[X] My Assistant

[stewjack]

Now that we know where we are going, I thought we could use a topic about our future route. I hope that a few images will get the rover rolling - downhill.

READY START

BACKGROUND
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From Steve Squyres Misson Update
Octoberber 4, 2005

Extending eastward from the summit of Husband Hill is a broad ridge that we've named Haskin Ridge. It trends ENE from the summit, does a little dog-leg to the right, and then trends ESE for a bit. Right at the dog-leg there's a pretty steep step, which we're not certain we can get down. So we're going to descend the upper portion of the ridge, right to where the step is, and assess the situation. If we can see a safe route, then we'll continue down onto the lower portion of Haskin Ridge.
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My Image of Haskin Ridge
I tried to get the best image of Haskin ridge that was available, and this is a crop from a true color TIFF summit panorama, located on the the Cornell Pancam web site. I converted the tif file to a gif file to save some download time.

Warning : File Size : 1.7 MB
Cornell True Color Pan of Haskin Ridge

Reference
WEB page of Husband Hill Summit Panorama
Warning: File Size : 80 MB !!!!
Preliminary Spirit Pancam of "Husband Hill Summit" Panorama

Jack

PS If you can't see the "steep step" that Squyres mentions - try this orbital image. I believe that the "steep step" is the dark shadow cutting across the ridge that is located directly under the word CRATER. I think that it is also visible in the true color pancam image, but it is less obvious.

Orbital View of Husband Hill and Basin

[Tesheiner]

Bedrock on Haskin Ridge.

A panoramic view taken on Sol 656 with the L7 pancam.

jvandriel

That's the "driving direction" pancam mosaic taken after 655 drive.
But in this case, it's simply looking to short to be useful for drive planning. It seems the rover drivers just thought Spirit would be still heading downslope after that drive.

[Tesheiner]

Any idea which Sol Spirit will start heading towards Home Plate, presumably for the duration of the Mars Winter ?

Imho, Spirit will start driving south in a day or two just enough to have an idea of the slope down to the Inner Basin. If this direct route is too dangerous/unknown, they will continue driving east for ... who knows how many sols.

[Tesheiner]

Fresh images from Haskin Ridge.
Spirit drove a little bit south on sol 658.

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/...95P0705L0M1.JPG

[Tman]

Ahh, I think we'll get soon a look at Ultreya... Abyss. ABYSS?

[TheChemist]

Fresh pancams of the inner basin to the south also at exploratorium.
Apologies to the pros, I could not wait so I quickly stiched them.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Ames]

Ahh, I think we'll get soon a look at Ultreya... Abyss. ABYSS?     

I liked the tone of Steve's voice when he said ABYSS? I enjoyed transcribing that.

Sorry Ustrax

Nick

[Marz]

Nice interviewing! You cracked me up with:
"Do you think um ‘cos for some reason there’s people have just picked on the poor patch of dark soil and gone completely to town with it. "

I also like Steve's "mother of all Mossbauer spectrometer mosaics" as a description of observations for an immobile MER. Good stuff.

However, here's an apt quote I'll leave as my hold-out hope for Ultreya the dirt-patch: "between the reality and the dream... falls the shadow" -- TS Eliot

[Tesheiner]

More driving planned for sol 659.

[Phil Stooke]

This is jvandriel's pan from Haskin Ridge, sol 655, in polar form.

Phil

[RNeuhaus]

Good with the picture!

Now, the top of picture point to the north side. The next time, the top must point to the south since it is what Spirit is heading down. So, I had to turn 180 degree to the image in order to visualize the route easier if everything is facing upwards....

Rodolfo

[Phil Stooke]

Oh dear.. no, I couldn't possibly put north anywhere but the top! You will have to print it and rotate it yourself. I'm an old fogey, I admit it.

Phil

[RNeuhaus]

Oh dear.. no, I couldn't possibly put north anywhere but the top!  You will have to print it and rotate it yourself.  I'm an old fogey, I admit it.

Phil

Very glad with the picture, no problem. I save it and open it into a Photoshop alike to turn it to 180 degree before to visualize or print it.

Rodolfo

[Bill Harris]

Oh dear.. no, I couldn't possibly put north anywhere but the top!

That _is_ a standard. I usually try put North up, and when North is anywhere but up, the map/drawing/etc gets a north arrow.

Usually...

--Bill

[Tesheiner]

Images from 659 drive are already available at exploratorium and they were taken less then four hours ago!!!

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2005-11-10/

It makes me remind this part of the interview:

Steve: You know if one of the things that we did with this mission was to establish expectations that other projects will in the future choose to meet, then I think that's a good thing.  There was no requirement from NASA or anybody that we put our images online in real time.  That was a decision that my team made.  We decided very early on that this mission, being the adventure that it is, it's different from many other missions.  You know, its not like you have a flyby, and then two and a half weeks later there's another flyby. This is a daily process of discovery and exploration.  And it just had such potential as something that like you said, a soap opera, this adventure that people could share, that we realized very early on that there was enormous potential with puttin' the images out in real time.  And you know, I mean if, you're in the U.K., I'm in Ithaca New York, if, as long as the scripts are running well and we're updating quickly (and it's often we don't but we try our best).  You know, if you're awake and I'm asleep you can see pictures...

Doug: Before you do.

Steve: ...from Mars before I do, and I think that's great!  And I hope that other projects in the future will do the same thing.

[general]

Looks like Spirit is driving towards East Basin (away from Inner Basin)?
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...B1P0705L0M1.JPG