[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

[djellison]

There are smaller, similar-from-MOC-images patches seen on the south slopes to the north of Husband hill - just depressions that collect the stuff, just like Bonneville has.

Doug

[djellison]

Another drive...

Before
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...00P0635L0M1.JPG

after
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...00P0655L0M1.JPG

You might be able to spot a small black triagular rock in both shots that demonstrates the progress, probably the same as the last one I'd have thought. Good driving terretory all the way out here - I could imagine some really big drives soon - 50+

Doug

[jamescanvin]

Good driving terretory all the way out here - I could imagine some really big drives soon - 50+

Whoa there Doug! Lets not forget about that steep step!

There appears to be a ridge across those navcam shots, here is the left one with a line to mark it.



Using the Parallax calculator that ridge is about 60m (\pm 10) away, which is probably about right for the steep step (it was only ~100m from the summit). Features beyond that ridge are out of range of the calculator >100m.

Lets wait another couple of sols before declaring "plain sailing ahead"!

James

[RNeuhaus]

The land where Spirit will go down is considered a steep step which it does not seems not so dangerous since it is has high area of sand. That helps to Spirit to control better for its sliding down. Besides it is relatively flat. The only problem is that I cannot determine the degree of sleep just watching the picture. Needs some kind of reference (sundial) to determine the degree of slope.

Rodolfo

[jamescanvin]

The upcoming Sol 638 should get us a bit closer.

Sol Seq.Ver ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot Description
--- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
638 p0655.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_5x1_az_90_3_bpp
638 p1201.15 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_penultimate_1_bpp_crit_16
638 p1214.05 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_hazcam_ultimate_4_bpp
638 p1301.04 0 0 0 0 0 0 penultimate_rear_hazcam_pri_16
638 p1312.09 0 0 0 0 0 0 ultimate_rear_hazcam_2_bpp_pri15
638 p2514.05 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_clast_survey_L7R1
638 Total 0 0 0 0 0 0

[jamescanvin]

The land where Spirit will go  down is considered a steep step which it does not seems not so  dangerous since it is has high area of sand. That helps to Spirit to control better for its sliding down. Besides it is relatively flat. The only problem is that I cannot determine the degree of sleep just watching the picture. Needs some kind of reference (sundial) to determine the degree of slope. 

Rodolfo

Where are you getting your information about the 'step' being a "high area of sand" and "relatively flat"?

I don't think we'll have any idea about the terrain conditions until we are right on top of it. For example a vertical 'cliff' will remain hidden until parallax enables to to tell that two rocks seemingly next to each other differ in range, even then you don't know it's vertical, you only have a lower limit on the gradient given by the angle you are looking at it. i.e you don't know it's a cliff till you lean over the edge.

James

[ustrax]

Looking at this images it seems that the ridge cannot be passed in the majority of it's extension, I've mark a point where it appears to be a more reliable passage:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/spiritdh01.jpg

[ustrax]

Forget the second image...The dot is not on the correct place.
I need to be recycled...

[abalone]

Looking at this images it seems that the ridge cannot be passed in the majority of it's extension, I've mark a point where it appears to be a more reliable passage:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/spiritdh01.jpg

Anaglyph shows that what appears to be a smooth grade actually has a section of blind dropoff that we can not yet see. This may be the section that concerns them.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Tesheiner]

You might be able to spot a small black triagular rock in both shots that demonstrates the progress, probably the same as the last one I'd have thought.

If we are talking about the same rock (many of them looks black and triangular...) sol 637 drive was about 20m.

I tried to plot Spirit's progress on a route map and here are the results. Note that with the data we have it's very difficult to make an exact map; a lot of assumptions must be made. Anyway, it gives a raw idea of where the rover should be by this time (or yesterday, because there was a drive planned for sol 638).

About the future (hypotetical) path, please just disregard it. It was a first try I made some time ago and the dog-leg to the right (south) should be expected much earlier on the ridge.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[RNeuhaus]

Where are you getting your information about the 'step' being a "high area of sand" and "relatively flat"?

James,

I missed the expresion with the following: The land where Spirit will go down is considered a steep step . It would be expressed as the following: If the land where Spirit will go down is considered a steep step .

You can see the pictures which shows that that zone is flat (no high or big stones) and mostly covered by sand (I think it is of not so thick of sand). This kind of terrain, there is good control to slid down.

Rodolfo

[djellison]

Ahh - THAT'S Haskin ridge, I thought it was something way down the East spur.

See your point now - that'll be fun

Doug

[jamescanvin]

Just been looking at the images from Sol 637 again (yestersol) (no 638 yet ) and noticed how close to the top edge of the frame the horizon is in the front hazcam shots, Spirit is at quite an angle already.

Looking at Front and rear hazcams from the summit I think the curve of the horizon should get to about 200 pixels of the top of the hazcam frames on level ground (at the summit height above the planes). On Sol 637 there is only ~35 pixels to the top, with 0.12 degrees per pixel that means Spirit is tilted forward ~20 degrees already.



James

[sattrackpro]

There could still be a drop-off ahead – but from the second image Doug posted, there DOES appear to be a way through, dead ahead. At a server that I have for a domain of mine, I’ve posted three cropped areas. The first from the first image Doug posted – the next two from image two.

Looking at the third ‘path down’ image, enlarged three times, it does appear that a diagonal line breaks through the dark ridge of what might be a drop-off. It is ‘underlined’ by a white line just to the right of it. Close up, it appears there is a way through here...

See http://anyold.com/mars for the three snips from Dougs photos.

[jamescanvin]

There could still be a drop-off ahead – but from the second image Doug posted, there DOES appear to be a way through, dead ahead.  At a server that I have for a domain of mine, I’ve posted three cropped areas.  The first from the first image Doug posted – the next two from image two. 

Looking at the third ‘path down’ image, enlarged three times, it does appear that a diagonal line breaks through the dark ridge of what might be a drop-off.  It is ‘underlined’ by a white line just to the right of it.  Close up, it appears there is a way through here...

See http://anyold.com/mars for the three snips from Dougs photos.

Don't get me wrong I think there definitely is still a drop off ahead (see my earlier posts). Just pointing out it's already quite steep!

I don't see the point of looking for 'paths down' as I see it we can see an easy 60m ahead then the terrain gets steeper and we can't see any of it for (guess) ~50m. All we can say so far is that it is at least 2 degrees steeper than where we are (as we can't see it), probably quite a bit more looking at the orbital data. That is probably not the problem though, we are now going across the layers of the dip slope so we could easily come across long outcrops running along the side of the hill which could be very tricky obstacle (think about having to go right over the top of Larry's lookout!)

For the record I think that it will be passible, any outcrops are very unlikley to be unbroken over any great distance. I just think it is silly to be saying "I see a way through!" at this stage when the steepest bit of the decent is hidden and could be anything from an 'easy' 20 something degree slope to great meter or more high vertical outcrops stretching right across the eastern side of Husband hill! We just don't know yet! Which of course is one of the reasons the MER missions are so exciting, we get to go and find out!

Cheers, James