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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ MRO 2005 _ What Will This Mission Accomplish Others Won't?

Posted by: pioneer Jan 10 2005, 09:05 PM

I heard this mission has an extremely high-resolution camera, but don't MGS and Mars Express as well? I know it also has some kind of radar sounder to search for water beneath the surface, but doesn't Mars Express have something like that too? The only instrument I found that hasn't been flown before is one for measuring climate that I think was lost on the Mars Climate Orbiter.

Posted by: djellison Jan 10 2005, 09:28 PM

Well - yes - MGS and MEX have high res cameras - 1.5 - 2m/pixel.

MRO has a resolution of 0.3m/pixel - i.e. for every pixel that Global Surveyor can image - MRO will have 25 pixels.

You can do a lot more science with that.

There's a great presentation you should watch on the whole mission that explains a lot of the instruments and how they compliment one another and the other orbiting assets, and landers - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/oct04.cfm

Doug

Posted by: Sunspot Jan 11 2005, 12:28 AM

......still wondering what happened to the high resolution images from Mars Express. And the radar still hasn't been deployed because mission engineers are still trying to work out whether it's safe to do so.

Posted by: djellison Jan 11 2005, 09:02 AM

QUOTE (Sunspot @ Jan 11 2005, 12:28 AM)
......still wondering what happened to the high resolution images from Mars Express. And the radar still hasn't been deployed because mission engineers are still trying to work out whether it's safe to do so.

The MEX high res issue is due to calibration problems - or so Bruce tells me. I'm not sure I buy that - and I'm not sure he does either.

Doug

Posted by: lyford Jan 11 2005, 04:42 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 11 2005, 01:02 AM)
QUOTE (Sunspot @ Jan 11 2005, 12:28 AM)
......still wondering what happened to the high resolution images from Mars Express.  And the radar still hasn't been deployed because mission engineers are still trying to work out whether it's safe to do so.

The MEX high res issue is due to calibration problems - or so Bruce tells me. I'm not sure I buy that - and I'm not sure he does either.

Doug

I am also hopeful that they get the imaging online, but the radar will be a tremendous loss if it can't be activated - so much for the underground water detection!

Maybe next time instead of "Mars Express" they should go for "Mars Patiently and Carefully Thought Out." rolleyes.gif

Posted by: djellison Jan 11 2005, 06:01 PM

The Marsis deployment is scheduled for March iirc

Doug

Posted by: OWW Jan 12 2005, 09:01 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 11 2005, 09:02 AM)
The MEX high res issue is due to calibration problems - or so Bruce tells me.  I'm not sure I buy that - and I'm not sure he does either.

I have this book about the 2004 mars missions ( MER, MEX, beagle-2 ):
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3440098400/028-2222784-3018130

And on page 70 is the HIGH RESOLUTION companion to this MEX Olympus Mons picture:
http://search.esa.int/queryIG.html?col=mmg&ht=0&qp=&qs=&qc=&pw=100%25&ws=1&la=en&si=0&fs=&op0=%2B&fl0=ContentType%3A&ty0=p&tx0=Image&op1=%2B&fl1=category%3A&ty1=p&tx1=&op2=%2B&fl2=showcase%3A&ty2=p&tx2=SEMU775V9ED&qt=&ex=&rq=0&oq=&searchType=general&qm=0&ql=a&tipo=Image&showcase=Mars+Express&st=130&nh=1&lk=3&rf=3

The caption says it has a resolution of 2.3 meters. If it really IS taken by MEX the calibration excuse is nonsense. The image looks fine.
The book was published back in april, so ESA had a lot of time to 'calibrate' I would say... It's funny, because the author of this book himself complains about ESA's enormous lack of PR compared to the MER mission.

Posted by: djellison Jan 12 2005, 09:49 AM

Well - two obvious points.

-That image is colour - so it's not the b'n'w high res camera
- The Olympus Mons Calderra is 60km across - which at 2.3m/pixel is 26000 pixels across - and that image would be more like 31000

Give those factors - and the size of the image being 3100 across - it's a typo - there shouldnt be a . between the 2 and the 3 smile.gif

Doug

Posted by: OWW Jan 12 2005, 10:41 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 12 2005, 09:49 AM)
-That image is colour - so it's not the b'n'w high res camera
- The Olympus Mons Calderra is 60km across - which at 2.3m/pixel is 26000 pixels across - and that image would be more like 31000

Give those factors - and the size of the image being 3100 across - it's a typo - there shouldnt be a . between the 2 and the 3 smile.gif

Doug, you are absolutely right........about the low-res picture in the link. laugh.gif ( This picture is on page 71 in the book )
But the picture I am talking about ( on page 70 ) is, as I stated, the HIGHRES companion of that Olympus Mons link. So....No, the . between the 2 and 3 is no typo.

Posted by: djellison Jan 12 2005, 12:20 PM

Do you have a scanner wink.gif

Doug

Posted by: OWW Jan 12 2005, 01:33 PM

No I don't have a scanner. But I can give you a comparison MOC image I found that covers almost the exact same area.
Look at this MOC strip: http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e07_e12/images/E10/E1003979.html
The full-res version has a 'scaled pixel width' of 6.25 meters, but shows a lot more detail than the MEX picture from the book. However, the tiled 'medium-res' version is comparable to the MEX picture: http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e07_e12/full_jpg_tiled/E10/E1003979.jpg
The picture in the book covers the bottom half of the second strip and the top of the third strip. So, judging from this image, a 2.3 meter MEX image looks something like a 12 meter MGS image.

Posted by: djellison Jan 12 2005, 02:15 PM

Maybe it's just printed small smile.gif

Doug

Posted by: OWW Jan 12 2005, 02:24 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 12 2005, 02:15 PM)
Maybe it's just printed small smile.gif

I don't think so. If it is blown up it will only become blurry. But we won't know for sure until ESA finally releases some stuff like MSSS does, right?
When is that going to happen anyway? It has been more than a year since that camera began taking pictures... mad.gif I thought I read somewhere that they would release all pictures after 1 year? unsure.gif

Posted by: djellison Jan 12 2005, 02:25 PM

Well - maybe they are having calibration problems afterall- poor focusing by the sounds of it sad.gif

Doug

Posted by: MizarKey Jan 12 2005, 06:55 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Jan 12 2005, 06:25 AM)
Well - maybe they are having calibration problems afterall- poor focusing by the sounds of it sad.gif

Doug

Not the dreaded Hubble disease???

Eric P / MizarKey

Posted by: Decepticon Jan 20 2005, 02:09 AM

I'm looking forward to seeing the other Landers Russian/US

Mars 3 and the Polar Lander are the to main ones I want to see.

Posted by: dvandorn Mar 11 2005, 04:01 AM

QUOTE (Decepticon @ Jan 20 2005, 02:09 AM)
I'm looking forward to seeing the other Landers Russian/US

Mars 3 and the Polar Lander are the to main ones I want to see.

That would be great, but... I seem to recall Mike Collins on Apollo 11 looking and looking for Eagle on the surface, and without a precise location the field of view in his sextant was just too narrow to find it.

I know what MRO's resolution is -- but what is the area of an MRO imaging "swath"? How many swaths will have to be imaged to find something that we don't have an exact location for?

The guys at JPL thought they had a good location on Viking 1, but MGS (which can effectively image the smaller MERs) hasn't been able to find it. They have less of a good location fix on Viking 2 and Pathfinder/Sojourner, and also their heroic efforts to find MPL failed. It's going to be hard to find those guys, much less Mars 3, for which I don't know if *anyone* has a decent idea of location.

Of course, we could always get lucky and find one or more of them by chance...

-the other Doug

Posted by: tedstryk Mar 11 2005, 04:29 AM

Actually, we already have good locations for Viking 1 and MPF from MOC, which has photographed them on the surface.
http://barsoom.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/01/04/

In addition to Viking 2 and Mars 3, I would like to see Mars 6. Mars 6 returned the first scientific data from the Martian atmosphere during descent in 1975, although it crashed. An engineering instrument eroneously identified argon in the atmosphere, leading many believe erroneously that the Martian atmosphere was largely composed of argon.

Posted by: djellison Mar 11 2005, 07:47 AM

MRO's swath width is ENORMOUS!



6km width - which is 4x that of MGS smile.gif

Doug

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