Cape York - Northern Havens, Sol 2780 - 2947 Options

[elakdawalla]

On Sol 2811, pictures were taken of Oppy's high gain antenna assembly (for some reason ... )

No reason to worry -- the reason is just two posts higher:

Currently we're doing some engineering diagnostics while we've got the time. Holidays give us lots of time to do these things.

If I can make a request to you Opportunity image processors, I would LOVE it if you would be willing to take the time, where it's possible, to make right-eye color matches to some of the left-eye color images that you assemble. The color won't be a perfect match because of the lack of a green channel, but your work will still likely be much better than mine.

[ugordan]

Oooh, hardware!

[Bill Harris]

On Sol 2811, pictures were taken of Oppy's high gain antenna assembly

This is the beginning of a "P2288 pancam_deck_pan_part1_L456" sequence which may be done for Engineering reasons (check the health of the rover, check dust accumulation or cleaning) or by Operation for a self-portrait in preparaton for a 360* Panorama. This point is, after all, pretty much the Acme of the traverse thus far.

I'm still wanting to have something named after Gracie Allen, a fitting companion name for the "Burns Formation"...

--Bill

[Matt Lenda]

This is the beginning of a "P2288 pancam_deck_pan_part1_L456" sequence which may be done for Engineering reasons (check the health of the rover, check dust accumulation or cleaning) or by Operation for a self-portrait in preparaton for a 360* Panorama. This point is, after all, pretty much the Acme of the traverse thus far.

I'm still wanting to have something named after Gracie Allen, a fitting companion name for the "Burns Formation"...

--Bill

... and another 3 sequences' worth of the Pancam Deckpan coming in a few days.

-m

[Bill Harris]

Holy kilobits, this has to be a record image transfer for Oppy (at least in recent time)-- 114 L4, L5 or L6 images and this is only the first part of Part 1.

And lots of shiny bits on the ground around Oppy...

--Bill

[djellison]

Given that deck-pans are usually down sampled by 50%, that's not surprising. Pancam is slightly out of focus at that range, so downsampling to 512 x 512 before downlinking makes a lot of sense, you don't really drop any detail. . It also means you can fit 4x as many images into any given downlink session. Thus - 114 images of that size is actually only equiv to 30ish normal sized images.

[Matt Lenda]

Bang on the money, my friend.

Pancam PUL has been hard at work this week. We pulled a lot of really slick timing antics to fit it all in.

... unfortunately at the expense of a Pancam superres of Endeavour. We'll have to hold off on that one for a few sols.

-m

[fredk]

From the latest update:

During this turning maneuver the right-front wheel experienced elevated electrical currents, which tripped a fault response and stopped the drive. Telemetry suggested that the elevated current was due to the wheel's orientation with respect to the terrain (causing it to work harder than expected) and not an actuator failure. To verify this, diagnostics were performed on Sol 2810 (Dec. 20, 2011). The diagnostic tests confirmed the actuator's continued good health.

[Bill Harris]

Of interest also are the solar power/tau/dust factor figures in the updates. Holding steady...

--Bill

[Matt Lenda]

From the latest update:

... aaaaaaaaaaaaand now I can talk about it!

Imagine standing on a hill, right side facing downhill and left side facing uphill. Now try and turn in place on your right foot without letting it twist relative to your leg. You won't like it since more of your weight is on your right side.

Meh. NBD. There was this initial state of "wtf" when we saw the data. We had some quick chats and sequenced itsby bitsy drives with lots of hazcams. Turns out, everything is fine. It was sort of a "well, duh" kind of thing when we thought about the geometry more carefully.

In the meantime we could get that Pancam Deckpan in there.

-m

[mhoward]

A new foreground color stereo pair from sol 2814

[walfy]

mhoward's recent excellent stereo pair was used for this nice one:

[walfy]

Also from mhoward, sol 2010. Interesting how a wheel pushed the rock that plowed up a little soil. Some of the soil seems to have stuck to the rock. Wasn't this sticky soil behavior observed before? I thought I read about that at some point in the mission.

[PDP8E]

Here is a recent image taken off the bowsprit of Oppy ...processed for detail.
Of the 4 major plates of rocks in the image, is that a gypsum vein above the northwest plate?
(... deploy the RAT brush ...)

[Paolo]

from the latest mission update:

Opportunity will also begin a radio Doppler tracking campaign at the start of the new year.

what is this? are they trying to recover some of the Spirit "fixed lander" data? any info?