The Start of the Drive East, Up to Cambridge Bay Options

[Phil Stooke]

And why not? Arabia Terra is next door to Meridiani Planum.

Phil

[fredk]

From the latest update, the dust factor is continuing to climb (although that might be due to the tau recalibration?):

As of Sol 2313 (July 27, 2010), solar array energy production has improved to 533 watt-hours, atmospheric opacity (Tau) was re-calibrated and now reports a higher value of 0.558 with the solar array dust factor of 0.795.

And from Maxwell:

Yesterday's Opportunity drive went swimmingly -- short (15m) J-shaped bump to outcrop for IDD over weekend. Ashley and I'll IDD it tomorrow.

[Explorer1]

This is like Lawrence of Arabia!

Or Dune, with the whole 'avoid the sand, go on the rock' method of travel.

Though I doubt sandworms are very likely here.

[Deimos]

Yes, there a sort of a conservation of dust in the models. Dust coming off the window goes into the sky in the model of the Sun images. Dust going into the sky comes off the deck in the power models. Opacity was off for a while, it was just hard to find a good time to switch in the new calibration. Surprising people with a "dust storm" and "cleaning event" that are only in the models is a bad thing. But tau was reported around 0.2, when seasonal averages suggested 0.4. Accounting for dust coming off the pancam put this year right on top of previous years (with occasional brief spikes, as seen previously). Sadly, there's still plenty of dust on the window, although the deck seems to be looking good.

[fredk]

Thanks, Deimos, it's always interesting to hear what goes into the numbers like that. It makes me curious what kinds of uncertainties the team puts on the tau and dust factor values. Regardless, the relative change in dust factor after a real cleaning event like on 2298 is unambiguous, I guess. And the one number that presumably doesn't depend on any modelling is the Whrs/sol, even as the tau and dust factor that make it up do. And 533 is a very comfortable number.

[Stu]

Has Oppy been watching some old episodes of "The Dukes of Hazzard"?

[Astro0]

So Stu, are you saying that Oppy's recent sighting of a DD was really 'Daisy Duke'!?!

[tdemko]

Maybe Oppy should hold off on the "NASCAR-victory-burn-out-spins" until she actually reaches the crater...

[Stu]

Maybe Oppy should hold off on the "NASCAR-victory-burn-out-spins" until she actually reaches the crater...

Awww, let her have her fun. She's earned a bit of binkying.

Meanwhile, I think is is "Valparaiso", next target for intense study...?

[nprev]

Re the "Dukes of Hazzard" shot...Yee-haw!!! (Great anaglyph, Stu!)

Seriously, that's one hell of a scary-looking digout. Look at how the tracks are along the sides of the larger trench. Wild speculation: Is this an artifact of drive s/w improvements? It almost looks like she turned into the skid & downslope (which of course would be the proper response to the situation), and it doesn't look like she loitered there waiting for advice from Earth to make the move.

[fredk]

Stu, you've pretty much nailed the colour on that new image. I know you don't aim for it, but that's really close to the calibrated colour we've seen.

[Stu]

Thanks Fred, appreciate that. I thought myself at the time "Hmmm, that looks pretty realistic", but got there purely by good luck as you guessed!

Here's a nice (I think, anyway!) view of Oppy's instruments about to begin their work...

[ElkGroveDan]

Has Oppy been watching some old episodes of "The Dukes of Hazzard"?

I assume this is Scott's new maneuver we are looking at.

[Phil Stooke]

No, I think just getting to the right place for the IDD work. The new drive thingy was the previous drive.

Phil

[Bill Harris]

I don't see anything unusual about the MIs taken on the Sol 2317 stop, nor anthing out of the ordinary on the Panmcam context images. I figure that they are documenting the close-up appearance of the bedrock since the gross appearance is subtlely changing.

--Bill

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