Getting to 'Big Crater', A little premature speculation |
Getting to 'Big Crater', A little premature speculation |
Sep 21 2006, 11:57 AM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 8-February 04 From: Arabia Terra Member No.: 12 |
Opportunity is not quite at Victoria yet, but on the horizon is a tantalising goal for the future- the big eroded crater to the south-east, the rim of which is already visible. This is the first 'large scale' topography of the mission so far. Wouldn't it be great if Opportunity could get to these hills and uncover their secrets?
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sfjcody2/route_to_big.jpg |
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Sep 25 2006, 10:14 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 111 Joined: 14-March 05 From: Vastitas Borealis Member No.: 193 |
On the excuse that the subtitle of this thread is 'premature speculation' I dare to present a premature routemap for the MER drivers. I went to the MOC gallery and found two narrow angle images adjacent to and east of S0500863, which cover the most part of the area between Victoria and the Big Crater (or Ithaca, as suggested):
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e19_r02/im...3/E2301344.html http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e01_e06/im...5/E0502642.html To build this map I stitched the non-map-projected jpegs that are a bit 'flattened' but just therefore quite suitable for this purpose (though I had to hammer Victoria a bit flatter also). Below only the southern part shrunk to 60%, but it's still large (~1 Mb). I think I found a relatively dune-free path for Oppy, so if she were driving say 200 m every other sol, she could reach 'Ithaca' around the Christmas 2007, after completing studies in Victoria next September. |
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Sep 26 2006, 04:06 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 656 Joined: 20-April 05 From: League City, Texas Member No.: 285 |
On the excuse that the subtitle of this thread is 'premature speculation' I dare to present a premature routemap ... In a broader sense, saving the hill climbing for late in the process to preserve rover health and maximize science opportunities, I would envision something like this: This doesn't account for the dune orientation, which would undoubtedly lead to a lot of fine adjustments. |
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Sep 26 2006, 04:18 PM
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#4
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2922 Joined: 14-February 06 From: Very close to the Pyrénées Mountains (France) Member No.: 682 |
In a broader sense, saving the hill climbing for late in the process to preserve rover health and maximize science opportunities, I would envision something like this: This doesn't account for the dune orientation, which would undoubtedly lead to a lot of fine adjustments. It makes sense. Since the begining of Oppy's journey we're going down and down so, it'll be very important to explore features above what we've seen so far. But, what I can't believe is that you've got project AFTER big crater. Good on you. -------------------- |
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