The Planetary Society Rover Updates Options

[Tesheiner]

On the other side of Good Hope is a fairly wide bay that is not yet named, but it is "an interesting bay for a couple of reasons," he noted. "It is one of the bays that looks from preliminary data to have one of the more shallow slopes and may be a third possibility after Duck Bay and Bottomless Bay that would give us entrée into Victoria."

That's C5.

[Guest_Bobby_*]

http://www.planetary.org/news/2007/0331_Ma...ate_Spirit.html

[alan]

Once that assignment is done, Opportunity has a full slate ahead. "We had a wonderful planning session [Wednesday] and we've actually got a plan that extends considerably into the future now for Opportunity," Squyres reported. "The next step after characterizing the slopes is to drive right into one of those dark streaks that emanate from a couple of these alcoves. We want to drive into them and find out what they are. We will drive into the darkest spot of the darkest dark streak and try to find out what's going on there."

After that, Squyres said the plan for Opportunity is to follow the dark streak back to its source at the rim of the crater, do some work there, then drive out onto the next promontory, named Tierra del Fuego, and take picture of the eastern face of Cape St. Vincent. [The area (bay) between Cape St. Vincent and Tierra del Fuego is still not named.]

"After all that, we'll be ready to try entering Victoria crater," Squyres said. "We've got two candidates. One possibility is that we'll do a toe-dip in the Valley Without Peril and do some imaging of cliff faces." That, of course, is why the rover is spending quality time imaging the Valley's slopes. "But we have to see these images first to see if the Valley Without Peril lives up to its name or not and verify that it is safe. We would not be in there for long." There is, however, "a significant probability" Opportunity won't venture in at the Valley Without Peril. "Either way, once the work is done in this area, we're going to scoot at high speed back to Duck Bay," he added. "That's where we're going to go in."

The newly-revised plan means the rover will not be going all the way around Victoria's rim – at least not at this juncture. "What we're going to do after we finish our work inside the crater is to be determined," Squyres said. "We have several possibilities – continuing the circumnavigation by egressing out of the crater and going counter-clockwise, spending time looking at cobbles on the plains, or driving up to another crater, and we have several candidates for those."

But that is when. For now, the science team is anxious to get on with the exploration of the interior of the crater. "Exploring the interior of Victoria crater requires a completely healthy mobility system with 6 good wheels," noted Squyres. "We could traverse along the rim with 5 wheels just fine and we could drive to other craters, but the one thing we cannot do with 5 wheels is explore the interior of this crater, because it's too steep. We have 6 good wheels now, but will we in 6 months? I don't know. Therefore, we are strongly motivated to explore the interior as soon as we can while the vehicle health is still excellent."

[MarsIsImportant]

Oppy will check out the "land of fire" before either going into the crater at the Valley without Peril or much more likely Duck Bay!

"There is, however, "a significant probability" Opportunity won't venture in at the Valley Without Peril. "Either way, once the work is done in this area, we're going to scoot at high speed back to Duck Bay," he added. "That's where we're going to go in." "

[fredk]

I'm sure most of you caught the slip in the image titled "No hematite?" Yes, Oppy took that pic, but no, it's not of Torquas in Mitcheltree Ridge! Even the excellent pancam can't image that far away!

As far as I know, the Meridian berries all contain hematite.

[centsworth_II]

I'm sure most of you caught the slip in the image titled "No hematite?"

And in the Inner Basin pan, Lookout Point is STILL mislabled as West Spur!

But on the whole, I like this update -- the outlining of the geologic mysteries
for Spirit to unravel and especially the part about Opportunity's not wasting
any time getting into Victoria.

[CosmicRocker]

It was a fantastic update, as usual. But I nearly fell out of my chair this morning when I started reading and saw that image caption. That image is from sol 1128, and was described as "pancam_frontforegrnd_L234567Rall" at the tracking site. It is one of a series of surface images Opportunity has been collecting on the trek around the rim.

The lack of hematite in the spherules at Gusev is much much less of a shock.

[nprev]

Still not convinced that going all the way in is the best strategy. Seems that a few 'dips' as described are definitely worth doing if for no other reason than to acquire better data on the exposed strata, but why put Oppy all the way down? Would rather see her finish investigations @ Victoria from the rim then head for the horizon, just to see what might be found...

[diane]

I expect the reason for going in is to put the Mossbauer on some of those exposed cliffs, and to do a few RAT grinds to get under the surface. We never got close to Burns Cliff at Endurance, and there won't be another "opportunity" like this for several years, at the very least.

I didn't see anything that suggested "all they way" and I agree that it would be risky, but we need to get what we can, while we can.

[nprev]

True, Diane...but I would be far more comfortable with an explicit statement by Steve that there is no intention of driving Oppy all the way in. There's no need to do so, and I don't want to see this turn into a prima facie EOM action. I doubt very much that Oppy could exit as easily as she entered...

[edstrick]

I printed out and read the rover update (9 pages with the I.E.6's "smallest" font). There was a lot of interesting new information in the report, but it was rambling, and repetetive, switching back and forth between the rovers and several times restating something said a few pages earlier in similar words. Some of the text seemed to almost be a regurtitation of snippets of text from the periodic status postings on the main rover website. (the rover took mossbauer readings on this rock, morning and evening sky brightness measurements, MiniTES spectra of targets blah, blorg and blibbble....)

I hate to be fussy and critical, but I ended up skimming the report to find meaty info while skipping over marshmallow peeps filler.

[Guest_Edward Schmitz_*]

It was explicitly stated that they plan to exit the crater. This wont be a suicide dive.

ed

[helvick]

I also hate to be critical but I noticed a number of typos and editing bloopers also (Insulation vs Insolation when talking about available solar power for example). I really, really like the Planetary Society rover updates ,including this one, and maybe the answer is to have a way for some enthusiastic amateurs to post in errata.

[CosmicRocker]

nprev: I don't know that we need an explicit statement from the PI that this is not a kamikaze plan. They have made it pretty clear that they do not want to enter unless they can be confident of a subsequent exit. They attempted to approach one of the inner dune tendrils in Endurance and almost got stuck. I don't see them trying to go into this abyss. They will surely try to remain on solid ground.

Regarding the MER update, we shouldn't be to critical. It is obvious that we all appreciate the information Ms. Rayl is documenting in these things for us. They are essentially sol-by-sol summaries of rover activities with an overlying layer of context for us enthusiasts. Considering the huge number of amazing observations these rovers are making, that is quite a task. As hard as I try, I notice that I make typographical errors. I tend to not worry about them unless they were seriously misleading.

[Guest_Bobby_*]

Spirit Finds Past Water at Home, Opportunity Takes in Tierra del Fuego

http://www.planetary.org/news/2007/0430_Ma...ate_Spirit.html