle. And although it wasn't a direct Apollo reference, Endeavour was the name of the Apollo 15 CSM.

Personally though I think it would be great to have a crater named "Snoopy".

Anyone know if they got the drive-by images. If they did, must be lower priority than dirve direction images.

Looks like a corduroy jacket with cigarette burns.

That's the question I've been holding off asking all day because I don't like to sound impatient .

I think they must have, but I don't know. I want to see the southern horizon.

Yes, they were taken (Don't expect anything spectacular though, a single colour pancan of a 'ray' and some navcams)

And yes, images like this always have a much lower priority, drive images are needed right away to plan the next drive, science ones can sometimes take weeks to make it down.

James, you obviously know exactly what to expect. Can you point us to the source of that information?

It's interesting to note that from "crater cluster" to Spirit Point, Opportunity has about the same distance to traverse as Spirit did on its trek from Bonneville Crater to West Spur in the Columbia Hills. Who could have known such a comparison could be made seven years later!

Source maps:
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/tm-spiri...rit-sol517.html
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=173814

... or viewed in the context of "almost there."

The Pancam tracking database holds that information. What's planned. What's taken. What's yet to be transmitted. What's received.

My advice would be to just enjoy the results of those who know where it is and how to use it. It's hard to use, slow, and a very constrained resource.

Taken!

Thanks for the information James--as expected on priority.

Yes, as Doug says the information is from the tracking site which is a massively useful resource (map making, MMB metadata, thumbnail images, planned sequences, etc.) and as such the last thing we want to do is overuse it hand have it closed off.

For those of you who don't know, over recent weeks I've started posting a daily tweet summarizing what Oppy is up to based largely on the tracking data. So even less reason for others to need to query the database themselves.

http://twitter.com/nivnac

James

Some navcams are now down:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2621

Gemini 5 crater navcam panorama:

Full inline quote removed. You've been here > half a decade - you should know better - ADMIN

Wow, I don't recall ever seeing such clear images showing that the rocks excavated by the crater formation landed after the dune formation... and that the dunes haven't substantially moved since then.