Cape York - Northern Havens, Sol 2780 - 2947 Options

[fredk]

Very cool. I'm sure we could count the intentional, purely "outreach" shots on the fingers of one hand. Are there other reasons for that sequence - science, planning, ...?

[lyford]

It's a real eye-grabber for public outreach.

I can personally attest to this being true!

[ngunn]

I don't think that a stage-managed version without joins will be an improvement in any sense, let alone more cool. What's wanted on these occasions is the first peek through the curtain, all the better for being rough-and-ready. I'm very happy to stick with this version: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=182574

[fredk]

I meant cool that they're trying for "outreach" shots.

Changing gears, some news about future plans at Lenda's blog:

Although we see evidence of the phyllosilicate clays at Cape York, we don't expect to get that lucky. We'll stick around CY for a bit then head south to Cape Tribulation as soon as we can — giving us the chance to climb a mountain.

[James Sorenson]

[ceramicfundament...]

now that is a really cool image. the double shadows make it look like there is a binary sun.

[fredk]

Some movement of the LF wheel. Flip between these images from 2894, 2899, and 2901:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2894
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2899
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2901

Edit: According to the status update, it sounds like the move between 2894 and 2899 was unintentional. But the move from 2899 to 2901 might have had to do with the diagnostics on 2901. We'll find out more soon I'm sure...

[Astro0]

From the Mission status update:
" Imagery from the front hazard-avoidance camera showed that the left-front wheel apparently dropped by a small amount, roughly half an inch (1 centimeter), sometime between Sol 2894 and Sol 2899. The rover is safe, healthy and stable. There is no indication of risk to Opportunity. But the small drop in the left-front wheel is curious. The IDD safety stall may be related. The project is investigating this."

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Maybe back away from the edge?

[PDP8E]

Here is flick between 2894 and 2899
Besides the IDD, the only thing that moves is the left wheel...(slip?)

[Stu]

"Mount Ada" I believe...

[Astro0]

May be nothing or just an illusion caused by shadows, but there seems to be some small soil/rock movement between Sol 2853 and 2901 from the right RHAZ cam. This is in the same timeframe as the drop by the left front wheel.

[dilo]

...there seems to be some small soil/rock movement...

I cannot see it, could you show exactly where, pls?

[Matt Lenda]

Here is flick between 2894 and 2899
Besides the IDD, the only thing that moves is the left wheel...(slip?)]

Yeah, we really don't know what happened. It got the RPs all excited when we told them we'd have a lot of diagnostic shifts coming up. Since the winter campaign started we've been releasing RPs early in the planning day for lack of energy to do IDD work. Now, plenty of chances to play around with Oppy!

Kudos to the RPs that noticed this. We saw it in our attitude measurement too; very close to the noise floor (our ability to even detect such a movement). But it definitely happened.

Interestingly, this amount of movement matters for the radio science experiments. Even the very small HGA movements (~millimeters) over the 30 minutes of a radio science tracking pass are highly visible in the doppler data that the scientists are using; the residuals around the predicted doppler shift for a perfectly non-wobbly planet are on the order less than 1mm/s, and the movement of the HGA clobbers this. They have to subtract away the effects with some models of HGA articulation.

Same thing goes for this small shift of the whole rover: it'll show up in the radio science data and they'll have to precisely get rid of its effect.

I'll leave that one up to the smart people to figure out.

-m

[brellis]

Interestingly, this amount of movement matters for the radio science experiments.

A not-so-stationary lander