Thanks! And, thanks too, Tesh...

It was that power graph that collided with the Sol dates of 750 - 800 that had me worried in the first place. But, since then I saw that these power numbers are NOT actual - so the decending lines that go below 'death' are... not real after all. (Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of that graph now.)

Spirit and Oppy both have beaten the odds - enormously. I hope that the guys who have done such a marvelous job in keeping them both healthy so far, continue to do so for many more months. This has been, in my estimation, the most spectacular success ever in planetary exploration, so much so that future attempts will have a hard time meeting expectations based on the marvels these two MER vehicles have continued to provide us with.

They certainly have been fantastic successes. They have provided a wealth of stunning images in addition to new scientific results. I think, though, that it is difficult to directly compare them with other projects that provided outstanding results in other areas.

Voyagers 1 and 2, for instance, provided our first good looks at the Jupiter and Saturn systems, and our only look so far at the Uranus and Neptune systems. Many of the images they sent back are still iconic. Vikings 1 and 2 (including the Orbiters) were another tremendously scientifically productive project. And of course, Cassini/Huygens continues to provide amazing imagery.

The MER project certainly makes the "robotic space exploration Hall of Fame". That's good enough for me.

Bill

P.S. After writing that, I thought "Why not have our own Hall of Fame?" Take the eligible candidates to be all missions that either launched or reached their destination before some cut-off date, and conduct a vote to determine the most successful spacecraft in history -- my vote would probably go to Voyager 2, unless somebody changes my mind. Whichever mission gets the most points is awarded spot #1 on the Unmanned Spaceflight.com Hall of Fame. After additional debate, we have a vote for the #2 spacecraft of all time, and so on.

If there is interest, it should be fairly easy to generate a list of "eligible" candidates, and decide on a ballot -- five entries per ballot on a 5-4-3-2-1 point system could work. The big question would be how long to allow for debate before voting. A week or two seems to be popular in other Internet Halls of Fame.

Another approach would be to conduct a faux chronological vote. For example, have the first election consider only missions that launched before 1970. The second vote would include missions launched in 1971 in addition to the pre-1970 missions, the third would also include 1972 missions, and so on.

I missed some earlier responses to one of my comments, and am now catching up. In the preview this reply looks terribly large. Would people prefer me to break up such a reply into separate pieces?


I was thinking the same, but now I am not so sure. The orbital images suggest all kinds of faulting in this region. I tried to find some panoramas of the hillside in question, but I couldn't find any useful views of where I thought these "faults" were.


Good point, Doug. I hadn't noticed that earlier. I am beginning to suspect that Bill may be correct, in that the gridding software they are using is having some issues. Perhaps that is why they did not use the topos in the latest map. It would be nice to see the control points that were used to grid this topographic map. I don't know if that topo map was made from MOLA data, stereoscopy, or both.

Rodolfo: I was referring to the linear jogs or offsets in the topographic lines on the south side of Husband Hill, in the map located here. From where do you get the two faults proposed in your image?


...and on a completely different subject, I have to echo sattrackpro's comment. They truly set the bar very high with this mission. I would have to imagine that the spectacular successes of the MERs would pretty much ensure that many of the engineers, scientists, and technicians responsible for it will become a part of future missions. I am considering quitting my job and making a pilgrimage to Mount Ithaca to sacrifice a lamb (My first-born son refuses to cooperate.) in order to get a job on one of the next missions.

Tom, big replys are OK with me; it takes as much time to read three small messages as one large message.

I've had training in gridding software, and the offsets look like common glitches, which should have been corrected by the operator before going to a final map. What happens is that there are anomalous values in the location and elevation data input values, the software doesn't know how to handle them and it makes certain pre-programmed assumptions on how to handle this and sometimes comes up with these odd jumps.

"Gridding software" is a computer program that takes a dataset of x, y and z values (length, width and elevation) and by sophisticated mathmatical interpolation, creates a grid or mesh. The viewing part of the software can take this grid dataset, view it from any angle, rotate it, give it vertical exaggeration, create topographic contour lines and overlay it onto a photographic image.

Pathfinder/Sojourner was the "proof of concept" mission for the mobile lander idea, but our Rovers are the first time we have had long-term mobile robots on Mars and, given that this was the initial foray, the mission has been a resounding (and astounding) success.

I'm close to retirement. I may sell my dogs, move and live in a packing crate, and do volunteer work...

--Bill

MOLA is far too low in resolution to help make a topo map like the one discussed here - two orders of magnitude too low, probably. It can only just resolve the hills, but not show significant detail. The contour map is based on stereo analysis of MOC images - if you try to overlay one MOC on another in a program like Photoshop you can easily see differences caused by the relief and slightly different viewing directions. But in areas where there are few obvious control points - Eldorado being a good example - the stereo matching and bundle adjustment software will give poor results. Also, there have been serious issues in trying to create DEMs from MOC images because it's a scanning camera with an ever-changing viewpoint, not a framing camera which takes an image in a moment.

Phil

Good Tom for your reply. Faults are not the same as topographic lines and it is a matter of different interpretation. BTW, I sure suspect that around there: Hills Husband and McCool might look many faults...if we uncover the sands.

Rodolfo

Spirit is here, right?

I think Spirit is on 2 cms right of your arrow, between to small hills.

Rodolfo

I think MaxSt is right, Rodolfo.
The arrow is pointing behind the hill, exactly to the dune where Spirit is working now.

Nice speculation !

If I were a MER geologist, I would go :
- first taking a panoramic view a little above Home Plate on its border ridge on its east side (right hand side of your picture) ;
- then fully explore Home Plate by crossing it towards its west end (left hand side of your picture) where are some other "white" deposits and verify its stratigraphy ;
- then go to Pitcher'Mound to verify if it is (or not) a cinder cone and/or a source of pyroclastic flows ;
- and finally head south/southwest towards Promised Land !

[quote=sattrackpro,Jan 11 2006, 03:07 PM]
[quote=Tesheiner,Jan 11 2006, 03:14 AM]
Route map, up to sol 719.
- -
I'm speculating that it will take at least (and that's moving fast) another 7 to 10 days to get to Home Plate - and with little time for doing much probing, another 8 to 10 days to get to a North facing slope. Do you (or anyone) see a route fast enough to get us to Home Plate and to safe wintering ground, in time?

OOOPS : here is the modified picture with alternate route proposed (in yellow), based on sattrackpro's superb work !

Never know what the JPL want to tranverse. We have failed the prediction many times....By playing the guess is a fun time and it like to bet game.

Rodolfo

FerrrShuuurrr! Let's Play!
Question 1: What is Homeplate, and what will it teach us?
Boring Answer 1A: Just more of the light-colored stratum we were driving across above Comanche. In this case we should do a 'quickie tour', examining the vertical exposure from the NW to NE corners and cross the plate toward a southerly exit.
Exciting Answer 1B: Something NEW like evaporite, salt, tuff, marshmellow! In this case we do a more meticulous study, perhaps following a similar track, but with frequent, lengthy stops, winter permitting.
Question 2: What is Pitcher's Mound, what MORE can it teach us, and do we have time to go there?
Boring Answer 2A: Same caprock as HP. In this case we may skip it outright. Is it possible to climb the slope anyway?
Exciting Answer 2B: It's a CINDERCONE! I doubt it, but then it would rate a visit even if we can't climb it.
Question 3: If we have to spend the winter on the north face of McCool Hill, what route should we plan, visiting what exposures?
Question 4: Do we want to reach the summit so we can look down the east side, or is the Promised Land a higher priority?

I've edited a couple of our colleagues' brilliant images to portray some options. Everybody add on!Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

An updated route map, up to sol 727.

Click to view attachment (574k)

Thanks Tesh! Seems we be effectively stuck in the sand...

The most recent drive was a very good one imho - complex, but good progress made. Perhaps they intend to head for the dip between the local summits in this line of humps leading toward HP

Doug

We're out of the sand now (nobody has made a navcam panorama yet, hello?). Seems like Spirit traced her tracks back to solid ground, and then made a short move up the slope. JPL rover status page confirms that Spirit was stopped twice by automatics because of 80%+ slippage around this dune. Sounds like they were using the same visual odometry as for Oppy?

Spirit could move up to the ridge, as Doug suggests (I initially thought they would just drive straight over it from El dorado, instead of going southeast). Other option would be continue roughly southwards by skirting on this slope.

I think that's a good example of "one step backwards and two steps forward".
About the next steps, I'm still of the opinion that Spirit will follow this slope southwards. It seems too early to climb to the top of the ridge.

I am thinking that the solution for Spirit to overcome the bump, is by taking the same strategy as Oppy did when it got out of Eagle Crater, by transversing on diagonal line (very soft slope, perhaps less than 5 degree) on the nearby hill.

It is impossible to jump the bump in front unless MER has upgraded 6 Maxon electrical motors in order to race up to 15 km/h.

Let see it what is the bet of rovers.

Rodolfo

Spirit route map, after sol 728.

Click to view attachment (574k)

Updated to sol 730
Click to view attachment

This image is the foreground of Dilo's excellent pan, very simply reprojected (using nothing more than Photoshop's perspective tool) to show the route in something a little bit more like map geometry.

Phil

Click to view attachment

WOW....Phil...Mate...
Why do I think of the bottom of the image as The Event Horizon ?
Too scary!

Route map, including sol 730's driving.

Click to view attachment (574k)

I have been wanting to do a Spirit route map on an MOC anaglyph of the hills for a long time, but I never seem to get around to it. Alan's easy to follow images encouraged me to do this oblique view instead.

I took the amazing JPL long baseline anaglyph of the basin and copied Alan's Sol markers to it. Size was reduced by 50% and then cropped, and compressed a little to get below the 1 MB limit. It was a lot nicer at full size, but the sol numbers are a bit too small at this size. Maybe I should increase the size and the compression. ?

I know all here are not big fans of anaglyphs, but I really find this to be a useful way to visualize the route. +/- comments are welcomed.

Updated traverse maps:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-...rit-sol731.html

Just for fun, prepared for my talk tomorrow, this is overlayed to scale...

Almost exactly from the Apple Store to the new BAA venue It'll take about 15 minutes on the Tube, but I may have to change!

Doug

RE: Spirit Route map

Googled Mitcheltree Ridge, came up with this:

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/01/...itcheltree.html

That is very sad, but what a wonderful lasting tribute to have that ridge on Mars named after him. I never heard his name connected to the EDL, but I can understand he was a major figure in the work. He certainly lived to experience what must have been a tremendous satisfation when the rovers landed so perfectly.

RIP

Thank you so much, Bob Mitcheltree. Your labors have brightened my life, and that of thousands of others around the world.
Mitcheltree Ridge is one MER location that future generations of 'Martians' should mark.

This is really marvellous, Tom. It makes my 'pro' anaglyph glasses a great investment. Please maintain it as we go. Wish I could jump into the full-sized version.

I like it. A little hard to see the numbers though.

Definitely need to get better anaglyph glasses

Very, very nice CR. I think you've created something extra special for your presentation and with your permisison its just in time for my next 3D Mars show on Jan 27. This is sort of the "where spirit is right now image" we discussed in your other thread !! the enlarged right half is best, most dramatic, and the sol markers are clearly visible.

ken

And so, we see here the thrilling new theory by Dr.... er, I mean, Mr. Ellison, that the feature called Home Plate is, in fact, the quadrangle at King's College London!

-the other Doug

Actually - this is 100% true and accurate - if you put the landing site onto the place where I last gave a talk to the BAA ( English Heritage Lecture Theatre near the Apple store ) - the other end, if you rotate the route - lands EXACTLY on the new venue the BAA are using at Kings College London.

Freaky

Doug

Coincidence?? I don't THINK so!
Obviously the MER missions are being staged at Pinewood Studios!

short drive tosol (732)
Click to view attachment

Thanks for the kind and helpful comments regarding my first tentative step into the scary world of route mapping. As I attempted to guess a position for sol 732 tonight, I discovered just how tricky it can be. For the time being, I'll just follow in the footsteps of the masters, transcribing their work, as I hopefully learn some of the tricks of the trade. I see alan has already positioned sol 732, and I'll try to add that soon. If I had used my best guess tonight I would have been way off the mark.

mars loon: Even if you hadn't made so many helpful comments regarding my presentation, you (and anyone else) are welcome to use anything I may post here. It's public domain. There is one thing missing in my images, which I hope to correct in the future. That is the label in the bottom right corner, ascribing credit to NASA/JPL/etc. I'm posting a new version of the previous one tonight. The first suffered greatly from the 50% size reduction. This one is at full size, but with some jpeg compression to get it below 1 MB. The sol numbers should be easier to read now. This should look better, even with cardboard and film glasses.

I almost added some place names, especially after noticing that they really did name a feature in memory of Robert Mitcheltree and his many contributions to space exploration, as was mentioned a while back. I had to Google a bit deeper to find an "official" mention. It's here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/r...micheltree.html

I can't add much to what others have already said regarding his tragic loss to humanity, but I surely would have liked to have known this guy. Now, we know the person we should salute, as we vicariously rove past this intriguing ridge, with the help of a device he helped to deliver to this location.

Ah, at last! Wondered where you'd gone, Alan. I do love this aspect of Mars. The only thing that compares with it in thrilling my imagination is the map of Middle Earth from the Rings trilogy. If it were only in full 3D, I would feel that I didn't need to travel to Mars - I've already been there.
Thanx. .

This image is just so fine! Maybe Mr. Mitcheltree now has a better view of the Inner Basin than this, but the rest of us should be content.

Yep.
I was trying to do the same as Alan but on a B&W (L7 filter) pano from sol 591 (one of those taken near the summit) and found that a good approach is to use not only one panorama but two or three.
The near-summit panoramas, specially on the L7 filter, have a very good definition (LOCO compression?) but the features you are looking for may be confused. My suggestion is to start from a closer panorama then go back to longer distances.
Try first to locate the rover on the images taken at Comanche, then on the "Seminole" panorama and finally on one of the near-summit mosaics.

Why yellow? I think white be the correct color.

Even better would be to have two separate numbers - one for each eye. Look at the number "697" - wouldn't it be better to have it at the same "depth" as Comanche?

Route map, updated after sol 733's driving.

Click to view attachment (502k)

Click to view attachment

New update including sol 734.

Click to view attachment (502k)

... and new traverse maps (for yestersol) at the JPL website!
Man, what a change in response time since older times.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-...rit-sol733.html

I'm wondering if I should (or not) continue posting my version.

By all means - continue your posting, Tesh... They are fast, then slow, then virtually non-existent on the rover site - so yours are a welcome treat.

By all means CONTINUE!!!
Your maps are the best!!!
Thank you!

>I'm wondering if I should (or not) continue posting my version.

Their traverse maps have improved to the point where the maps resemble the ones done here. Theirs were terrible at first, and I'm convinced that they peeked in here and now clone your map idea.

Continue, I like the real thing...

--Bill

Tesh,

They are probably just copying your and alan's maps. If you stop, I bet we'll go back to waiting updates for weeks