The West Valley Route Options

[Ant103]

Hé hé hé Climber

My version of the West Valley route in color of the Sol 1851

[RoverDriver]

IIRC, one of the reason for not using the West Valley Route was because we didn't have enough visual informations as compared to crossing HP or using the East route. Not mentioning the laters were shorter, etc...
Once again, looking at Eduardo's map, I'd said that I guess we have very good coverage (even from to of HP) around Gibson then again around Tartarus; this leads to sol 1363 drive that will join sol 1350 way point.
Either I missunderstood or this is not enough to call the route "known enough" for a Rover Driver standard.
Anyway, even if we can use the pictures we have down to sol 1350 way point or so, this will cover half the distance to Von Braun.

Of all the routes to VB/G the west valley route was the one that had most coverage which indicated some narrow passages (meaning good driving terrain in some areas might be narrow). Aerial imagery seem to indicate that the terrain N and NW of VB can be difficult to traverse. Unfortunately there is no way to get surface imaging before the rover actually gets there. ;-)

And then you know that rover drivers don't ever have enough data about traversability. Not even after driving on it. ;-)

Paolo

[climber]

I think I've found sol 743 weels tracks
Visible for a few meters before and after these two black rocks in the first 1/4 from the back of the picture a little bit on the right from the center. Agree?

[Tesheiner]

Good catch, climber!
Really, really difficult to see but they are actually there.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...LTP2355R2M1.JPG

[alan]

Might also be a good time to repost the full Gibson Pan:


Posted 26/02/2006 - 37 months ago. Back when Spirit was young a sprightly and able to climb HP here.

And the colour anaglyph

James, did you do a color 3D version of the West Valley Pan, sols 1366-1369?

[Tesheiner]

Today was driving sol and I just checked the pancam web to find out that Spirit did another 20+ meters move, definitely entering the West Valley.


Looking forward the pictures to confirm it. Meanwhile, I'll make a preliminary route map update... Done.

[Floyd]

The Images are down and look at this White Trench.

[Temp residence: Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, North Yorkshire]

[fredk]

I think I've found sol 743 weels tracks

Nice job spotting the tracks, climber! I think what helps their visibility here is that we're looking straight "up" the tracks, so they are heavily foreshortened, so a long stretch of tracks is compressed into a short span of the image.

The exposed white stuff shows nicely again how we completely missed this material during our previous pass through here in the mid sol 700's with six good wheels. Given their interest in the white stuff we exposed on the north side of HP, I wonder if we'll be pausing for a bit to take a closer look here?

[JayB]

" look at this White Trench. "

that's an amazing shot... what is that... 15-20 meters. wow

Given how valuable the broken wheel has turned out to be wonder if the MSL team has decided to add another piece of equipment ... the DATT (Drive Actuated Trenching Tool)












(actually I'm serious.. a stick that drags while driving would seem to be a really good idea)

[Doc]

It seems the distribution of the white material is more widespread than originally thought (maybe it surrounds all of HP). It would be interesting to see if Goddard is also surrounded by the material if indeed it is a volcanic feature.

[Phil Stooke]

I'm responding to Alan's route map, but like a good UMSFer I'm posting it here to keep chat out of the map thread.

Alan, your map is especially useful, I think, for its view of the slopes ahead of us. It looks as if a drive on the WEST side of von Braun would drop the rover too much, so it might have trouble coming back up on the south side (not to mention, the south side would be bad for sun until deep summer). The best route might be to get around Home Plate and then try to get into the valley between VB and Goddard. I've always thought that the stratigraphy at the SW corner of Home Plate might be the most complete section - it appears to be the highest part of the edge. If it's not too blanketed with debris we might see layering better there than at the NW corner.

Of course, we need the overhead map as well... an oblique view like this loses too many places behind the topography.

EDIT: fredk (next post) was of course right - WEST side of VB. I corrected it above. I was looking in the wrong direction... duh...

Phil

[fredk]

It looks as if a drive on the east side of von Braun would drop the rover too much

Just to be clear, I assume you mean a drive on the west side would drop the rover too much.

It sounds like a good strategy. Basically, since we can presumably always travel downslope, it makes sense to keep as high as you can for as long as you can (as Tesheiner mentioned regarding the drive through West Valley). That way we always can head downslope once we're done with the higher regions.

I don't recall hearing it at the time, but this would've been another advantage of the "over HP" route - we would've ended up quite high. Of course that route turned out to be not doable.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

(actually I'm serious.. a stick that drags while driving would seem to be a really good idea)

They will be able to just put the brakes on one wheel I hope, and will use MSL trenching, I hope, if, sorry, WHEN she lands safely on Mars.

That is indeed an amazing white trench Spirit just dug there. I guess it will be visible with HiRise! Hope they'll sniff it.

[mhoward]

Pancam anaglyph view south, Spirit sol 1861

[Astro0]

In the anaglyph it looks like that on either side of the potential drive path there are some small hollows.

Tartarus Warning!!!! Maybe not, but this is going to present some interesting times for the MER Precision Driving Team.