[X] My Assistant

[Tesheiner]

IMO, yesterday's move has a net advance of around 12cm i.e. one wheel radius, about twice the amount of previous days.

[Tman]

It's going more and more exciting - climb or not climb?! Come on, front wheels!

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...SKP1214L0M1.JPG

But I think, they will hampered by the other slipping wheels.

[Bill Harris]

My guess is that progress will pick up once Oppy gets out of the interdunal area and onto the backside of the dune ahead.

We'll see what we see when we see it...

--Bill

[OWW]

My guess is that Oppy will pick up speed once the right rear wheel has cut through the 'top' of the dune.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...SKP1314L0M1.JPG

It is the only wheel that has yet to go over the 'ripple', which means that it has to cut through more dirt than the other five wheels and I think it slows the rover down in the process.
I hope that Oppy will be able to drag all wheels on top of the soil once it's through...

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

We don't know how long these drives were though, they might have been more than the maximum 12m they've tried up until now.

[avkillick]

<glass half full>
I think that Oppy getting stuck like this is a good thing.

From a rover engineering perpective, it has given the team plenty to consider when it
comes to the design of future rovers and the software/hardware that enables them
to traverse the martian surface unimpeded.

They have also been able to explore techniques for extracting a rover from situations like this.
</glass half full>

[dilo]

Last six days movie; impressive raising of left wheel!

[NoVi]

<glass half full>
I think that Oppy getting stuck like this is a good thing.

From a rover engineering perpective, it has given the team plenty to consider when it
comes to the design of future rovers and the software/hardware that enables them
to traverse the martian surface unimpeded.

They have also been able to explore techniques for extracting a rover from situations like this.
</glass half full>

<glass half empty>
I'm a bit worried that these intensive manouvres will have a negative impact on the life span of Oppy...
</glass half empty>

[dilo]

And this is a PanCam detail (pseudo colors created from R1+R2 filters):

[garybeau]

Excellent picture dilo. I'm amazed at how weathered the old tracks already look as compared to the new soil that is getting churned up. It won't take 100 million years for these tracks to be gone.

[Tesheiner]

Hi all,

Here is a panorama made with pancam images of the front left wheel ( sols 461-482 ), overlayed with the wheel position on each site/sol.
It is something like a "route map", but on a very small scale.



Tesheiner

[Pando]

Interesting how the front left wheel is starting to rise to the top of the soil. What they should do now is slow down the spin on the front wheels so that it keeps track of the rover's movement. That way it should just push the front wheels to the top, while the back wheels continue to churn away. Otherwise if the front wheels continue to spin the same rate as the back wheels, they'll just dig in again. They should be able to command the wheel movements independently I believe.

Just a thought...

Give it 2 more weeks I think and it should be out

[dot.dk]

New update from the Steve!

http://athena1.cornell.edu/news/mubss/

Looks like the last two drives have been 20 meter and they saw 12 cm of progress.

[dilo]

Hi all,

Here is a panorama made with pancam images of the front left wheel ( sols 461-482 ), overlayed with the wheel position on each site/sol.
It is something like a "route map", but on a very small scale.



Tesheiner

Great idea, Tesheiner. Can you kindly explain the meaning of codes like "55RG" in each location? Thanks.

[alan]

They are site numbers and drive numbers from the file names
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/edr_filename_key.html
more details in this thread
http://www.markcarey.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-vie...art=157&show=20