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Posted by: djellison Jan 4 2008, 07:20 AM

Paolo's got his plunge over at Meridiani....and thanks to Ashley's driving, we now have - Stroupe's Slide here at Gusev. It took an email or two to figure out the best alliteration for it. Somehow 'Ashley's Favorable Incline' didn't quite scan, and Home Plate North is just so..dull. And where better to slide, than home plate! Even after as much careful planning ( that some suggested was too conservative ) it was still a major effort to get Spirit safe in time - so kudos to Ashley Stroupe and her colleagues for dealing with a couple of Mars jet-lagged weeks and giving us a shot at celebrating a 5th Martian Birthday.

Get comfortable, we may be here some time

Doug

Posted by: nprev Jan 4 2008, 05:56 PM

So alliteration is the base naming convention for MER winter-over spots? I'll make a note of it!

Well done & well deserved, though. Can't believe the talent & dedication of the rover drivers, esp. with that brutal schedule; the tribute is more than apropros. I sure hope these monikers appear in histories a few hundred years from now, to say nothing of being inscribed on the plaques of the MER National Monuments (Republic of Mars, est. 2157...)

Posted by: Oersted Jan 6 2008, 03:29 PM

Very fitting baseball metaphor!

I hope we will see some home runs after the winter!

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jan 6 2008, 05:35 PM

Actually I was hoping that the next 100 years would be enough time to stamp out alliteracy on Mars.

--Greg :-)

Posted by: nprev Jan 6 2008, 06:42 PM

Agh...boooo!!! That pun was so bad that it made my back teeth hurt...

Posted by: alan Jan 8 2008, 04:58 PM

Tuskegee panorama so far

Posted by: mhoward Jan 9 2008, 01:04 AM

I like this one! What a great overview of Home Plate. It would be even better, asthetically, if they filled in the top of McCool Hill.

Posted by: ngunn Jan 9 2008, 10:13 AM

Presumably it's far enough away that this could be done from other shots taken nearby. Agreed this is a superb view. I especially like the way the Shark Tooth just breaks the skyline.

Posted by: fredk Jan 9 2008, 08:56 PM

Another thing we can see from our current viewpoint is a rock on the NW edge of HP that appears to be propped up on other rocks, with a gap underneath that you can see clear through. It's on the far right of Alan's mosaic, and was imaged by pancam on sol 1423. In 3D it appears that the light patch under the rock is not simply in front of the rock. Here's a cross-eyed anaglyph:

Also, I love some of the shapes in the adjacent slope:

Posted by: Tesheiner Jan 10 2008, 09:45 AM

It was noted here or in a status report that Spirit was expected to move down the slope to increase the tilt by mid-january.
The "codes" in the PCDT web are saying it might be happening right now!

Data from sol 1429 should be available later in the day.

Posted by: Tesheiner Jan 10 2008, 05:12 PM

Spirit moved and the tilt has changed by about 3 degrees (27 pix. in the rhaz image) so we might be talking of 16 degrees of northerly tilt.
http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2007-12-18/2R251273680EFFAX00P1314R0M1.JPG (Sol 1406/1407) --> (Sol 1429) http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2008-01-10/2R253225170EFFAX05P1314R0M1.JPG

Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 10 2008, 05:43 PM

I hope they're right about getting a minimum of 25 degree tilt
when they want it. This is guaranteed, right?

Posted by: Astro0 Jan 10 2008, 11:16 PM

The drive looked to be less than 10cm, so if they gained an extra 3 degrees tilt, then I'd say that 25 degrees or more is fine.
After all this time on Mars, I'm sure we all have faith in the MER-PDT (Precision Driving Team)

Astro0

Posted by: Shaka Jan 11 2008, 12:22 AM

Or double your money back.

Posted by: tfisher Jan 11 2008, 02:07 AM

If it doesn't work, we'll refund your money. You just have to pay for shipping and handling. ;^)

Posted by: CosmicRocker Jan 11 2008, 05:11 AM

Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 11 2008, 04:36 PM

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Go ahead and laugh at my pain (worry). ....

Anyway, the plan to advance down the slope increasing
the angle gradually to match the sun's lowering path
across the sky is brilliant. It is an indication though of
the power management knife edge on which the rover's
future rests. I suppose I should have faith that the
right spot has been chosen, the right plan laid for
Spirit's wintering. The rest is fate.

Posted by: jamescanvin Jan 11 2008, 07:45 PM

I'm not going to get a chance to do this properly till after the weekend (Busy again! )

But here is a quarter scale quick preview of the Tuskegee panorama. I agree with others here, the view from here is particularly impressive.

Cheers,

James

Posted by: jamescanvin Jan 13 2008, 03:09 PM

Here is my final version, full size, blended, artificial sky and with a bit of fakery to fill in a bit of missed horizon (click image for resolution options)

http://www.canvin.streamlinenettrial.co.uk/mer/index.html#A1412

Enjoy,

James

Posted by: ngunn Jan 13 2008, 09:14 PM

Brilliant! What a view!
I notice your sky shading is horizontal.

Posted by: ugordan Jan 13 2008, 09:19 PM

Whoa!!!

This is raw imagery, right?

Posted by: jamescanvin Jan 13 2008, 09:32 PM

Yup, just the jpegs as always.

Posted by: ugordan Jan 13 2008, 09:34 PM

Well, if it weren't for rock shadows in some regions you certainly could have fooled me it was calibrated. And that's saying something with my keen eye for artifacts in mind.

Superb work!

Posted by: jamescanvin Jan 13 2008, 09:50 PM

Cheers, thanks for the comments.

And I'm working on ways of improving the contrast matching to improve the shadows you mention.

James

Posted by: Reckless Jan 13 2008, 11:20 PM

hi all
Just a straight autostitch

Roy

Posted by: tedstryk Jan 14 2008, 03:14 AM

James, wow, that is the first beautiful new Spirit pan I have seen in a long time...takes me back to the early days of the mission.

Posted by: Doc Jan 15 2008, 12:12 PM

MI images of the latest brushed area shows dust streaks pointing westwards (towards McCool Hill). This seems to be consistent with the orientation of the ripples in the area.
The martian winds can still work its magic on the sands...

Posted by: fredk Jan 15 2008, 06:51 PM

Could you point to an image that shows dust streaks?

Posted by: jvandriel Jan 15 2008, 09:49 PM

Spirit looking in the distance.

A Panoramic view made from L2 images taken on
Sol 1421, 1422 and 1423 as part of the Tuskegee
Panorama.

jvandriel

Posted by: Doc Jan 16 2008, 10:31 AM

Of course I may be mistaken but that's the way I see it.....take a gooooooood look at Roy's MI mosaic

Posted by: fredk Jan 16 2008, 05:41 PM

Any features I can make out in that MI mosaic look like they are just due to the brushing itself. Not that we haven't seen dust movement in MIs before, and definitely not that I would mind some strong wind at Spirit right now...

The real clincher for wind movement would be a pair of MIs, both after brushing, but before and after dust movement.

Posted by: Doc Jan 17 2008, 11:10 AM

Perhaps I have made a rather rash conclusion.(I have a tendency to do so:-)

What do the others think though?

Posted by: Tesheiner Jan 22 2008, 08:59 AM

Spirit moved slightly (again) yesterday during sol 1440.
This is the third time this manouver is executed since the settlement at this site and the tilt has increased significally since then. Just check http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2008-01-21/2N254201970EFFAX16P1808R0M1.JPG with http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2007-12-18/2N251271967EFFAX00P0600R0M1.JPG taken on sol 1407. If I did my math correctly, Spirit is currently tilted down 24 degrees!

Here below is an animated gif (four frames) showing Spirit moving down the slope.

Posted by: alan Jan 23 2008, 01:01 AM

The Pancam team's version of the Tuskegee pan
http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_instrument/1412A_Tuskegee.html

Posted by: ddeerrff Jan 23 2008, 04:25 AM

Is there any recent info as to how much power Spirit is generating?

Posted by: slinted Jan 25 2008, 01:56 AM

Another winter brings another long-term monitoring campaign of El Dorado. The first set taken from Stroupe's Slide was on sol 1416, the second on 1435. Here's a difference-image, enhanced to show several new streaks. Click through for an unenhanced animation.
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/el_dorado/el_dorado_streaks_1416_1435.gif

Posted by: Doc Jan 25 2008, 11:31 AM

Great animation Slinted!

Judging from the animation 3 DDs past by.....hey, how come those other tracks have not been covered up by the dust from the dust storm. How much dusting does it take to cover up those other tracks?

Posted by: jvandriel Jan 27 2008, 12:47 PM

Here is a mosaic of 3 images taken on Sol 1435
from the solar deck.

A lot of dust.

jvandriel

Posted by: jvandriel Jan 27 2008, 12:51 PM

and added the 2 topimages for a better context.

jvandriel

Posted by: TheChemist Jan 27 2008, 02:59 PM

Looking at this last image of the dusty solar panels, I can't stop the feeling that Spirit is no longer a terran rover.
In my eyes it has now become a part of Mars.

Posted by: Gonzz Jan 27 2008, 11:47 PM

That's quite poetically true.
After all, long after we're gone, he'll still lay there on the martian plain.

Posted by: MahFL Jan 28 2008, 03:07 PM

Spirit is female .

Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 28 2008, 06:01 PM

I was never sure of the argument that because ships are female, rovers are. Rovers
have wheels, and I know for a fact that many wheeled vehicles are boys.

Posted by: Aussie Jan 30 2008, 09:48 AM

Looking at jvandriel's images one can only wonder just how much good the slope will do when winter sets in. Home plate really does seem to be a depositional environment.

Posted by: centsworth_II Jan 30 2008, 04:44 PM

Hopefully there is not much more dust left in the air to settle out -- or to
block sunlight from the rover. Is the dust level in the sky low by now?

Posted by: helvick Jan 30 2008, 05:40 PM

We're into SH Autumn now with the Winter Solstice arriving on http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/mars/calendar.html
The previous high atmospheric dust periods have shown that Tau rises very fast and then tends to follow a gradual exponential decay as the dust settles out. The previous less significant localised dust storms cleared out (for the most part) over the course of a couple of weeks to months. One complication is that as the air clears the rate of deposition of dust on the panels is noticably higher for a similar period. By now I would expect that most of the atmospheric dust blocking the incident sunlight would have settled out and I would be surprised if the current rate of dust deposition was dramatically different than it was at similar times during Spirit's two previous Autumn seasons but the amount of dust that is already on the panels is far higher than it has ever been before. If the Rover team were to publish some recent data on the amount of power the panels are actually generating vs the current tau and the orientation of the rover we could work out fairly easily just how much power was "lost" due to dust on the panels on that date (and other gradual systemic degradations, but I beleive the vast majority would be due to dust) and with that predict what the situation is likely to be at mid winter and at the date of lowest insolation which trails mid winter by a couple of Sols.

Posted by: slinted Jan 31 2008, 03:54 AM

Another El Dorado monitoring set was taken on sol 1448, showing 3 new streaks (all vertical / N-S, as opposed to the other recent ones which crossed E-W).
Here are the 3 sets taken so far this year:
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/el_dorado/el_dorado_streaks_1416_1448.gif

Posted by: Tesheiner Feb 10 2008, 11:11 AM

Another "bump" happened on sol 1459 and the tilt increased to 28 degrees (based on http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2008-02-10/2N255888783EFFAX23P1809R0M1.JPG).
Check the http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2008-02-10/2F255888822EFFAX23P1214R0M1.JPG; don't you think the wheels have reached the slope?

Posted by: fredk Feb 10 2008, 05:13 PM

Yeah, I'd say the right front wheel is at the edge now. Hard to tell for sure with the left, but judging from older imagery from above it's very close.

Being at the edge doesn't necessarily mean we're at our maximum tilt. It depends on what's happening to the slope lower down, where the rear wheels are sitting, ie is that lower slope still increasing. It also depends on how steep the uppermost slope is, where the front wheels would sit.

This has got me thinking, though: 30-ish degrees is pretty darned steep, and I hope the rocks are firmly embedded in the slope and we don't suddenly slide down on loosened rocks and end up with a bad tilt...

Posted by: Floyd Feb 11 2008, 04:32 PM

Looking at the front and rear HazCam images that came down at the Exploratorium today, I thought Spirit had inched back up the slope. However, they have an earlier time stamp and must be pre move.

fredk-it does look like the dead right wheel has snaged some rocks and is dislodging them a bit. Hopefully no rock slides

Posted by: djellison Feb 11 2008, 04:49 PM

Yeah - that depends on the criticality of the imagery. The 'end' imagery would be considered most important, so would be higher up the list to download than the rest.

Doug

Posted by: Tesheiner Feb 14 2008, 01:53 PM

Sol 1463: Yet another bump, increasing the tilt to 29deg.

Posted by: Floyd Feb 15 2008, 11:30 PM

Another bump today and more tilt.
-Floyd

Posted by: Ant103 Feb 17 2008, 12:27 PM

Little rocks on Sol 1457
http://www.astrosurf.com/merimages/Spirit/Images_en_couleur/TwoRocksAtWinterHaven-Sol1457.jpg

Posted by: Doc Feb 18 2008, 05:45 AM

29deg, are u sure i thought the highest achievable tilt is 28.

Posted by: Tesheiner Feb 18 2008, 08:44 AM

Check for yourself. Here's the navcam picture I used as reference: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2008-02-14/2N256243052EFFAX25P1809R0M1.JPG

In any case those are "old" news. There was another bump after that one, noted by fredk, increasing the tilt to 30 deg. Here's the latest navcam image: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2008-02-17/2N256513381EFFAY00P1809L0M1.JPG. Given that a "new site" (AY00) was set after this bump I have the impression that Spirit won't be moving again for a looooooooooong time.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Feb 18 2008, 04:59 PM

I'd sure love to see a power chart now with indicators where each new tilt occurred.

Posted by: Aussie Feb 19 2008, 08:38 AM

EGD, most true. I thought that the official approach was that they would only bump when the power fell below a set limit. If they stuck by that and are on maximum tilt at this early time I feel that a certain level of concern is justified. They seem to be keeping the power curves close to the chest and this does not instill a great deal of confidence.

Posted by: djellison Feb 19 2008, 08:43 AM

The angle wasn't a 'we're running out, tilt more' - it was to get the most power possible at any one time. However, we all know concern is justified. We know we'll enter this winter with a very dirty rover, for a long, cold winter that will be far more taxing on the rover than the last. The only upside is that we have an excellent tilt, and the experience of the dust storm. In what do you lack confidence? The team?

Doug

Posted by: Aussie Feb 19 2008, 10:09 AM

Not for a second Doug. Given what they have done in keeping these rovers operational one can only feel a sense of awe. But I do lack a certain confidence in NASA's PR spins and the dearth of power information does not bode particularly well. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Posted by: djellison Feb 19 2008, 10:12 AM

An ammount or lack of information doesn't make a rovers survival any less or more likely. Sorry - I don't see what you're getting at. We all know it's going to be a risky winter, we've all been told it's going to be a risky winter. We've never have much power information, so it's not like a dearth of it is particularly possible anyway.

Doug

Posted by: fredk Feb 19 2008, 03:16 PM

They've been behind in the Spirit updates for some time now, but have http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spirit.html They are regularly giving power levels in the updates. The latest (to sol 1449) says they're "holding steady in the range of 260 watt-hours". We've had this sort of backlog before, and I think we can expect it to get cleared eventually.

Posted by: stevesliva Feb 19 2008, 03:53 PM

I thought that they were waiting to increase the tilt to max until the sun was low enough in the sky to justify it, not waiting for power levels to drop.

Ahh yes, as the update says:

Posted by: Zeke4ther Feb 20 2008, 10:57 PM

According to the http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spiritAll.html#sol1457 Spirit may achieve a tilt of 30 degrees. Impressive and a little precarious
I wonder how much slippage they have been experiencing.

Posted by: BrianL Feb 21 2008, 05:38 PM

I wonder how much slippage Spirit will experience when she tries to climb back up. Well, no point in worrying about that now. Fortunately, we'll have the trek to Ithaca to keep us distracted for the next few months.

Brian

Posted by: centsworth_II Feb 21 2008, 05:48 PM

Spirit could just climb down and take an easy route up.

Posted by: PaulM Feb 21 2008, 06:42 PM

I had always assumed that Spirit had now finished investigating Home Plate and that when Winter was over it will drive down slope and then around the base of Home Plate on its way to Goddard. One hope that I have is that Spirit will land at the bottom of the slope with a bump and that this will shake great clogs of dust off Spirits solar panels.

I was interested to read in a recent comment by Steve Squyres that he expected Spirit to find some more silica deposits. I guess that Spirit will make a lot of discoveries in the 400m long trench that it will dig as it drives to Goddard.

Posted by: fredk Feb 21 2008, 08:15 PM

They've definitely seriously considered the West Valley to the west of HP as a route south next spring - recall all the imaging they did of it on the way here. But it's really just a question of drivability. They wouldn't want to follow West Valley if there was risk of getting bogged down there Tartarus-style, so they may prefer instead to follow the easily-drivable top of HP to its south end. I think it's unlikely they'd make it back up the 30 degree slope to HP here, but recall that they did drive up onto HP just around the corner to the east on sol 1306, with broken wheel, so that may be an option.

Do you have a link to where he wrote this?

Posted by: centsworth_II Feb 21 2008, 09:54 PM

The shortest route to Goddard is across Home Plate.

Posted by: ToSeek Feb 22 2008, 08:13 PM

Yes, but it would have to climb back onto Home Plate to do that - not sure that's feasible from the current location. (I was at a talk by one of the rover drivers last weekend, who was all for trying to climb back up to see what happened, but he said the scientists were dead set against it.)

Posted by: PaulM Feb 22 2008, 09:24 PM

The link is:

http://www.planetary.org/news/2008/0131_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Spirit.html

What Steve Squyres said was:

"Once springtime comes, we want to send Spirit off in search of new evidence of hydrothermal activity at Gusev," Squyres said. "I want to find more silica. The thing that's going to tell us the silica story is not the silica itself, but where it occurs and what it occurs in conjunction with. We have found a lot of places with silica and they're all different from one another. I'm sure there are more. But we've got to get Spirit through this winter and it's going to be a tough, tough winter," he acknowledged.

Posted by: centsworth_II Feb 23 2008, 07:24 AM

I'm sure that Spirit's present location -- picked to give the greatest tilt to the north --
is the worst spot to try and climb up onto Home plate. I'm also sure that there
are better spots to climb up near by.

Posted by: ToSeek Feb 25 2008, 07:45 PM

The rover driver wasn't expecting to succeed, but from an engineering perspective he was thinking it would be worth the try.

Posted by: jvandriel Mar 2 2008, 01:59 PM

Here is the Panoramic View taken on Sol 1470 with

the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

Posted by: jvandriel Mar 2 2008, 02:06 PM

and a mosaic of the solar deck taken on Sol 1473

with the Mi cam.

jvandriel