[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

A little self reflection it would appear - thats a navcam image showing the IDD deploying the MI on the FR solar array ( there's two more as well )

results are...









Quite what can be determined from this I dont know - as I dont believe we have a reference image of the arrays way back at landing time - but a comparison between Opportunity and Spirit will happen I'm sure - as Opportunity will probably be commanded to do a similar exercise over the w'end

Doug

[djellison]

Keith Cowling at NASAwatch pointed me to your site... yes, we're looking at the dust on the solar arrays.

As I wrote to Keith (NASAwatch):
I'm the one who requested the solar array images. Dust deposition on Mars is an interesting problem, both as a science question where studying dust deposition on the surface contributes to our fundamental understanding of Martian climate processes, and also as an engineering problem. There's a lot we don't know, in particular, about whether the native dust is going to form "fairy castle" structures agglomerated together by electrostatic forces, whether and to what extend water or frost modifies the dust deposition process, or whether the individual dust particles deposit separately without interacting with each other. The solar arrays are an excellent surface for studying dust deposition, since we know that all of the dust we see on the surface is dust that has been deposited since January 3 2004.



That shouldn't have come as a surprise-- in the Opportunity topic, two weeks ago you you posted this:
>Listening to that week+ old teleconf - I heard that they intend to inspect the front edge of one
>of the solar arrays to try and identify the mechanism for array output increases ( i.e. the
>cleaning events ) - I guess that means an MI obs. of them - as someone touted previously -
>should be interesting

--
Geoffrey A. Landis
www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis

Many thanks for your input Geoffrey - much appreciated! - I was wondering if perhaps the Opportunity imaging might be done in Stereo - As we saw way back in Eagle Crater - the ability to resolve topography at a microscopic level is astonishing - http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre...-B019R1_br2.jpg - if dust has settled into peaks or features like that - I'm sure it would be resolvable using stereo imaging. Just got to argue the case for the data budget and time involved

I read with great interest your Pathfinder results some time ago - I dont think anyone would have predicted that we'd be operating a solar powered craft on mars after a year on the surface - let alone producing 80% of the power at landing!

Regards

Doug