The western route, 5th leg after stop at Absecon / Reeds Bay Options

[fredk]

Thanks for the maps, guys. I now measure the distance to BI to be 66 metres from the sol 1942 location. That gives a size for the rock of about 67 cm wide by 30 cm high.

The approximate size of BI would've been known before they moved away from the 1942 location - the navcams were down and the pancams were targeted. So I'm guessing that the spectral info from the BI pancam sequence was important in the decision to go back.

Do the oldtimers here remember another time that they turned back to study a target? There's been backtracking due to mobility problems, but I don't recall anything like this.

[fredk]

But what took the team so long to decide to turn around and go investigate BI?

To add to my post above, the BI pancam sequence only came down late Saturday. The sol 1950 drive was Sunday. So it would make sense that they didn't turn back till 1952 if the pancam sequence was the trigger.

[alan]

Do the oldtimers here remember another time that they turned back to study a target? There's been backtracking due to mobility problems, but I don't recall anything like this.

They turned Spirit back on sol 454 when the layering at Methuselah was spotted while Spirit was attempting to drive up Husband Hill. Spirit then spent an additional two month's there.

For several months, Spirit climbed a flank of Husband Hill, the tallest in the range. The slope closely matched the angle of underlying rock layers, which made the layering difficult to detect. Spirit reached an intermediate destination, dubbed "Larry's Lookout," then continued uphill and looked back. "That was the critical moment, when it all began falling into place," Squyres said. "Looking back downhill, you can see the layering, and it suddenly starts to makes sense."

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pr.../20050524a.html


Methuselah:
http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_...selah_new2.html

[centsworth_II]

I thought there was a significantly larger "erratic" boulder observed near Erebus....

Is this the one?

From hortonheardawho

[centsworth_II]

Do the oldtimers here remember another time that they turned back to study a target?

There was talk of heading back to Erebus after leaving Victoria. At the same time, the talk was of studying cobbles out on the plain. I wonder if some on the team wished they had taken a closer look at that "erratic boulder" which looked like the Mother of All Cobbles to me.

[fredk]

Is this the one?

Thanks for finding that. That was viewed from the Olympia site. You can see from this image that it's maybe more of a rubble pile than a boulder:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...KCP2283L7M1.JPG
I get around 40 by 17 cm size for it, so BI is a fair bit bigger.

[serpens]

Do the oldtimers here remember another time that they turned back to study a target?

I think the only other time was for Paso Robles. But that was a short hop.

[fredk]

So the attempt to clear the dusty mirror by leaving it exposed has failed?

That's right, so far:

The shroud of the Mini-TES continues to be left open on scheduled sols to allow the environment to clean putative dust contamination from the elevation mirror. No improvement in Mini-TES performance has been observed so far, but the rover has seen no wind events.

[fredk]

There are a few mini-craters in sight. The one to the right (NW) was named "Alvin".

Could it be Alvin was a target near the crater? Here they seem to refer to that crater as "Kaiko."

[CosmicRocker]

Is this the one? ...

Yeah, I guess it is; but it appeared several times larger in my memory.

[glennwsmith]

Drksywxlt, yes, the rovers have been sent on some seemingly roundabout routes to avoid bad ground, esp. since Oppy got stuck for several weeks in a sand dune. If there is one thing we have learned here at UMSF, it's that the rover team knows what it is doing.

[djellison]

I guess in the category of 'turn back to go somewhere' - the traverse of the northern rim of Victoria, only to enter at the very point we arrived must count But there was a very good reason for that.

[climber]

if there is one thing we have learned here at UMSF, it's that the rover team knows what it is doing.

Yep, and that... the rovers don't

[Tesheiner]

Could it be Alvin was a target near the crater? Here they seem to refer to that crater as "Kaiko."

Mmm, strange...
There were two pancam shots taken at that site, the first named Alvin pointing to the crater at the NW (right) and the second named Dolphin pointing to another one at the WSW (left). Here's an MMB snapshot with the images in context.


01950::p2385::20::9::0::0::9::1::19::pancam_Alvin_L257
01950::p2386::20::3::0::0::3::1::7::pancam_Dolphin_L257

So, perhaps it should be named Alvin/Kaiko; both are vessels used in deep sea exploration.

[Tesheiner]

Another interesting note in the latest status report: "As of Sol 1952 (July 21, 2009), Opportunity's solar array energy production was 493 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.462 and a dust factor of 0.559."

That's an almost 20% boost in energy production compared to the previous week (414 Whr).