That crater to the west of Victoria looks particularly inviting....

But I'm not holding my breath!

Actually, we got pretty lucky having Oppy come down where it did, at least horizontally its almost close as you can get to the freshest looking big crater in the whole visible context. all the other craters are either small or have been eroded away so much (just smoothed divots remain) that theres doubtfully any signfficantly exposed vertical strata cliffs on the inside walls. They look like they may even predate the wet period so all visible surfaces could be affected similarly with not a lot of variation so not much of a geological window to explore. Victoria is absolutely huge and just about as fresh as it gets on Mars. Keep on going Oppy, this is gonna be the bees knees!

Except, if Oppy landed in the central area of the landing ellipse, it could have travelled less distance to the kilometres-wide crater (just north outside the ellipse).

But I'll be real glad to see Victoria, don't get me wrong.

Nico

Nice to see you, ustrax, that you are still here...

Merry Christmas from your old friend
youremi

Pando = youremi?!
Man! I'm glad to know something about you!
What a great days we had in the beggining of the mission...
When everything was so...new!
I'll not forget your precious help with my lack of orientation...
A Merry merry Xmas to you and your family, but I believe we'll chat before that...

Isn't it just a little bit to early for that? I have a feeling that somebody will soon open "MERRY Xmas" topic...
BTW where have you been Ustrax? Looooooong vacation?

YEs I guess it is...
I've working hard and on the last two weeks I've been on vacations...
Had time to check things once and awhile, but no time to intervene, let's see if this changes now and I earn some time to leave orbit and land safely on Mars again.
I've got some promises to keep and some prizes to deliver...

The immediate route: here is where we are and where and how we will be:

--Bill

Ustrax, Thank you for the context.

Overall I think we got real lucky with 3 major craters, increasing in size, and hopefully make to Victoria.

At the Hayden, Steve could not predict when or if Victoria is attainable but the road ahead looks promising. So we can dream about the magnificent view.

He also said that theoretically there are enough battery cycles to last 6 or 7 years. So if nothing significant breaks mechanically or electrically, that crater to the West does look "tasty" but a bit fanciful. Lots of interesting targets to the East also

Are we going to look at the burnt tree stump first? (before Mogollan)

I think that, given how long Opportunity was busy at Endurance, Victoria could be its final resting place. Of course, who knows if they'll actually risk entry. If they were on the correct slope though, it'd be a great place to spend the winter, and possibly get some Endurance-class cleanings.
That's a huge crater too. Just the dune field in the middle of it looks as big as all of Endurance.

Tempting target, and the path to it doesn't look too sandy. But I think they'd have to backtrack and go to Mogollon a diiferent way since the path looks treacherous past "the burning bush"

I guss ity would depend on what the miniTES shows: if it has a similar composition to the dark outcrop at the Mogollon Rim, then they may be inclined to pass it up. If it is different, then they'll go for a look.

My guess; YMMV.

--Bill

Here's a new map of Endurance crater - a base for people to plot routes or whatever. It's still got some rough bits, which I will fix later.

This is a composite of three images: a cPROTO image from MOC, and the two rim panoramas reprojected to fit the MOC geometry.

Right now I'm trying to fit together the pans from the western rim driving around sols 90 to 100 to map the outside better.

Phil

This is amazing work Phil. One of the things that really stands out is the relative proportions of the features we've all come to know and love. For example, I had pictured Burns cliff taking up a much larger percentage of the crater perimeter. And Wopmays appear far larger than I might have imagined in relation to the entire crater.

Take off your touque, pop open a Labatt's and stretch out on the chesterfield. You've earned it, eh?

Hey, it's way too cold to take off my touque! I'm not in sunny California... But thanks. I'm going to have to take a few days off and spend some time with my other family.

Phil