Sol 3000 Options

[eoincampbell]

Congrats to Stu for that great interview, and of course the team, many happy returns!
Hope the eastward side of the Cape has even more favorable gusts....

[CosmicRocker]

What an amazing scientific and engineering accomplishment for our species.
The dearth of published news about it on the net makes me think some people need to reconsider their priorities.
If it wasn't for Stu and TPS, few would know.

[Astro0]

ADMIN: Moved a few posts into the Spring at Cape York thread.

> One comment from Stu, repeated here though for continuity...

Stu: Thanks, CR. I really just gabble on about what's happening, and hope some people read it!

Rest of post/s moved here.

[fredk]

I've a special post up on my "Road to Endeavour" blog now, celebrating Sol 3000
http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2012/...e-thousand-sols

In the interview with Maxwell, he says he'd like a pic of the Milky Way. At first I thought it'd be too faint, but then we did get a shot of the Large Magellanic Cloud:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...E1P2741L1M1.JPG
The LMC is comparable in brightness to the brightest parts of the Milky Way, though of course the Milky Way is much larger, so you'd need many pancam frames. Navcam might be the way to go.

[machi]

Three thousands sols on Mars and with rover! It's hard to believe.
Truly amazing work of the whole MER team.
I'm looking forward to Sol 4000!

Poemster looks beautiful, Astro0, as does the new banner, fantastic work!

I've a special post up on my "Road to Endeavour" blog now, celebrating Sol 3000, which I hope some of you will find interesting...

http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2012/...e-thousand-sols

Very nice graphic Astro0 and interesting interview Stu!

[Deimos]

We also got Andromeda--it was barely detectable in the largest practical exposures. So the Milky Way center would have been detectable only if a good background could be established. That's hard for something big. Also, the center was moderately close to the Sun during "astronomy season". We did get the circumpolar part of the Milky Way, but it was not detectable. Even LMC was only a few DN at the peak.

Navcam doesn't help. It is far, far less sensitive than Pancam L1. Neutral density filters. Good for driving, bad for astronomy. We did some sensitivity tests, although we expected the result. No go.

[fredk]

Thanks for the info, Deimos. I don't remember Andromeda (M31), and I've looked through my collection and searched the forum. Do you recall the sol you acquired M31?

[Deimos]

I believe it was A/1941, night time opacity field A (aka the "diffuse sensitivity test").

[Tom Dahl]

There are more reasons that just longevity when it comes to having an MMRTG on Curiosity. Reliability for one ( 2400Whrs/sol rather than 900, then 700, then 300, then camp for winter at 200 etc etc etc ) An MMRTG also produces a lot of spare heat to keep the rover itself warm.

I wrote that it would be ironic for a MER to operate longer than MSL, because solar cells 1) are subject to dust accumulation and slant-angle/darkness issues to which an RTG is not susceptible, and 2) do not produce the critical heat of an RTG. If Curiosity manages to operate longer than Opportunity then no irony will have occurred. :-) Let's hope that turns out to be the case!

[Edited to remove an unintended emoticon parsing]

[MoreInput]

Does anyone find some differences in these two pictures?

Hint: It is not only that the lower picture is now in color ...

What a mission .. 3000 sols and counting.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[RoverDriver]

I find something in common: the RPs like donuts!

Paolo