The West Valley Route Options

[Tesheiner]

Here're the latest navcam pictures taken during sol 1850: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2009-03-18/

Spirit is no longer stuck, but I think the attempt to go on top of HP via the NE path is finished and we are going to the West Valley. A pancam mosaic of the western route is planned for tosol.

[BrianL]

Wagons ho! Yee-haw!

[RoverDriver]

...
t I think the attempt to go on top of HP via the NE path is finished and we are going to the West Valley. A pancam mosaic of the western route is planned for tosol.

That is correct. We are now trying to head west. Now, where's the on ramp for the I-40? ;-)

Paolo

[JayB]

A nice DD from the latest batch of images

http://sidfishes.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=73


edit: sorry should have posted in West valley thread --- moved (thx

[fredk]

The weather at Gusev is looking a bit worse according to the latest update:

As of Sol 1851 (March 18, 2009), Spirit's solar array energy production has decreased to 230 watt-hours, down 18 percent from a week earlier. Atmospheric opacity (tau) has increased sharply, to 1.19.

[Astro0]

Looks dusty out west.
Sol 1851

[climber]

Nice, Astro.
Is that more or less the drive direction?

[Tesheiner]

By the right side of that mosaic, I would say. Next move is planned for today (sol 1854).

[Astro0]

Sol1850 Navcan pan.


I'll leave the drive direction to the tracking data gurus.
Tesh is right, it's a fair bet that it's straight ahead and then take a left at the next corner.

[RoverDriver]

...
I'll leave the drive direction to the tracking data gurus.
Tesh is right, it's a fair bet that it's straight ahead and then take a left at the next corner.

Ok, let's do that then. ;-)

Paolo

[Ipparchus]

Does anyone of you have any altitude and hazard maps of the Goddard-Von Braun area (red for dangerous areas etc)? The maps of this area make me feel quite pessimistic about the ability of Spirit to reach and study these targets. Von Braun has a high tilt (it seems to be difficult to climb it) and Goddard is a crater-shaped target and its tilt and soil slipperiness may make it a difficult to reach target and maybe a sand trap when Spirit tries to get out of it. If she fails to reach and study these targets what other options does she have (what other interesting targets are in this area)?

[Geert]

Does anyone of you have any altitude and hazard maps of the Goddard-Von Braun area (red for dangerous areas etc)?

Problem with all these maps is that you have to work on a very small area and way below the resolution of most instruments (except HiRISE), which simply means that there is not so much data to crunch on and that greatly effects the accuracy of any predictions.

Variance map I posted earlier already, only increased it a bit to show von Braun / Goddard. Red shows area's with large variance in HiRISE brightness which might indicate a rough surface and thus dangerous driving. Blue is slightly better but still dangerous and lightgreen is the least bad.



Below map is maybe interesting, this shows terrain type if I also take into account relative brightness in HiRISE (I would prefer to use CRISM for this, but it won't work on such a small scale). In this case colors do NOT have a specific meaning but they are only used to mark terrain with the same characteristics (brightness and variance). This means that there is a chance that all terrain with the same color, will show approximately the same driving characteristics.



Once again, don't assign any specific meaning to the colors themselves in above image, colors only note area's with the same characteristics, so if Spirit has been driving on terrain with a certain color, and futher on there is terrain with the same color, you might get the same driving experience there. Wish there was more available data (especially on hights/slopes/composition/etc) but apart from HiRISE almost all instruments have not enough resolution to produce trustworthy results in such a small area.

In the end it will be the eyes of Spirit itself with give the most information, together offcourse with the experience of the drivers.

[Astro0]

Astro0 said - "I'll leave the drive direction to the tracking data gurus."

Rover Driver said - "Ok, let's do that then."

Astro0 says: What I meant to say is that "I'll leave the educated guesses responding to a question about the drive direction to the tracking data gurus, and the ACTUAL driving we will whole-heartedly support and watch in admiring back-seat silence to the Expert MER Driving Team".

[RoverDriver]

Astro0 said - "I'll leave the drive direction to the tracking data gurus."

Rover Driver said - "Ok, let's do that then."

Astro0 says: What I meant to say is that "I'll leave the educated guesses responding to a question about the drive direction to the tracking data gurus, and the ACTUAL driving we will whole-heartedly support and watch in admiring back-seat silence to the Expert MER Driving Team".

What I meant to say is that the drive direction you were suggesting was exactly the intended (and now executed) path for the Sol 1854 drive ;-)

Paolo

[Tesheiner]

> ... and now executed...

13m westwards and downslope. That's the longest drive for Spirit since a lot of time! Keep going.