Opportunity Route Map Options

[algorimancer]

For what purpose? We know where the rover is, and it's hard to improve on s11-471 for route planning.

Can't get a much more precise position fix, in terms of synchronizing rover position to ground imagery, than identifying a pixel (or several) in that imagery that is known to be the rover at a given time.

[Oren Iishi]

You should be quick or Oppy will run by that rock before we can locate it!

Updated route map for sol 914.
[attachment=7068:attachment]

I'm astounded and delighted with the progress that Oppy is making toward Victoria crater.

From the overhead satellite pictures,I assumed that the Victoria ejecta blanket would be full of loose sand and imposing dunes. The NASA team indicated that this journey would take a month but as of this moment it appears that the arrival could be much sooner.

Also, I wonder if the unexpected reboot of the rover at Beagle crater caused the sudden rush to get to Victoria crater.

I would also like to thank Tesheiner and the rest of the mapper makers very much for your outstanding work and you guys have really made this rover experience much more enjoyable. Thanks.

[fredk]

Tesheiner, Delta is visible in the latest navcams - in principle the angular separation between Delta and Epsilon would help fix our location. (Technically it would confine us to a curve - I'm not sure of the shape of the curve, but it wouldn't be hard to work out.) In practice they're both not very well defined...

Gamma crater would help even more - I've looked for Gamma but can't see it in navcam.

[Tesheiner]

I've seen that when the navcams were downlinked --actually, almost all features commonly seen only on the pancams are currently visible on the navcams too-- so I made a polar projection of that navcam mosaic to use on the route map (I usually do it) and see how it fits when compared with the basemap.

The result is that there are some discrepancies; the problem is that given the poor resolution and distortion on the navcams I can't tell which sol 914 position is wrong; if the one you can currently see on my route map or the one provided by using the navcam polar projection. That's why I want to wait until we are closer to Epsilon (end of this week?) to gather some precise heading and distance measurements and then refine the route.

[dilo]

(Technically it would confine us to a curve - I'm not sure of the shape of the curve, but it wouldn't be hard to work out.)

I think a simple circle in a vertical plane, intercepting surface in only two points... too simple?

[fredk]

I don't quite get you dilo - it might be an ellipse in general, I'll work it out though.

[tim53]

Can't get a much more precise position fix, in terms of synchronizing rover position to ground imagery, than identifying a pixel (or several) in that imagery that is known to be the rover at a given time.

As you probably are aware from the MOC website, we've done this for both rovers. But it's expensive, in terms of MGS operations, and as Mike pointed out, we do know where the rover is with respect to the MOC images that have been taken.

-Tim.

[Phil Stooke]

Here is an example of a truly bizarre vertical stretch of the latest navcam pan, made into a polar. This was mhoward's pan, and I cropped out just a thin strip - maybe 100 pixels or so high - from a 7000 pixel wide pan, made it 3000 by 3000 and did a polar of it. At this level of stretching various distant features become apparent, including crater Delta (as shown on Tesheiner's map), possibly crater Gamma, and a couple of outcrops which are obvious on his route map. Several other dark spots ahead of us are clear as well. This is enough to triangulate a decent position. The flatter an area is, the more useful this sort of trick is.

Also, of course, it shows the distant relief really well. The broad depression north of Victoria, the double horizon west of the current location, etc.

Phil

[CosmicRocker]

I stand corrected. They'll *never* put you in a box. ...and I learned something valuable about polar projections that should have been, but wasn't previously apparent to me. Thanks.

[Indian3000]

My first estimate for sol 916 , but i think is correct ...

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Tesheiner]

My route map, updated to sol 916.

[Holder of the Tw...]

Everyone got their seat belt strapped on?

[dot.dk]

Everyone got their seat belt strapped on?

Everyone got their image stitchers warmed up?

This is gonna be huge

[Phil Stooke]

My latest position.

Phil

[algorimancer]

Here's my estimate of Opportunity's position on Sol 916.

I used the position(s) for Hawking Rock which I'd determined using wide baseline photogrammetry from Oppy's positions on Sols 887 and 904 (see the posting in the Route Map thread). Using AlgorimancerPG I measured the range and azimuth to Hawking Rock from the Sol 916 pancam images, finding an azimuth of 158.3 degrees and range of 95 +/-10 meters. I used this information to predict the Sol 916 position, entirely based upon that azimuth, range, and error, plus also estimated the east-west error in the Hawking Rock position (likely worst case). Here are the results (big file, 4.4 Megs, yes I could make it smaller, but I have other priorities at the moment):

http://www.clarkandersen.com/R1500822_NWVi..._Hawking916.PNG

The colored pixels are the predicted positions as exact offsets from the Hawking predictions. The bounding quadrilateral is an estimate of the error range. The white cross is the current position from Tesheiner's route map, the white circle is an estimate of the position from Phil Stooke's route map (it was harder to match up the exact position on that one).

I'm pretty happy with the results. Tesheiner's position falls neatly within my error region. I may have misplaced Phil's position. This makes me a bit more confident in my Hawking position

Looking forward to the next move.