MSL - Stopover on the Road to Glenelg - Arm Commissioning, Commissioning Activity Period 2 - Sols 30 through 37 Options

[jmknapp]

MSL's sampling system never had a "bio barrier" like Phoenix.

According to this reference, if MSL encounters "special regions" (e.g., water), then use of the "corer (or other sampling device)" should adhere to Planetary Protection Guidelines IVb, which state:

b. Category IVb missions comprise lander systems carrying instruments designed to investigate extant Martian life. For such missions, the following requirements apply:

1. Either the entire landed system must be sterilized to the microbial burden levels defined in the specification sheet "Maximum Surface Microbial Spore Burden for Category IVb and IVc Missions to Mars," or to levels driven by the nature and sensitivity of the particular life-detection experiments, whichever are more stringent.

2. Or the subsystems that are involved in the acquisition, delivery, and analysis of samples used for life detection must be sterilized to burden levels defined in the specification sheet "Maximum Surface Microbial Spore Burden for Category IVb and IVc Missions to Mars" and a method of preventing recontamination of the sterilized subsystems and the contamination of the material to be analyzed is in place.

If a "special region" is not encountered (highly likely), then only category IVa applies:

a. Category IVa missions comprise lander systems not carrying instruments for the investigation of extant Martian life. These lander systems are restricted to a total surface microbial burden no greater than Viking lander preterminal sterilization levels (see specification sheet "Maximum Surface Microbial Spore Burden for Category IVa Missions to Mars").

This little snafu was covered by space.com last November & so it's old news.

[JayB]

In case anyone (like me) was wondering about the penny http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4649

[Ron Hobbs]

I am intrigued by Joe the Martian, which was explained in this release as well. Maybe we have a nickname for Curiosity.

Go, Joe the Martian!!

[vikingmars]

My own interpretation... with manual stitch (a remembrance to Marcia Neugebauer's techniques at JPL !). Enjoy

[DeanM]

Hint: Blacker House is an undergraduate house. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_System_...e_of_Technology

Other related item: here's an extreme closeup of the MMM focal plane board, on the opposite side from the CCD:
[attachment=28010:mahlibot2.jpg]

I didn't go to Caltech so I only look on these things with bemusement.

The plot thickens!

"Dabney Hovse is the smallest of Caltech's Houses."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_System_...e_of_Technology

"Traditionally standing for "Dabney Eats It," referring to a particularly unpalatable plate of noodles in the 1950s, the trigraph DEI has come to be a badge of pride for Darbs. Besides naming the house's recreation room after it and spreading it all across campus, Dabney alumni have made DEI a hidden code in the outside world. The letters can be seen in movies (most notably Real Genius) and video games (including GTA: Vice City and several Intellivision games). There are even stories of the trigraph making its way into space on JPL probes including the Voyager space craft, and being written on the Moon by astronaut Darb Harrison Schmitt."

Marvellous stuff!

Dean

[jmknapp]

On the UV sensors, the document ROVER ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING STATION FOR MSL MISSION says:

Ultraviolet Sensor.

FM Photodiodes have been calibrated before integration to know their spectral response at different temperatures, radiation intensity and incident angles. But once all photodiodes were integrated with the ICU, it was detected that for channels C and D the noise to signal ratios were very poor. For the other channels, the performance were the expected ones, inside the limits of its field-of-views.

Was that rectified before flight or is that the current status?

The Mars Weather page blog indicates that the UV sensors generally have been in operation:

As the season progresses, the sun is rising higher at noon each Sol. The UV measurements show this and have been measuring sunrise and sunset to occur at around 0525LT and 1720LT within Gale Crater.

I'm curious to know what the measured values indicate for the amount of sterilizing UV radiation hitting the surface, particularly now before the dust storm season kicks in. UVC is particularly the "germicidal" band.

[Ant103]

Olivier : Terrific work ! With so many parralax effects, it's hard to stitch such a mosaic.

Here is what I think my final version :

[vikingmars]

Olivier : Terrific work ! With so many parralax effects, it's hard to stitch such a mosaic. Here is what I think my final version :

WOW ! Damien your mosaic is just greeeaaaat !
Besides, thanks a lot Damien : I had to do an (hell) manual stitching with hand-made (Paint shop) transforms for each image before "glueing" them together electronically, because automatic stitching trough softwares did not work at all to "glue" them all together. Well... I did it very much like the old JPL way done for photographs prints in the 80s'...
=> Your new mosaic deserves as many wheels as there are to be seen on your picture :

[Vanden]

Ant103, vikingmars, Astro0 : awesome picture !!

[climber]

One more comment on the quality of these pictures = you transport me there!
I guess we can see MARDI on the right hand side. Can someone confirm?
In this case, it'll be nice to get the Pancam picture of Mahali taking a picture of Mardi (while hazcam is doing the same)

[mcaplinger]

I guess we can see MARDI on the right hand side. Can someone confirm?

Yes, you can just see the forward edge of the MARDI sunshade in the upper left corner of http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...1000E1_DXXX.jpg Nice catch, I hadn't noticed that myself.

[mcaplinger]

By the way, I presume that the skinny rod sticking out of the corner of the rover body in http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...1000E1_DXXX.jpg (at the top near the middle of the image) is one of the static discharge "lightning rods" described here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/moonandmars/mer.html

[xflare]

Interesting new shot from sol 27 http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/ra...1_DXXX&s=27

Looks like all the small cobbles/gravel eroded out of another rock surface.

[climber]

re-posted here from wrong topic:
It's remarkable how clean is (the downwind?) side of both rock and gravels. I don't recall such (big) difference in other landing sites.
Lot of gravels, BTW. Is that a sign of alluvial place or not at all?

[Skyrunner]

By the way, I presume that the skinny rod sticking out of the corner of the rover body in http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...1000E1_DXXX.jpg (at the top near the middle of the image) is one of the static discharge "lightning rods" described here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/moonandmars/mer.html

One of the portion pokers? Mentioned here: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs...challenges.html and in the first part of that excellent series: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs...rs-1-tools.html