(Trying to) Leave WH3 Behind Options

[Tesheiner]

On the other hand, today's images are not good at all. The LF wheel is still sinking...


Here's an animated gif with the pictures from the last three driving sols.

[BrianL]

The first exit route is between Low and SW ridges (see Tesheiner's map). Here's the view from sol 1337; we'd go straight into the middle of this view and then turn to the right:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...FUP0716R0M1.JPG

Speaking firmly entrenched in the back seat, Paolo...

What about heading for Fred's mentioned exit point by staying off HP, rounding the horn and zipping down Silica Valley? Is this route under consideration?

[djellison]

We are currently on the route previously used to get to Silica Valley. We cut the corner of Home Plate back in the Sol 767-774 range. That was, of course, before we had the FR failure.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/tm-...MERA_A906_3.jpg

[RoverDriver]

Speaking firmly entrenched in the back seat, Paolo...

What about heading for Fred's mentioned exit point by staying off HP, rounding the horn and zipping down Silica Valley? Is this route under consideration?

Yes, we are evaluating it. *my* worries with that path is that a large part of this traverse is unknown. The NE corner of HP is not fully covered by NCAM and PCAM, but mostly south of Silica Valley, west of Tyrone it is an are where we only have HiRISE coverage, no surface imaging and in order to get surface imaging we would need to drive close to the SE corner of HP. And in that case you are pretty much committed to that route. So it represent a risk.

This is my personal view.

Paolo

PS: I don't mind the back seat driving at all. It might be that most of the ideas are already under consideration, but it just takes *one* good idea from you guys to make a difference.

[Fran Ontanaya]

Heh. Can Spirit climb rocking like a lizard? That would be funny.

[Stu]

Nice view of Spirit's tracks around Homeplate - and yep, that wheel looks a bit chuttered up...

http://stugallery.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/feb13.jpg

[fredk]

On sol 1820 Spirit moved a bit back downslope:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/fo...OLP1214L0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/re...OLP1314R0M1.JPG
I wonder what's next...

[Geert]

Homeplate area through same mathematical filters I used for oppy. Green is good driving, blue is more difficult driving, and red is danger. Offcourse, which one wheel less criteria will be somewhat different for Spirit, but at least it gives the relative values. Red lines on top and bottom of image are processing artifacts.



'Dust-filter' as used for Oppy, red notes dusty/sandy area's, however not sure whether this will work out similar on the homeplate area as it does on Meridiani...

Regards,

Geert

[fredk]

Thanks for these, Geert. Could you summarize what signals you're plotting - FT, variance, etc? And how do you try to detect dust?

Indeed the interpretation is very different for Spirit. Recall that she drove up onto HP on sol 1306, with broken wheel, through a patch you've coloured red...

[RoverDriver]

Thanks for these, Geert. Could you summarize what signals you're plotting - FT, variance, etc? And how do you try to detect dust?

Indeed the interpretation is very different for Spirit. Recall that she drove up onto HP on sol 1306, with broken wheel, through a patch you've coloured red...

This is quite interesting indeed. The climb on HP on 1306 was on an area that was bedrock and in this plot it is colored green. I do not believe Geert took into account the slopes in this plot, just the terrain type (correct?). That is why we were able to move about Silica Valley while it is painted in red for example.

Paolo

[fredk]

Sorry, I was a bit sloppy in my previous post: the spot we climbed onto HP on 1306 is red in Geert's first image above (just within thin red patch on edge of HP), and green in his second (dust?) map.

[Geert]

This is quite interesting indeed. The climb on HP on 1306 was on an area that was bedrock and in this plot it is colored green. I do not believe Geert took into account the slopes in this plot, just the terrain type (correct?). That is why we were able to move about Silica Valley while it is painted in red for example.

Correct Paolo, slopes are not taken into account. The filters take as input normal (Red) terrain brightness as measured by HiRise, IR brightness as measured by CRISM, Night IR from THEMIS, and variance and variation per grid from HiRISE, basically I use a lot of different mathematical 'filters' each tuned to a specific type of terrain (they all take the same input but the 'mix' is different), however as I mentioned this plot should be treated with a lot of caution as I did not 'fine-tune' them for Gusev, all settings are for Meridiani which is very different terrain, this is especially true for the second plot ("dust filter") which at Meridiani gives a reasonable good idea on the amount of sand/dust and expected wheel resistance but I'm far from sure it works that way also at Gusev under different terrain. In the second plot, 'red' does not necessarily mean 'bad', it just means that there is a lot of sand/dust.

Still, even though the colors might not have exactly the same meaning as they have at Meridiani, both plots together give at least a general 'feel' of the terrain when taken together, terrain with a certain color combination might be comparable to terrain with the same combination elsewhere in the image.

Regards,

Geert

[fredk]

Repositioning for one more attempt?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/fo...QWP1212L0M1.JPG

[RoverDriver]

Correct.

Paolo

[Tesheiner]

Let me give a little "bump" to this thread...
The latest status report contains this small note: "Another small dust-cleaning event on Sol 1820 (February 14, 2009) -- the second one this month -- improved solar-array performance by an additional 10 percent."