Spring at Cape York, Sol 2947 (after Greeley Haven) - sol 3040 Options

[Phil Stooke]

Time for a new topic, I think.

A bit of monkey business with the FHAZ from 2952 shows the nature of the latest drive.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

... and a map of recent activities. This is not geometrically precise (I'll leave that to Tim Parker), but it lets me organize information. Next step is to add some of the target names.

Phil



EDIT - map has been replaced with a corrected version

[mhoward]

My approximation of where she is on sol 2951. I'm sure it's somewhat off.

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[Phil Stooke]

Oops - was that a 2951 drive? I'll update my map later.

Phil

[mhoward]

Yes, 2952 is tosol/today.

[Phil Stooke]

I have now replaced the picture in my second post with a corrected version of the map.

Phil

[CosmicRocker]

On sol 2949 Opportunity's Pancams imaged the target North Pole, which is the patch of dust to be investigated next. Attached is an L2R2 anaglyph of the most interesting part of that panorama. One of the L2 images suffered a dropout which I patched with a barely noticeable piece from the L5 image.

In 3D it is easy to see how this local topography created a wind trap for fine particulates.

[Stu]

Really nice anaglyph, CR!

In another view, having finallty escaped exile on Greeley Haven, it looks like Oppy is having a fine old time playing in the sandpit again..

[mhoward]

fhaz sol 2953

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[fredk]

I'm sure many of you have noticed the change in the timing of Exploratorium updates after the recent outage. The old 0-6-12-18 update schedule is gone, and now the updates come a bit later each day (presumably corresponding to the timing of the downlinks). Some of the images are now timestamped on Exploratorium very soon after they were taken - for example this new image is timestamped 03:12 this morning, PDT. But the MER filename translator says it was taken at 02:15 PDT. Just think about that for a moment - less than an hour after the image was taken on Mars, it's publicly available!

I did like the regularity of the old schedule, but getting the newest images in almost real-time is seriously cool.

[mhoward]

Agreed, Fred; this is about as good as it gets. Major thanks to the individuals at Exploratorium and NASA/JPL for getting the image pipeline working again. And ongoing thanks for the PANCAM database, without which several of us couldn't do much.

[Tesheiner]

(2953) -> (2954)

Driving back uphill?

[RoverDriver]

Our IDD target is to our left but also need to reach some targets in the tracks at the same time. That makes for a difficult precision driving. We thought we could do it in a Sol but apparently it will take some time. Sorry!

Paolo

[fredk]

Sorry!

No harm done, Paolo. It's not as if you're driving a robotic vehicle on another planet or anything!

[RoverDriver]

I got the following question from Eduardo which I think it is interesting to others.

Ciao Paolo,

Sometimes we discussed at UMSF about what might be behind those FHAZ and RHAZ "fault" images which seems to be always sequenced on a driving sol but only executed from time to time. As far as I can see, some of them were taken thisol (seq-id 1354) and I presume (guess, actually ) they are triggered after a faulted drive. Excessive slip, currents, tilt? Which kind of events can trigger that sequence? Why Spirit (AFAIK) had no such thing? It's an interesting topic, at least to me and I guess to the others on the forum too, but I'm not sure if this is something which could be discussed / explained on the mainstream thread or is restricted to the mission people perhaps. That's the reason for this PM.
If you say it's no problem to talk about it on the open forum, great! In this case I would raise the same questions there.
If not, fine too.

Un saludo,
Eduardo Tesheiner

I know how to answer this question!

p1254, p1354 are 4bpp FHAZ and RHAZ respectively taken only when we have a drive that completes with a fault of some sort to analyze the terrain to possibly help in interpreting the fault. For IDD we take p1154 if the IDD sequence has a fault (p12xx p13xx are for drives, p11xx are for IDD). In this case (sol 2954 drive) it is not really a fault, we just did not make enough progress forward before turning to the left. Since we did not want to turn prematurely and stomp on potential science targets we just stopped the vehicle and precluded any further motion. Since we did the IDD salute (raising the IDD turret to take an unobstructed view of the IDD work volume with a p1214) we could have skipped the p1254 but we left it there to preserve our sequence structure. One of the good things about having a reserved sequence number for events like these is that sequence numbers are one of the first things we see, it gives us more time to deal with a potential anomaly. Also, in case of an anomaly you might have little data to work with, this is a simple trick to let us know what happened. Since what fault conditions are acceptable and which are not is determined on a sol by sol basis, a p1254/1354/1154 does not necessarily mean we have an anomaly.

If anyone has questions like these just ask, I might be able/allowed to answer.

Paolo

[Stu]

"Artistic" view of North Pole dunes...

[Phil Stooke]

"Why Spirit (AFAIK) had no such thing?"

For the record, Spirit had zillions of faulted drives as well. I am in the process of going through every single day of sol summaries for Spirit (2210 of them) at the PDS MER Analyst's Notebook. Zillions!

Phil

[Tesheiner]

Many thanks for the answers Paolo!

"Why Spirit (AFAIK) had no such thing?"

For the record, Spirit had zillions of faulted drives as well. I am in the process of going through every single day of sol summaries for Spirit (2210 of them) at the PDS MER Analyst's Notebook. Zillions!

Phil

Sure! For "thing" I was referring to fault image sequences, not aborted drives.

[RoverDriver]

Spirit had of course her share of p1254 and the like (see the infamous A 1899 drive :-( as an example). While there was much order in the sequence numbers for science and for some of the other activities, we only recently introduced these "fault" F/R HAZ sequences. OK, recently in geologic sense, for Oppy we started using them around sol 1791 and for Spirit around sol 1866 for drives. The origin of this practice came from IDD sequences tho. We began doing it on sol 879 for Oppy and sol 861 for for Spirit. We saw that this practice was useful and extended it to drives. So, digging in the archives it seems that the originator of this practice is Chris Leger. http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Chris_Leger/

Paolo

[walfy]

A very quick mini-movie of a sequence from sol 2951:

 sol2951_series.mov ( 449.77K ) Number of downloads: 804

[mhoward]

Nice drive on Sol 2955. I think they may be lined up with the target at "North Pole" now. (How does the song go? "I can't drive 2955?" Well the rover drivers have proven otherwise.)

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[Tesheiner]

I like the shadows alignment on this FHAZ image.

Original: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...CQP1214L0M1.JPG

[marsophile]

The MTES has been unused because the lens is covered with dust. I wonder, though, if it could be used just to get an MTES spectrum of dust?

If so, that might provide some information that might be useful in conjunction with the APXS data on the dust.

[James Sorenson]

Look's like some new contamination on the left front hazcam.

Sol 2957
Sol 2955

[RoverDriver]

Those are bugs on the windshield. It happens when you resume At the next gas station we will clean it up.
Seriously, it is possible that the dust particles were there already and the different lighting conditions are highlighting the dust specs more in the latter image. If not, they are in an area of the FHAZ that is less important (at least to me). The lower center (for IDD) and the lower sides (for soil/wheel interaction) are the areas I consider more essential.

Paolo

[Astro0]

Some OT posts about observing the Transit of Venus moved here.

[Tesheiner]

(Don't remember when was the last time I posted a mosaic here...)

This one was taken yesterday, sol 2958, with the navcam.

[RoverDriver]

Sigh, I was on shift today and no driving! On the other hand the IDD target that was picked was quite difficult to get to. I heard about the possibility of sequencing a drive on Wednesday. We'll see.

Paolo

[Stu]

Farewell shot of "Greeley Haven"...

[Stu]

Some rather nice new MI's came down... "artistic" mosaic...




Love the cracks in the dusty surface at the bottom there...

[RoverDriver]

Some rather nice new MI's came down... "artistic" mosaic...




Love the cracks in the dusty surface at the bottom there...

Nice mosaic Stu. What software do you use?

Paolo

[Stu]

Thanks Paolo. Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to...

Software:

"Autostitch" to, well, stitch the frames together into a mosaic.

"Registax" to sharpen it up with the software's wavelet sharpening tool, and change the gamma, contrast and brightness.

"PS Elements" to change lighting effects and basically tweak and mess about with it until something that makes me smile comes out the other end.

[mhoward]

Those new spots on the left front hazcam are gone as of sol 2960.

[RoverDriver]

Those new spots on the left front hazcam are gone as of sol 2960.

It was the guy with the squeegee that cleaned them up
Likely the spots are still there but teh lighting conditions are different.

Paolo

[brellis]

Regarding Stu's Post #29 "Farewell" pic, that looks like a treacherous perch! I did have the good fortune to get run over by a MER rover at one of the JPL open houses several years ago, so I know Oppy's up to the task, but still -- after 8 years she's still quite a rock climber!

[RoverDriver]

Regarding Stu's Post #29 "Farewell" pic, that looks like a treacherous perch! I did have the good fortune to get run over by a MER rover at one of the JPL open houses several years ago, so I know Oppy's up to the task, but still -- after 8 years she's still quite a rock climber!

While the area was not that big, turning around proved difficult (we failed twice!). This is because the RF wheel steering actuator is no longer operational (we lost it around sol 300) so whenever we turn around we sort of drag the RF wheel. On rock so rough the rim of the wheel gets caught and turning around proves quite difficult. The slopes were not that high but the terrain surface we quite messy.

Paolo

[walfy]

Very nice new micros of the sandy patch. Or is it more like wind-blown dust that caked together? In any case, they render superbly in 3D!

[walfy]

Another micro from sol 2960:

[walfy]

Last one for today. Are those wheel tracks (the straight mini-trenches that nearly reach across the image, two of which are parallel)?

[Stu]

Great anaglyphs, Walfy, love those!

Very special "thank you" to Paolo for providing me with some really useful (and detailed!) info about the story behind those MI images, which I've written a blog post around over on "Road to Endeavour" if anyone would like a look...

http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2012/...-sense-of-scale

[Stu]

3D mosaic... just download it, put your glasses on, and scroll around it, imagining you're an ant on Mars...

[mhoward]

Nice anaglyphs. The mosaic is impressive. Here's a Navcam view from today (sol 2961).

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[mhoward]

The sol 2949 look back at Greeley Haven, false color anaglyph.

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[Tesheiner]

If I read the data from today's drive correctly, Opportunity is currently 25m north of North Pole (is that possible? ).
FHAZ from sol 2963.

[mhoward]

Yeeha! What a day for a drive!

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[Stu]

...and downhill we go...

[fredk]

...and will continue to by the look of the drive-direction pancams.

[Stu]

Quick look around...

[brellis]

Stu, are the hills in the distance to the left in your Post #48 image part of the North Rim of Endeavour Crater?

[RoverDriver]

Stu, are the hills in the distance to the left in your Post #48 image part of the North Rim of Endeavour Crater?

If I understand what you are asking, the answer is no. Endeavour has a small hill in the middle (actually a bit to the West of center). What you see is that hill. If you use Google Earth and switch to Mars, type in Endeavour you'll see that hill. In the center of this panorama you see Cape Tribulation (yeah!!) then moving to its right is what I believe could be Knobby's Head and finally Cape York. The 7x1 Navcam panorama was centered around 198deg.

Paolo

[Phil Stooke]

Is the position of back-seat driver taken? I might have to check the map again, but...

Phil

[mhoward]

Haven't done one of these in a while...


MERB2963NavcamLeft on Flickr

[Phil Stooke]

Likewise!

Phil



This also adds to my 'backseat driver' post just above. This presentation of the pan shows what we are looking at - the hills referred to are indeed the north rim of Endeavour. We can also see the central mound on Endeavour as a dark ridge. Cape Tribulation and Nobby's Head are hidden behind Morris Hill, the top of Cape York.

[Stu]

Just to clarify...

[RoverDriver]

Stu, are you sure? The tracks left from Sol 2963, which are clearly visible in the panorama, are in a direction of about 200 degrees. I think that what you indicated as Eastern Far Side Hills is in fact Cape Tribulation.

Paolo

[Phil Stooke]

200 clockwise from north, Paolo? - as in my circular pan above? I'm sorry but I think you are turned around a bit.

Phil

[Stu]

Very sure Paolo, yes. The Eastern Hills are dominated by that large, oval-shaped (STILL un-named!!!) crater, which faces the western side of Endeavour. Oppy has been looking at - and watched over by - that crater ever since she arrived at Cape York. Tribulation is on this same side as Cape York, south of where we are now, but hidden at the moment by the lie of the land.

[mhoward]

200 clockwise from north

200 degrees from north for the rover tracks is correct; it's just that Cape York is blocking the view of the rim past about 165 degrees from north. I think maybe the most southern part of the west rim is just visible, but I don't think Tribulation is.

[Phil Stooke]

Paolo's comments suggest he was thinking of 200 degrees from west. But don't worry, folks, no harm done. It's not like we're heading back to Victoria crater by mistake! (or are we?)

Phil

[RoverDriver]

I am 100% sure that the tracks are 200 degrees compass heading (20 degrees West of South) but I think you are right. NAVCAM mosaics are spaced 36 deg so you are right! I apologize.

Paolo

[Stu]

Don't apologise Paolo, we're all thrilled you're here. And if you want to drive over *there* feel free, I'd love a look at those hills close-up!

[fredk]

It's definitely easy to loose track of azimuth in a navcam pan presented at such a small scale!

Here's a comparison with a pan from Greeley so we can see how Tribulation is just barely obstructed by Morris Hill now:

(Both pans from mhoward.)

[mhoward]

Great idea fredk; I wish I'd thought of that.

[eoincampbell]

I'd be utterly confused as to rover positioning without the ongoing work by UMSF image wizards, so cheers to all, looking forward to the upcoming drives

[brellis]

UMSF PanCam Experts are Awesome!!

[RoverDriver]

Some serious driving is in the works. By noon (PDT) on Sunday we should know if we got it all in. Rolling, rolling, rolling...

Paolo

[nprev]

Roll on, Paolo! (Great to see you back on UMSF, BTW, hope all is well!)

[RoverDriver]

Roll on, Paolo! (Great to see you back on UMSF, BTW, hope all is well!)

I'm all right but a bit too busy with MSL to enjoy driving Oppy. My next shift is on June 6th!

Paolo

[Phil Stooke]

Wow, found a vein already?

Phil

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...LMP1212R0M1.JPG

They're all over the place:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...LMP0615R0M1.JPG

[mhoward]

Sol 2965


MERB2965Navcam on Flickr

[Tesheiner]

Wow, found a vein already?
<...>
They're all over the place:

That's what I thought too.

Some serious driving is in the works. By noon (PDT) on Sunday we should know if we got it all in. Rolling, rolling, rolling...

Paolo

Where's the "Like" button?

I measured about 50m NNE and it's confirmed by the pancam database. Route map update in a minute.

[RoverDriver]

Sol 2965 was only 50.5 meters, it was cut short because we hit the lower limit for northerly tilt. This was one of the expected possible result, so today we have nominal F/R HAZ.

Paolo

[mhoward]

50 meters sounds pretty good to me! Azimuth of the drive was about 18º from north according to the metadata.


MERB2965Position on Flickr

[Phil Stooke]

Here is mhoward's half pan in semicircular format.

Phil

[brellis]

Thanks for the map update, Tesh. I was pointed completely upside down with my previous question. I am not unfamiliar with such revelations here on our home planet

[RoverDriver]

Thanks for the map update, Tesh. I was pointed completely upside down with my previous question. I am not unfamiliar with such revelations here on our home planet

I second that. You have no idea how many times I refer to the USMF maps on top of the ones we have, including last Wednesday! Thanks!

Paolo

[Stu]

Oooh, nice...

[Stu]

I love these shots where you can see Oppy's tracks tracing out the contours of the landscape, that let you imagine how she bounced up and down as she drove in and out of hollows, over ripples etc...

[RoverDriver]

When I assembled the p1994 I did use the accelerometer telemetry to generate the associated sound. Much like for a phonographic recording, I used the Z value from the accels as the difference between the Left and Right side and the RMS of the X and Y values as the sum of the Left and Right to compute the two channels, I put everything into a WAV file and use LAME to convert it to mp3.

If we start driving on something interesting I will assemble more of these "sounds from mars".

Paolo

[mhoward]

I love this view.


MERB2965NavcamViewAz215Fov80 on Flickr

[brellis]

If we start driving on something interesting I will assemble more of these "sounds from mars".

Paolo

New favorite anticipated Mars info

[walfy]

Wow, turn away for a few days and miss something! Nice roiling rocks in view, just off the Cape.



And we're ever so closer to the whale spout, due east. That is indeed an interesting feature.

[walfy]

Thought I'd give this a try with my meager Photoshop skills. For what it's worth, the micros from sol 2960 again as 3D mosaic:



Looks like the micro camera shot the left side from different angle than the right, as those planes are not parallel.

We love you, Oppy! What an awesome little robot.

[RoverDriver]

...
Looks like the micro camera shot the left side from different angle than the right, as those planes are not parallel.
...

That is correct. Since Oppy's Az actuator no longer works the way we shoot 2x2 (or 2xn in general) is to turn the turret 5 deg to the left then turn 5 deg to the right from the center plane where the IDD can move. The two stacks (see my interview with Stu where I explain what an MI stack is) are shot with the boresight a total of 10 deg apart which make the two frames about 25mm apart. The two stacks are not parallel to each other but the resulting geometric distortion is small enough that can be removed on the ground. In fact the major issue is not stitching two stacks together but the fact that the within a single MI stack each frame is centered in a slightly different position which makes certain surfaces quite difficult to image (Winter haven MI mosaic is one good example).

Paolo

[mhoward]

The full 360x90º Navcam panorama for sol 2965:


MERB2965Navcam on Flickr

[mhoward]

Sol 2967 Pancam foreground stereo pair

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[Phil Stooke]

A sprinkle of magic dust and mhoward's pan is turned into this:





Phil

[vikingmars]

A sprinkle of magic dust and mhoward's pan is turned into this: Phil

Thanks a lot Phil for those nice views !
By the way, see how "crystal clear" is the horizon now ! I hope they will do soon an horizon panorama with the L7 filter...

Enjoy

[mhoward]

Drive direction on sol 2969 was roughly azimuth 40º

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[fredk]

By the way, see how "crystal clear" is the horizon now ! I hope they will do soon an horizon panorama with the L7 filter...

Exactly! The Oppy weather site says tau is extremely low now. Looking at the curves from previous years, we can expect the air to start loosing its transparency soon, so enjoy it while we can...

[ElkGroveDan]

For what it's worth, the micros from sol 2960 again as 3D mosaic:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&id=26866

Whatever that is, it's really soft. It appears the sides of the RAT hole just crumbled into the center after it was removed. Now what about that vertical impression on the right? Was that something on the IDD? or is it a natural feature?

[Phil Stooke]

This is in the rover tracks, it's a wheel impression.

Phil

[fredk]

Looks like a short drive back south on 2971 - perhaps to check whether this gypsum vein is wide enough for IDD work?
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2971

[RoverDriver]

Yep, that's what we are trying to do. Possibly we will need one more bump before IDD work can begin. That's what you get with a 4 DOF (degrees of freedom) arm.

Paolo

[Tesheiner]

The images are still on the queue but I presume the vein is what has been labeled Monte Cristo; an island with a massive hidden treasure (from the novel).

02971::p2363::30::40::40::0::0::2::82::pancam_Monte_Cristo_3x1_L234567Rall

[jvandriel]

Looking back through the eyes of the L1 Pancam on Sol 2967.

Jan van Driel

[Tesheiner]

Last month's report by Salley Rayl is available here (*): http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs...ion-rovers.html.
Some tidbits about the vein we drove over this weekend.

Opportunity closed in on a longer vein earlier this week and there are plans for the rover to bump itself into a position this weekend to look at it up close, if the scientists decide it's worthy. "We are planning a small bump to try to get one of the veins into the IDD work volume," expounded Stroupe. "We're also going to take some color pictures of it. On Monday, we'll decide whether to go ahead and use the IDD or drive to another nearby one."

And about phyllosilicates:

There is little doubt that Opportunity will make it to one of the phylliosilicate-rich areas along Endeavour's rim, but positively identifying clay minerals will be something of a challenge, considering the rover's two specially designed mineral detectors are no longer working. "It will be harder without the Mössbauer and the Mini-TES, but there are things we'll see in the APXS data if there is a high enough concentration of phyllosilicates," assured Squyres.

(*) Couldn't find a permalink.

[mhoward]

A question for Paolo, out of curiosity: I notice you've been taking some overlapping Pancam images of the veins recently. For example, the '3x1' Pancam mosaic of Monte Cristo actually has four camera pointings, the center two of which overlap at a slight offset. Is that about some different way of obtaining stereo, or what's up with that?

[stevesliva]

^ I thought it had to do with dust on the camera.

[RoverDriver]

A question for Paolo, out of curiosity: I notice you've been taking some overlapping Pancam images of the veins recently. For example, the '3x1' Pancam mosaic of Monte Cristo actually has four camera pointings, the center two of which overlap at a slight offset. Is that about some different way of obtaining stereo, or what's up with that?

I have not been on shift lately but the PANCAMs are now quite dusty and IIRC we use only about 10 degrees of horizontal field of view for critical observations. I could well be mistaken tho. I will ask around and let you know.

Paolo