Viking Lander 1 detailed w/MRO, Results of imaging process VL1 detailed with MRO Options

[djellison]

t a dramatic increase in noise in the images and decrease in image quality.

Both of those are used in the animation I did of EVERY HiRISE image taken of Spirit. It's in it's own thread in the Spirit forum. Spirit is as visible as ever, and I would say the tracks are more visible than ever, Home Plate as clear as ever. I'm well aware of the reports of trouble with HiRISE, but they have been mainly solved as I understand it. Some images are, indeed, worse than others - but the most recent one is damn good.

Image quality now is NOT significantly ( or ever, imho, noticeably ) worse than the start of the science orbit. Suggesting that it wont be able to see Phoenix (a larger vehicle than MER) when it can see Spirit better than ever is just totally wrong.

Doug

[edstrick]

"...I'm really excited about it...this is, believe or not..., my first martian landing... ..."

IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.. .make sure you can watch coverage on NASA TV. Preferably on real TV and not in a dinky browser window.
Otherwise, all you'll get ia a minute of realtime coverage and the rest of it will be talking-celebrity-heads and reporters who mostly know nothing.

[Stu]

I have to say that even though I was watching the MER landings on a "dinky browser window" (and on dialup, with the picture shattering into a Matrix-like haze of pixels every few moments and the dreaded word "Rebuffering" appearing every couple of minutes!!!!) I was glad I watched it online and not on a real TV cos it meant I was able to swap thoughts and fears with people here on UMSF, and email other friends through it all too. It made it a much more moving and personal experience. But NASA TV is definitely the way to go.

[imipak]

Of course, the big payoff was the first picture from the surface of Mars, which assembled itself, slowly, painfully, from right to left...there's some soil...there's the footpad!!!...oh my God, there's a bunch of little rocks (which were really not expected)!!! Absolutely engrossing; almost forgot to breathe watching that first image come down, even as Carl Sagan provided excited background commentary. (Side note: Does anyone know if tapes of the EDL footage are available anywhere? I'd love to watch it all over again.)

Turned this up, which has a few short snippets from JPL control room:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xh4wHijeJyg

...as well as Gentry Lee audibly choking up as he describes watching the first pictures coming down. The MER EDL footage does that to me, too

(Searching for 'viking mars' finds quite a few other bits and pieces of footage including clean room testing, lander/orbiter assembly and so on.)

[imipak]

Hmmm, here's a thought... how many people here will be watching the landing "Live"? Where will you be watching from? Sneaking a peek at work? Watching from home? I'm sure there'll be a lively real-time discussion here on UMSF as Phoenix descends.

I'll be watching NASA TV from home, very very nervously, and trying not to give in to urges to cross my fingers. I suspect umsf.com will be getting a hammering from me that night, as well... I hope there's enough in the bandwidth kitty to cope

Tick tick tick...

50 days, 12h remaining...

[nprev]

Monday, 26 May is a US national holiday (Memorial Day), so we Yanks are all set. (I'm sure that I'll need that day to recover from Sunday's landing!!!)

Thanks for that clip, Imipak! Man, time sure does affect memory; I could have sworn that the first image came down in a right-to-left sweep, but it was the other way around. The difference in brightness in the first lines on the left vs. the rest of the pic were thought to be caused by dust disturbed by the landing exhaust settling down again.

[ustrax]

Hey...I'll just have to count with the help from you guys on dealing with all the stress I know will be passing through...
ustrax's a martian virgin...that's the reality...

Got some lines from Ray Arvidson...:
"the team has confirmed the mission’s final landing site on the last week. So…what scenario will we be facing? Quoting Arvidson, Phoenix will find a location dominated by smooth, relatively rock free plains with numerous periglacial polygons where the team expects water ice to be only a few centimeters beneath a cover of loose regolith."

I'll try to dig some more on this on Monday...

EDITED: Oh...and we have a confirmation...

"Peter Smith, Phoenix Principal Investigator, has confirmed his presence at spacEurope on April 14 (only 9 days from now…) for a live Q’n’A with the readers of this blog, so, get yourself prepared, think about the questions you may have about the mission and submit these when the day arrives, I assure you our PI will not disappoint you."

[ElkGroveDan]

I have to say that even though I was watching the MER landings on a "dinky browser window"

Now that I think of it, the very first time I tried to watch an internet video stream it was the Pathfinder landing. The window was like 150x150 pixels, and even at that with my slower connection back then, it was jerky and almost useless but the sound was constant. I do recall thinking however how cool this concept could be once the bugs were ironed out.

[dvandorn]

I'll be watching NASA TV from home, very very nervously, and trying not to give in to urges to cross my fingers.

I don't ever resist the urge to cross my fingers. I cross my fingers and my toes, and if I can think of anything else to cross, I cross them, too...

I'll be watching NASA TV on my home cable system, as well. I am always grateful that I live in a civilized city where I get NASA TV on my cable system.

Monday, 26 May is a US national holiday (Memorial Day), so we Yanks are all set. (I'm sure that I'll need that day to recover from Sunday's landing!!!)

My schedule is entirely up in the air at this point. I work in a call center for that selfsame cable company that provides me with my NASA TV. (I troubleshoot problems with internet connections and digital phone systems.) We're open every day of the year, and we have bids for working on holidays. I *might* get the holiday off, but more likely I'll have to work the holiday. If I do have to work, I'll get paid double time and a half for working it, though.

Problem is, I don't right yet know what my basic schedule is going to be by the end of May. The call center regularly has what they call mini-bids for shifts, when they want to re-tool assets to match demand patterns. But they've had enough changes in the demand patterns that they need to run a once-every-few-years full shift bid, in which every single person has to bid for a new shift. Since I'm about 65th in seniority out of about 120 people in my job, I obviously don't get my first choice... and the new shifts will be announced this coming Monday, to take effect May 4th.

So I truly have no clue what shift I will be working on May 25th, or whether I will even have Sundays off. But, in addition to having NASA TV on my cable system, I also have a digital video recorder cable box... *grin*...

-the other Doug

[edstrick]

"Does anyone know if tapes of the EDL footage are available anywhere? I'd love to watch it all over again.)"

I have no idea, I wish/hope it exists.

I have stereo reel-to-reel audio audio tape of dual-network TV coverage of the Viking 1 landing.

Unlike the continuous NASA-TV-like NASA mission commentary that I recorded during the Surveyor 1 moon landing in 1966, a decade later, the Viking landing coverage is totally dominated by "talking heads" and celebrity commentary with the exception of a bare minute of NASA narration right around landing and for a few seconds or so after. Granted, the talking heads were people like Ray Bradbury and Carl Sagan, as I vaguely recall... But Iwanted the real thing and got only a snippet of it.

I recorded dual network coverage, eg CBS and NBC, from 2 TV's onto stereo tape so I have synched sound, and the one snipped of coverage when both networks carried it, comes in the "center channel" while network blather is only out of right or left speakers. (This is what I remember, I haven't played the tape in decades)

I now have a quality reel-to-reel recorder and will soon be able to get some of this stuff digitized and transferred to CD-R discs and mp3 files.

[vikingmars]

Great!
I made this modified version in order to improve contrast/pixelization/color... (I do not know how much realistic is, however ).
[attachment=13911:VL1_Hirise_UMSF_e.jpg]

Nice improvements, especially for pixellization !
Here is my final HiRise color processed image before I merged it with the hi-res panchromatic one...
Enjoy also !