Victoria and Opportunity from Above, MRO's new color image of Victoria Options

[MarsEngineer]

The press conference is in progress (8 am pacific). Check it out. You will be impressed.

-Rob

[ToSeek]

The press conference is in progress (8 am pacific). Check it out. You will be impressed.

-Rob

[stevesliva]

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08813

[Jeff7]

Wow.
If they would have had that, they probably would have been able to blind-drive Opportunity all the way to Victoria, right around the dunes.


Image description page, with high res zoomed Opportunity image

Wow, I just saw the link for the nearly-300MB TIF full res version.



Here, there's a longer image available. I think I can see rover tracks near the top of it, at least in the Browse JPEG file. Still downloading the full-res TIF....

[lars_J]

holy crap!

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Even the rover tracks show up!

It was a good press conference, except that the "gentlemen" (=nitwits) of the press didn't have any questions!

[MizarKey]

Fantastic!

To see Oppy so dwarved by Victoria...to be there! WOW!

<standing ovation> Thank you NASA, JPL, everyone who made this possible...

[Decepticon]

Repeats is on NASA TV 12:00 PM est. NOW!

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I guess the thread was deleted.

[mars loon]

I just watched the press conference.

Absolutely stupendous MRO and pancam images.

Seeing the SHADOW of the pancam mast and the outline of Opportunities solar deck has to be beyond anyone's expectations !

Here are some brief quotes from Steve, Jim, Al from my notes. Steve said with great emotions:

"Its Day 960 of the 90 day mission. And, Its so good to see the rover again. Its one of the most evocative images I have ever seen"

"For 21 months (since leaving Endurance) we have seen the same stack of rocks. Now we have the capability to see down to the deepest stack of rocks we will ever see. We expect to see older and younger rocks. We will not see a deeper stack on this mission"

" We do not intend a suicide drive into the crater. We want a safe path in and a safe path out. We intend to go in, but do it carefully and safely."

"Duck Bay is a sure fire way into the crater, but may not be a surefire way out. Another problem is that Duck Bay faces south." So if they go into duck bay, the first thing that will happen is that the power will go down. They need the pancam data to determine if duck bay is rocky enough to enter safely.

So as soon as we find a safe way in and out and gather the rim rata, they will enter, he said

He said they "are formulating a plan of attack". A partial circumnivigation is planned. direction not yet decided. He said they used the new HiRise images to to drive to the edge of Cape Verde (another example of synergy).

If possible, he would like to drive right up to some outcrops and reach out with arm.

The latest images are posted here:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/index.html

BUT they are not at JPL yet at this moment (hopefully soon)

Al McEwen of MRO showed a gorgeous hi res flyover of Victoria in color showing exquisite detail and even shadows from the promentories around the entire rim. Its a whole new view of Victoria. almost as good as Opportunity will achieve. he said resolution was 27.5 cm per pixel. It is the higest resolution MRO will achieve, but stereo imaging is planned for the fall and they will monitor over time for any changes.

The flyover animation is not yet posted (at this moment)

I hope they post it soon as well as several other videos shown by Jim Bell

As the speakers mentioned, this highlights the fantastic synergy between the orbiters and surface rovers to achive even greater success

Jim Bell said "The new images have vaulted to the top of my Top 10 List. "We need to respect the landscape and be extremely cautious." He said this week "was like opening a new book and the start of a new mystery novel where you get totally hooked" ... an amazing time for space exploration.

Top priority is acquiring a large color pans for stereo imaging to determine the slopes and angles, where to go and check for entry/exit points

towards the end, they mentioned how they would love to bring some samples back

well thats it from my notes

ken

[Jeff7]

I'm still just looking over the full-res version now. You can really see the ripples changing in size as you scroll up and down. I wonder if Purgatory is anywhere in this image?

I also see some boulders in Victoria past the Beacon that look at least as large as Opportunity.

[Reckless]

Hi
Wonderful everything is great.
Oppy and mast and its shadow, the dyke? the dunes and even the clusters of small craters out on the plains
I must have more although I might be sick of overload.
I'm watching the rerun as I missed some of the questions near the end due to unforseen circumstances.
Roy F
Hey I'm a member (no comments please)

[um3k]

Download the png, not the tif! They are (in almost all cases) the same quality!

[Lorne Ipsum]

Gang,

If you want to see a cropped (i.e., 264 KByte JPEG / 2.5 MByte TIFF) high-res version of the HiRISE picture, I'd recommend you go to the HiRISE site:

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TR...pportunity.html

Oh, and JPL has a Victoria animation up on their site:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/vid...a-DEM-animation

Is this the one you saw on NASA TV?

Lorne

[Bill Harris]

Now that is moderately impressive. Especially the shadow of the camera mast being visible. The color image is a keeper, but I'm interested in seeing the grayscale images. I noticed an Anatolia feature in the SSE annulus and another one in the dust in the crater bowl.

This will give us a good roadmap around our roadcut.

--Bill


PS-- grayscale is at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TR...0/victoria.html .