Winter Quarters, at Low Ridge Haven |
Winter Quarters, at Low Ridge Haven |
Apr 17 2006, 04:08 PM
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#31
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1636 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Lima, Peru Member No.: 385 |
"[i]We have to use care choosing the type of terrain we drive over," Dr. Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu, a rover planner at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., said about the challenge of five-wheel driving. In tests at JPL, the team has been practicing a maneuver to gain additional tilt by perching the left-front wheel on a basketball-size rock. That is very good news. The problem can be solved by small steps toward the desired destination. It was what I was thinking in my recent previous post! Rodolfo |
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Apr 17 2006, 05:19 PM
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#32
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Member Group: Members Posts: 252 Joined: 27-April 05 Member No.: 365 |
At least this low ridge has a lot of interesting things for Spirit to look at. And it seems to be closely associated with Home Plate so what she discovers here will undoubtedly tell a lot about that feature. Had she made it to the side of McCool Hill I am not sure we would have had as rich a target environment (for a -very- slow moving rover now).
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Apr 17 2006, 07:38 PM
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#33
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1636 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Lima, Peru Member No.: 385 |
Had she made it to the side of McCool Hill I am not sure we would have had as rich a target environment (for a -very- slow moving rover now). During this fall and winter. It would be impossible for Spirit to catch the spoted places (korolev or Faget places) where are Spirit would be able to survive with the minimum energy buildup. From where Spirit is to these spot would not be able to advance as long as the battery is depleted. The problem is that the Spirit range autonomy has reduced much with one of the stuck wheels and low solar energy. Maybe, after spring, with dust devils to clean its solar panels and plus much solar energy, Spirit would be able to advance slowly toward to McCool Hill. However, many people from JPL has felt that they need more time to study around HP so it is most probably that Spirit won't go to McCool Hill but back to HP. That is 20% effort and 80% science philosophy. Rodolfo |
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Apr 17 2006, 09:10 PM
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#34
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14433 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
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Apr 17 2006, 10:02 PM
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#35
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Member Group: Admin Posts: 468 Joined: 11-February 04 From: USA Member No.: 21 |
A solid cleaning event would be nice, but Spirit probably has a long wait in store until the next one. The first, and I believe the most significant, cleaning event was on Sol 420, one sol before the first dust devils were spotted. That was LS 173, and we've got until January 26 of 2007 before that time of year will roll around again.
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Apr 17 2006, 10:17 PM
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#36
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1636 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Lima, Peru Member No.: 385 |
OK, now I KNOW you're having a laugh.... Doug My previous post I was saying that the Dust Devil will start to phantom on Gusev Crater in the next spring. Luckly, it would hit on Spirit. I remember that I saw a picture with one big DD roaring on the south basin of Columbia Hill. But, now, the weather is becoming cooler and cooler, that the DD won't be able to appear unless the breeze might happen in some time. As I remember that there is another cleaning dust method. This has happened to Oppy when it was roving inside the Endurance crater. One martian early morning, the panel solar was covered by a very thin film of ice during the sunrise, later, the panel solar became clean due to the water cleaning. It might happen the same to Spirit during the early winter morning. Isn't that a bad news? Rodolfo |
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Apr 17 2006, 11:28 PM
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#37
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Member Group: Members Posts: 477 Joined: 2-March 05 Member No.: 180 |
OK, now I KNOW you're having a laugh.... Doug We're all going to say this soon, until you completely lose it. We'll see you outside of Bill Harris' house one day at his 1/4 scale MER model, with a mini tornado generator machine, screaming "dust devils don't clean solar panels!!! BAHAHAHAAA!!!!!" |
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Apr 18 2006, 12:08 AM
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#38
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1229 Joined: 24-December 05 From: The blue one in between the yellow and red ones. Member No.: 618 |
"dust devils don't clean solar panels!!! BAHAHAHAAA!!!!!" O.K. Let's keep the discussion at UMSF fair, considered and scientific whereever possible. To whit, dust devils are not known to have caused any MER panel cleaning events to date. Other forms of wind gusts that can occur at night are most likely responsible - why don't we give them a name, say, "gust angels". Pray for gust angels at Low Ridge Haven, but don't spurn a wayward DD that might show up instead. Since DDs vacuum up dust from the surface of Mars, they might well be capable of doing the same for Spirit. Angels or devils, it's the effect we need! -------------------- My Grandpa goes to Mars every day and all I get are these lousy T-shirts!
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Apr 18 2006, 12:11 AM
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#39
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Member Group: Members Posts: 166 Joined: 20-September 05 From: North Texas Member No.: 503 |
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Apr 18 2006, 03:53 AM
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#40
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 35 Joined: 8-July 05 Member No.: 432 |
OK, now I KNOW you're having a laugh.... Doug I know where the filters can be obtained: http://www.appliancefactoryparts.com/vacuu...nds/dust-devil/ |
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Apr 18 2006, 04:37 AM
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#41
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 2262 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Melbourne - Oz Member No.: 16 |
I like the look of this for the coming sol :
CODE 814 p2280.05 52 0 0 52 0 104 pancam_McMudro_pan_col_1_L234567Rall The first column of a pan in all filters (I would assume a 360 ) Not only that, but with 52 images that means it's going to be 4 frames high! James -------------------- |
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Apr 18 2006, 07:12 AM
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#42
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14433 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I'll get Helen to take a picture of me infront of some posters I'm putting up at the BAA conference this weekend, then someone can annotate appropriately
Doug |
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Apr 18 2006, 09:09 AM
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#43
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Member Group: Members Posts: 524 Joined: 24-November 04 From: Heraklion, GR. Member No.: 112 |
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Apr 18 2006, 09:53 AM
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#44
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Chief Assistant Group: Admin Posts: 1409 Joined: 5-January 05 From: Ierapetra, Greece Member No.: 136 |
Not only that, but with 52 images that means it's going to be 4 frames high! James Looking forward to that one! Nico -------------------- photographer, space imagery enthusiast, proud father and partner, and geek.
http://500px.com/sacred-photons & |
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Apr 18 2006, 10:10 AM
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#45
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 4279 Joined: 19-April 05 From: .br at .es Member No.: 253 |
If they keep this pace of one row a day (let's hope not), it means a little less then one month to finish the 360º panorama.
I'm wondering if the atmosphere would be stable enough during all this time, otherwise we would have similar problems as on previous panoramas (Everest?) trying to match frames taken on different sols under different illumination conditions. |
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