Cape York - Shoemaker Ridge and the NE traverse, Starting sol 2735 Options

[stevesliva]

But aphelion is sooner, and near the Martian equator, that is as big a deal. With extra dust on the arrays and extra dust above them, and the sort-of sine-wave slow approach to the minima, power to support driving to a lily pad goes away sooner rather than later. Add a local SE facing slope and it is not like lily pads are dotting the landscape, so they would need to be found and proven to be real (easy to get false positives from a DEM). Hmm, almost convinced myself there....

Like this post. Boy did I ever feel that sinewave after Labor Day. Walking the dogs in the dark now.

[marsophile]

Another factor is that the areas we would most like to explore have a southern tilt. Unfortunately, a tilt in the wrong direction produces a change of greater magnitude than a tilt in the right direction in this case.

[Stu]

I guess what would be really helpful would be for one of the rover drivers to talk to a MER blog about the team's plans for the winter, and maybe even ID the actual spot on Cape York they're heading for...

Oh, look...

http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2011/...chat-with-scott

[ElkGroveDan]

... and so ends three pages of hand-wringing and speculation. Thanks Stu for bringing us those most excellent questions and and the answers straight from the horse's mouth.

[eoincampbell]

Excellent interview, thanks Stu

[atomoid]

yes, excellent interview, its great to get such detail!

Recent posts bring up what i remeber being concerned about -now YEARS ago- about limits to Oppy's lifespan in spite of the solar panel condition due to some other components long past warranty (degradation of battery and RTG component warmers, others?) but i havent heard any discussion about those things for years and couldnt find anything relevant searching UMSF threads. Yes im Oppytomistic, but can anyone address those concerns?

[stevesliva]

can anyone address those concerns?

Probably not. It's not like there are statistics from the last 10,000 rovers. And I doubt the RHUs are too much a concern for the first decade.

[ngunn]

Quoting Scott on the view across Endeavour:
it’ll take me a while to get used to
the view, to really internalize it.

I'm sure some of us share this feeling. I was wondering (fredk ) if we have traversed far enough along Cape York for a good long baseline anaglyph showing the central mound and far rim features in 3D?

[PDP8E]

Thank you Stu (and Scott!) for a well reported interview on a subject that most us just can't get enough info about.

[Stu]

You're welcome - and I should say here that two of the questions were Dan's, so he should be thanked too

So... northwards we go... and there's some very interesting terrain up ahead...

[fredk]

I was wondering (fredk ) if we have traversed far enough along Cape York for a good long baseline anaglyph

Yep! Thanks for pointing this out - it didn't even occur to me to try this.

Here are two long baseline anaglyphs, made from 2710/2742 and 2710/2746 navcam mosaics from mhoward. Warning: these are probably for advanced anaglyphists, and may induce headaches etc:

[ElkGroveDan]

Warning: these are probably for advanced anaglyphists, and may induce headaches etc:

As an advanced anaglyphist it just so happens that I keep a bottle of Irish anaglyph-headache medication in my bottom desk drawer for occasions such as this (and many others).

[mhoward]

Here are two long baseline anaglyphs, made from 2710/2742 and 2710/2746 navcam mosaics

Those are really cool. Worth the headache.

Speaking of anaglyphs, here's the usual Navcam anaglyph for sol 2751.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[fredk]

Thanks for the great interview, Stu! Maxwell's mention of the C6 destination area makes sense - that corresponds to the left side of the top of CY that we saw on approach to Endeavour, as seen in this view from 2669:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...N5P1797R0M1.JPG

The MSL connection with winter haven plans was interesting too. But we did have this comment in the latest official update:

The plan ahead is to continue to drive toward the north end of Cape York and to capture any opportunistic in-situ (contact) science alone the way. Light-toned veins in the rock outcrop, possibly fracture fill, have been seen around Cape York. If Opportunity encounters one of these veins along the way, a brief robotic-arm science campaign may be conducted.

[ngunn]

long baseline anaglyphs

Very interesting - thanks for doing those. The only bit I can't quite get to work is the leftmost end where the effective baseline is shorter and everything is just too bland topography- and contrast-wise for the eye to find a 'key'. I hope a pancam version of at least the middle part becomes possible soon.