OK - for a little diversion, give your best guess as to the arrival of Oppy at Victoria. Before we do that, perhaps some agreement as when we can say that event has happened.

First complete panorama of crater interior perhaps?

I'd say the first image which shows anything that could be considered part of a dune at the bottom of the crater.

we could 'arrive' and take 6 days for a panorama

I will go for 663

Doug

sol 600 (via massive rogue dust devil )

I'll take sol 702.

I will also predict that we will be amazed at the made-to-order entry ramp that appears among the steep unaproachable slopes everywhere else. There will be lots of useful geology, but fewer chances for up-close contact than there were in Endurance due to steep slopes and large dunes.

Sol 680

I think Opportunity will arrive on sol 650.... at Erebus!
And Victoria? Never.

1. The etched terrain has countless interesting science targets. If Spirit stops every 50 meters on Husband Hill, what makes you think Opportunity won't do the same here? The MOC images show many spectacular mesas ahead.

2. The etched terrain is covered with dunes similar to purgatory. That means 30 meters per sol at best.

The way I see it, Oppy will only reach Victoria if the batteries are still working on sol 1500.

How far away from Oppys current position is Victoria?

I found this map and it looks like it's a little over 2 km before we will reach Victoria.

If we could do 200 m / SOL it would only take 10 SOLs

sol 780

-> my bet: Christmas Eve 2005

things in Favor for reaching Victoria :

- North-south running dunes
- Flat bedrock pavement
- Proven inter-dune driving technique with 30 meters a day -> 2 km in 70 Sols
- Enough solar power through sol 700 (Hevlicks POwer Chart !)
- Cleaning events
- And last not least: Victoria seems still considered a target by Steve Squyres
(at least implicitely so according to his July/29 update

things against

- dunes may become larger and steeper farther to the south
- too many intermediate outcrop-science-stops will eventually "bleed" the batteries just before arrival at Victoria ...
- And last not least: A mechanical failure or other hazard can kill oppy any time, long before solar power depletion

But all in all I'm optimistic that we will make it.

Wouldn't the final decent into the majestic abyss of the Great Victoria Crater be a worthy end to one of the most phantastic interplanteray space missions ever ?

Nirgal,


P.S.: am I obsessed with Victoria ? yes, definitely

By the end of January, sol 695. Let us pray for a high Tau, good general health and also invite for more dust devils to fan on Oppy' solar panels. From here to January, the hope will swing many times. Some times is Ja and other is nein.

Rodolfo

I go with ObsessedWithWorlds. I am sort of sick of this obsession with Victoria. Mission managers have previously identified the etched terrain as a scientific target. There is about as far to go to Victoria through the Etched terrain as Oppy has travelled south through the dunefields. I seem to remember that Etched terrain also has significant altitude changes, meaning that it might actually show more layers than Victoria. Victoria might be just a jumbled mess of rocks that are hard to reach.

People should appreciate more where we *are*.

According to the MER Technical document, the IDD does not consume much energy as the communications and rolls. Besides, the outcrop on the Etched Erebus are very similar except to an interesting and strange thing. Hence the geology man will not be much interested to stop so often, "Ah, that is alike that I have seen previously."

Rodolfo

Sol 691

when reading the posts in this board one can sense an overhelming appreciation
of this mission, of what has been reached so far and of the people at JPL enabling it ... almost every serious post is full of this sense of appreciation and gratefulness (that's why I love this forum above so many other discussion boards, BTW

I for myself am thankful for every single image, well knowing that it can be the last one every day and that every additional sol is a true gift for us ...
It's more than appreciated

But then there are of course also the dreams and the curiosity, the desire to reach even new horizon's, romantic legends like Ultreya and Victoria ... there is nothing wrong with this feelings: they have always been the driving force behind science and human exploration ...

Sol 721 at 4.15 PM local time, plus or minus 30 minutes.
(There is some margin in my calculations folks...)

Although I'm afraid a big dust storm will get us first...

Sol 747. (About 100 sols getting to/investigating/driving around Erebus, then 15 weeks to Victoria.) And I like Doug's definition: first sol with a picture of the dunes in the crater.

I'll go for Sol 696. Just a wild guess.

Have to watch out, though, or Oppy just might land on a Wicked Witch...

-the other Doug

I'm in for Sol 717.

-the other Doug

Sol 875 - limping on 4 good wheels.

Sol 688. I think we will discover that most of the bedrock here is similar what we have already seen before. This may speed up things just a tad bit.

Just wondering: how high is the rim of Victoria Crater? What material is the ejecta blanket made of?

722, while driving backwards.

I go with akuo.

No predictions from me until we get to a point midway between Erebus and Victoria
that has been labeled "Hell of a View." It's all downhill from that location!

Jack

We get there when we get there. In the meantime, let's enjoy the journey...



--Bill

You misunderstand, the fact that the mission is appreciated is self-evident.

I was just looking for some appreciation for Etched terrain, where we have now arrived. Steve Squyres and Joy Crips identified the Etched terrain as the science target after Endurance, not Victoria. Etched terrain around Oppy now covers an area by far larger than Victoria. If you look at the high resolution image of Oppy's landing ellpise, you can see that Etched terrain is a very common type of terrain in Meridiani.

Now people seem to want to use this as just a bounding board to (yet) another crater. That Oppy should speed as fast as it can through this terrain, with minimal investigations. I disagree with this. I think Oppy should spend at least as much time investigating this terrain as was spent on Endurance.

777 - I think it depends on how interesting the etched terrain turns out to be.



So are the dune fields. However, once they have established the ground truth for the etched terrain. Confirmed what seems obvious (top layer all the way) with some hard data, i think that the possibililty of older layers being visible/accessible at victoria represent the deepest-time window into meridiani's history Oppy will get. That still remains one of the most important objectives of the mission.
.

I am afraid that the MER project might be cut sooner, before than MER arrives at Victoria's Crater. See the last Squyres' last post on July 29,2005. He is commeting much about the MER's personnel as an introduction of what migh happen in the future. Visit at the at the Athena's Cornell Web

Rodolfo

The MER Mission has been extended until September 2006, so no problem there.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solars...mer-040505.html

As to the scientists and other personnel, I don't see anything in Dr Squyres report that would or could jeopardize the MER mission.
http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/

A question about Victoria: from the orbital images it seems that there is a wide belt around the bright bedrock at the crater rim where there are no "etched terrain" light-colored protrusions. This area seems very smooth and young, with only a couple of tiny craters dotting it, and no relief that I can see other than some color variations.

Is this another field of sand? Does it show dunes or other relief at better resolution? If so, why does this region not show the "etched" bedrock?

Or could could it be an area of smooth, exposed darker rock? or perhaps sand fused into something glassy as a result of the impact that created Victoria?

From different accounts, there will be no hurry to move past Erebus/etched terrain towards Victoria.

The scientists have been twiddling their collective thumbs while Oppy struggled southward though the uninteresting dunes.

So my prediction for arrival at Victoria is ~250 sols from now (sol 801).

Here's to a busy, interesting and fruitful science period.

One thing which I hope bodes well for an earlier arrival at Victoria was a statement that Squyres made in his Science Friday radio interview. He said that since an electrical glitch might kill either rover at any time, the team is going to be pushing the rovers to the maximum extent possible to squeeze as much out of them as they can in whatever time they have left.

I hope Opportunity does make it to Victoria, and beyond. But I have to cast my vote with ObsessedWithWorlds, akuo, and stewjack. I am expecting major science to be done in the Etched Terrain, and I am thoroughly excited and amazed that Opporunity is still relatively healthy and entering this new terrain. Although the rocks may be similar to the ones we landed in, it is likely that they are not the exact same layers. Even if the layers are the same, a lot could be learned from lateral variations in them.

Besides, we are just now seeing this etched terrain at it's edge. Let's see what it has to offer.

It is interesting to note however, that earlier Steve Squyres expressed doubts about reaching Victoria, but was more optimistic about the possibility in his most recent update. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and am enjoying the exploration as it comes.

Sol 748.

Thought i'd reopen this thread.

Of all the predictions made only three are still in play:

ILBASSO SOL 875
PAXDAN SOL 777
AVKILLIK SOL 801

I think it is time we made some new predictions, so lets hear them. When do you think that Oppy will reach Victoria.

I say Sol 842.

New prediction: sol 897

Thanks for reopening the discussion. I remembered that I had put in what seemed like an outrageously far-off guess...who knew then we would spend more than three months sitting in one place? A little birdie is telling me to stick to my estimate but I hope that it's wrong.

Taking into account future retricted sols, nasty sand ripples, detours, computer glitches, jammed wheels and whatever else, I'd say around sol 1000

Well, I'm sure I was WAY off the mark from any earlier guesses I made on the arrival Sol. That was pre-Erebus, and I thought Oppy was going to drive by it with nary a wink (like she did to the smaller "ghost" craters).

So with that track record, I'm going to assume about an average of 20m/Sol towards Victoria (which seems a little aggressive?). So we've another ~2000m to go?

So place my virtual ante on Sol 887.

C'mon Oppy!

I'll pick a nice round (square) number - sol 900.

And I'll pick Sol 884 - should be the shortest Sol of winter more or less and deserves celebration

I play safe this time: never.

You see I can't lose this one:
if it gets there I win because it made it to Victoria...
if it doesn't , I win the million dollar price!

Sol 1036, Victoria panorama on Christmas.

I don't remember anyone suggesting sol 888, so perhaps I can reserve it.

Wouldn't it also be a suitable sol number for some awesome sight, especially a layered one?

Hmmm.... Sol 820.

To me it looks like an ejecta blanket (surrounds the crater, lobate shape).

tty

I've just been looking at the elevation profile from Ray Arvidson's MER MEX coordination slide (extracted in this post).

I appreciate that it is a very rough estimate based on MOLA data but by my calculations it puts the highest local point ("Hell of a view") within a band around Erebus so we should be heading "downslope" by now however I'm not noticing anything changing. I'm wondering if we're not actually going to see any noticable change at all and will never get that "Hell of a View" panorama.

Just a wild guess....sol 868.