Out The Crater.., on to the Heatshield Options

[djellison]

Perhaps for "Before and After" coverage showing the wheel tracks in the crater. At the very least it would be a good publicity stunt.

A publicity stunt that would take probably 3 or 4 days of remote obs, and a week or two of UHF comms to send back

The tracks are very difficult to see anyway in Endurance - so they'd be wasting their time pretty much.

I'd rather they forego that and start making some progress. We do, after all, have two full colour panoramas of the crater from the rim already.

We're done with Endurance - time to leave it behind.

Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

The tracks are very difficult to see anyway in Endurance - so they'd be wasting their time pretty much.


Doug

True, and I think they would need to be on the opposite side of Endurance to get a good view of the tracks anyway.

[alan]

Don't forget, they will be receiving data from Cassini too. Hte rovers will have to wait their turn transmitting.

[OWW]

I thought the plan was to do imaging on sol 316 only and to drive on sol 317? If this is still true, it probably will be a partial pan.

Anyway, here is a picture back from the good old days in Eagle crater. It gives a good impression of the distance between Endurance and the heat shield:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre...-B041R1_br2.jpg

[akuo]

It's hard to believe Oppy really was there close to Burn's Cliff:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1635R0M1.JPG

Even with the horizon straightened those slopes look insane.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

The Titan B flyby data playback started 1 hour ago, mignight GMT, 4PM PST 13 th Dec and lasts for 9 hours, so I guess we are going to have to wait a while to see what Oppy has been doing today.

[TheChemist]

From today's, JPL press release :
Mars Rovers Spot Water-Clue Mineral, Frost, Clouds

"A portion of Mars' water vapor is moving from the north pole toward the south pole during the current northern-summer and southern-winter period. The transient increase in atmospheric water at Meridiani, just south of the equator, plus low temperatures near the surface, contribute to appearance of the clouds and frost, Wolff said. Frost shows up some mornings on the rover itself. The possibility that it has a clumping effect on the accumulated dust on solar panels is under consideration as a factor in unexpected boosts of electric output from the panels."

Now, would not the red quote be better presented with an image ??

[dot.dk]

It would

[TheChemist]

I will now proceed to enter my foot in my mouth
I just saw them myself ... awesome !!!

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

When I looked at that image i thought I was just seing a negative image of the one on the right, but the mast is actually white with frost, heres the text that accompanied the image:

Frost can form on surfaces if enough water is present and the temperature is sufficiently low. On each of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, the calibration target for the panoramic camera provides a good place to look for such events. A thin frost was observed by Opportunity's panoramic camera on the rover's 257th sol (Oct. 13, 2004) 11 minutes after sunrise (left image). The presence of the frost is most clearly seen on the post in the center of the target, particularly when compared with the unsegmented outer ring of the target, which is white. The post is normally black. For comparison, note the difference in appearance in the image on the right, taken about three hours later, after the frost had dissipated. Frost has not been observed at Spirit, where the amount of atmospheric water vapor is observed to be appreciably lower. Both images were taken through a filter centered at a wavelength of 440 nanometers (blue).


Link to the press release, check out the cloud images

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20041213a.html

[djellison]

The Titan B flyby data playback started 1 hour ago, mignight GMT, 4PM PST 13 th Dec and lasts for 9 hours, so I guess we are going to have to wait a while to see what Oppy has been doing today.

Mars and Saturn are more than 90 degrees apart - so whilst it might make some impact - I imagine that actuallly it's very little. Remember, the DSN has multiple antennae at multiple locations. They dont have to talk to just one spacecraft at a time

Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

There are some images posted, some old some new - no drive yesterday though.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

A little more info on the current state of the rovers:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/rover...ate_041213.html

Spirit is still dogged by a balky front wheel and Opportunity continues to struggle with a shoulder problem. Both have outlasted their 90-day warranties, however, and will have been on Mars for a year in January.

.....I'd hardly say Opportunity was struggling lol

[djellison]

WEll - it's stuck heater isnt really a big problem - especially when they have SO much power - they're going to end up with more power than they started by this time in 4 months I'd guess - it couldnt be better!

Spirit - a little more worrying - 400whr's is a TINY ammount - less than half of Oppy

It'll be interesting to see Oppy's MI images of the solar array (I presume they'll be doing that next week - so as to compare exactly to spirit images w.r.t. exposure to martian atmosphere) - to see how/why they're so clean - and what, if anything, can be done to help spirit in this regard.

Doug

[Pando]

Pedal to the Metal!