Post Conjunction: Santa Maria to Cape York, The Journey to 'Spirit Point' Options

[empebe]

Nice, Astro0... I used your mosaic for an artistic wallpaper, with false colors, artificial sky and enhanced details/contrast on far plane:
[attachment=25064:ToSpirit_d.jpg] [attachment=25065:ToSpirit_c.jpg]
Second version is 2x vertical stretch (which I prepfer...!)

Stunning.
Mike

[ElkGroveDan]

Here's an image showing Opportunity's path (in yellow) and that same path (in purple) [in reverse] marked out across Endeavour Crater.

It looks to me that if you pull that purple string tight it just about gets us to Iazu. (Just sayin' )

[ElkGroveDan]

A lone, lonely MI image came down overnight... tweaked it a bit...

Thanks for catching that Stu. Tweaked a bit more with my secret tool on Opportunity, the MIFF (microscopic imager fill flash) -- shhhhh hardly anyone knows about it.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[fredk]

Is it really that lumpy?

Just what the rocker-boggie system was designed for! I'm sure Oppy's eager to stretch her joints a bit after all that flat terrain...

The rocks in Botany Bay were deposited next to the crater rim and so may feature interesting sedimentary structures.

Indeed - remember that Botany Bay is in a large region of hydrated bedrock, according to this map.

I have added the names of the places of interest... Please tell me if I'm wrong

Your Cape Byron is actually Cape Dromedary, and your Dromedary is Point Hicks. You could also add Sutherland Point/Nobby's Head on the far side of Botany Bay. (See map here.)

[ElkGroveDan]

Just what the rocker-boggie system was designed for!

Exactly. However it has been redesigned by circumstances, which is why I raised the question.

[centsworth_II]

Thanks neo for that..I was wondering at which point along CY would oppy get to sniff phylosilicates.

Concerning phylosillicates at Cape York, these posts from Stu's blog "The Road to Endeavour" are definitely worth a read (or re-read).

An interview with Ray Arvidson
WHY are we going to Cape York?

[ElkGroveDan]

And here she is taking the MI on 2678. Kind of cool that you can make out the Odyssey Crater debris in the upper left corner of the image.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Matt Lenda]

So when is the final drive to Spirit point planned?

Monday.

I didn't get to hear much of the goings-on on Friday -- I just know they packed that plan full of goodies -- because I was tied up with Juno. They *may* further break the remaining ~75 meters into several drives, though our imagery seems to give us great data of the terrain.

-m

[HughFromAlice]

Been a while since I've posted in this thread - so much to do in life! Great to see so many interesting posts.

Oppy has arrived at such an awesome place that I thought that I would have fun and imagine a sunrise..... so combined some Sol2676 Navs with Sol2674 Pans and came up with this. Anyway the sun's roughly in the right place as per Nav cam pic. Almost like a sunrise in the winter in Central Australia with the blue haze!!! Would have liked to be a bit more accurate but looked at the clock and it's well into the night.



For the mid res version..... https://picasaweb.google.com/10220631534056...idRes_20110807#
Will probably post the high res version later when I get time (My software hangs when trying to export to a high quality JPEG).

[Tesheiner]

Just finished my vacations, I'm still unpacking things, but couldn't resist to check in and see the images from these last 24h and they are just wonderful!

[marsophile]

Opportunity and all of us have travelled far!

...sitting on the shoulders of giants!

[Guest_Bobby_*]

Even Know Endurance Crater is Amazing in Size.

There is something about Santa Marie that I liked the Most.
I think it's the age and it had personality.
Still my favorite with Eagle a close 2nd.

[hendric]

Yes and no. That's an extraordinarily complex issue, not least because we have to ask the question, "What clock?" and the question, "Relative to what?"
We have several ways of mitigating the drift, none of which are trivial. There's no real *reset* button to do it. (And for good reason.)
We have seen less drift of this particular clock when the rover is warmer. The theory is well supported by the data, but we have yet to implement the fix in tactical activities. It's low on our radar.
I'll stop talking before I get in over my head.
-m

Interesting stuff Matt! I've had to deal with oscillators in my line of work. Most issues have been around the Real Time Clock. I remember one customer routed their digital 32K output right underneath the 32K crystal, which is a big no-no. Caused so much feedback noise into the crystal that it was running at around 130 kHz. Another funny issue was one customer complaining about our RTC being off 2 minutes after "only" a month. We had to explain to them that the 50ppm for a typical 32kHz crystal meant that over a month, you could be up to 2 minutes off! We did have options for calibrating the crystal, but they didn't do that during their manufacturing run because it took too long. LOL, fun times.

I've also had to do some wireless stuff as well, WiFi and GSM. For the non-engineers, frequency crystals can be pretty accurate (As long as your design isn't noisy), typically 50 to 200ppm. Their biggest variance short-term is due to temperature, as Opportunity is experiencing, or due to aging. For items requiring precision, what is typically done is using a tiny chip to adjust the frequency based on the ambient temperature, reducing the frequency variability significantly, usually to less than 1ppm. These are called Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators, or TCXOs. For the ultimate in frequency control, the crystal is stuck inside an oven, guaranteeing there is no temperature change at all, and getting < .001ppm, called Oven-Controlled Crystal Oscillators, or OCXO. I think the "ultra stable oscillators" discussed for radio science uses these types of oscillators to provide the stable frequency for measuring changes due to gravity.

For Oppy it sounds like the oven itself might be aging and not keeping the crystal at the ideal temperature. Another possibility might be a decoupling capacitor aging, or solder itself starting to exhibit increased resistance due to temp. cycles.

For the curious, there is some more information here

http://www2.electronicproducts.com/Underst...b2005-html.aspx

[fredk]

Spirit Point pancam anaglyph. Definitely a signature view of the mission.

[fredk]

The mystery men have emerged again to help give us a sense of scale at this milestone in our journey. As usual, the men are 2 metres high to top of hat. Distances are from Tesheiner's map, converted to pixels based on a 45 degree FOV for navcam. Closest man is standing just on top of the step up to CY, and farther man is at distance of rock cluster behind Odyssey.

First conclusion: the step up to CY is really tiny! Second conclusion: Those rocks boulders are really big!