I dunno - I see Karst as a description and I get images of lots of water and limestone. I'm not a geologist though so maybe I'm dead wrong.

Wow: oppy really moved today; probably like 5 whole meters!

The nighttime shot has splooges that could be clouds?

Here is a cobble monster:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...KSP2283L1M1.JPG

What the heck are these cobbles again? Very weird... Old basalt inclusions that were weathered out from the evaporite layers?

"Feels so good to be on the road again..."

No - after the first little bump to the interesting terrain, Oppy has been studying it for 4 days now

Doug

Oops - I shoulda checked the hazcam images first... not the first time my perspective has been faked out by new pictures appearing at exploratorium.

Check for the site/drive id of any image. The current one is 64KS and it would change after a driving.

It's not your fault. The imagination desperately seeks variety after months of sameness.
I suppose there is some reason to keep taking these duplicate (triplicate? quintuplicate? dodeca... never mind) pans. Wouldn't want the camera shutter to rust shut. Still, for a two-year old, little Oppie is starting to show her age. Is there any risk of wearing out her cameras before we get to Mogollon? Sigh...
All I can say is: Overgaard had better have verified spittoon...?...typhoon...?..whatever cross-bedding or I will bite this pencil in half!
(insert emoticon for frustrated forbearance)

A 360 degree panoramic view around Erebus.

Taken with the L0 navcam on Sol 717.

jvandriel

724 p1201.04 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_penultimate_1_bpp_crit19
724 p1201.04 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_penultimate_1_bpp_crit19
724 p1214.05 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_ultimate_4bpp_pri15
724 p1214.05 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_ultimate_4bpp_pri15
724 p1316.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_ultimate_4_bpp_pri41
724 p1585.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_cloud_4x1_dwnsmp_RVRAz_calstart
724 p1675.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_5x1_az_126_1_bpp
724 p1775.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_5x1_az_306_1_bpp

I wonder how far she will move this time

Sol 722. Today pictures in qt.exploratorium, I don't see any wheeling pictures but just sky pictures and lots of MI pictures. The site and drive code are still since November: 64KW.

Hope that the Sol 724, next monday, we are going to see the first movements. It seems to be toward between the azimuth 126 and 306 degree as it is shown two last navcam commands.

Rodolfo

New press release:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20060202a.html

Interesting section from above web page

Thanks, Steve, da MAN!
Has anybody sorted out yet where "Roosevelt" is? Is it in the immediate vicinity? Or is it perhaps (IhopeIhopeIhope..) down toward the rim?

It's hard to think about Erebus, with Home Plate dazzling us so, but we should try to keep up. (How the holyheartahell could we cope if there were 3 or 4 rovers? )

Oppy moved again on sol 724 as planned. However she's not yet in place for IDD work on "Roosevelt".

> Has anybody sorted out yet where "Roosevelt" is? Is it in the immediate vicinity? Or is it perhaps (IhopeIhopeIhope..) down toward the rim?

Roosevelt is here: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...KCP2536L7M1.JPG

And where is it?
No it's not down toward the rim, but slightly back. This is a cropped navcam panorama --- man! I did the 360º pano on 24 Nov; quite a long time isn't it? --- in which you can see both the current fhazcam fov and Roosevelt.

Click to view attachment (127k)

Oppy should turn a little bit to the right to see it.

I am truly impressed! I have to ask, Tesch. How are you privy to all this inside information ? Have you found a wormhole connecting Spain to JPL? Are you able to channel Steve's soul? Does he know about it?
I assume there must be a website somewhere that only you know about?
I am insanely jealous.

Click to view attachment

You can find out about the anticipated actions of MER by visiting the following URL: http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/merweb/..._transit_R8.rml
Tesheiner usually visit here in order to inform us about the future MER's activities. (not Tesch but Tesh...).

Rodolfo

....i'd say we'll be here for at least another two weeks.

God, that's beautiful! Did you just make that with Photoshop, or did you fly over in a helicopter? Where have you been all our lives? Fly over to Home Plate will you? I'm still not clear where Spirit is relative to NW HP.

Wow! I went there and had a look. I have about as much chance of channeling Steve as of figuring out that Portal . It's lucky we have Tesh!

Another little bump on sol 725.

Sol 724 fhaz: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...L0P1214L0M1.JPG
Sol 725 fhaz: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...LOP1214L0M1.JPG

What is nearly in front of the forward right wheel is Roosevelt.

PS: Shouldn't this place (Olympia) be renamed Purgatory II? What a sloooooooow pace!

Hopefully we'll also get a close look at that fracture fill near by.

I agree!! The cross bedding is interesting, but we do need to get to the scarp at Mogollon. IMO, that should be as important as the scarp at HP.

--Bill

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...L0P2595R1M1.JPG
So this is Roosevelt. Is it obvious to anyone what has attracted Oppy here? I know I would like to get a close look at the broken slab edge on the right, but I don'y see anything yet. I can't see any festoons.
Why Roosevelt ? I don't follow the theme after Olympia

Good overview, mars_armer. And Rimrock is between Bellemont and Opportunity?

"Opportunity examined targets on the outcrop called "Rimrock" in front of the rover ..." Rimrock is Bellemont? Help!

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/press/o.../20060104a.html

In this image Roosevelt is behind the rover ... south is up.

Targets at Rimrock and Overgaard (446 KB):

A 360 degree panoramic view taken with the L0 navcam on Sol 724.

jvandriel

and a mosaic of 4 images taken on Sol 725 with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

Very nice picture and its color seems to be truly Mars reality.

Rodolfo

Image by Dilo, recolored by Abalone ...

The complete 360 degree panoramic view around Erebus on Sol 725.

Taken with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

Nice pan, J. How many's that now?
...sigh...

I think we now know the place where we have taken the most pics...
Are they finding that much new/interesting here or are they just being overtly cautious?
jb

Here's jvandriel's Sol 725 pan in polar form. This is from Roosevelt.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Hello!

I'm new on this forum (I had put a brief présentation of me in an other section).

I see many images you doo with raws images of MER. This is a great work

I want to show to you a color panorama of Erebus (I know, with a little late... ) :



Medium resolution

Full resolution (6.46 Mo)

Enjoy!

That is a good panorama. Welcome aboard.

The Erebus pan is not late. Oppy is STILL THERE and hasn't moved much, so it's is still "current news"....

--Bill

Wow! That is absolutely amazing. You also have quite an interesting and informative web site. The language is no problem, since the Google translation to English is actually quite decent.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=ht...Flanguage_tools

Thanks for sharing your beautiful work with us. I look forward to seeing more of it. Welcome to UMSF.

Oppy moved again on sol 731.
Another bump to study "Bellemont"?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...tml#opportunity


BTW, where is the IDD? Stowed?

Click to view attachment --> Click to view attachment --> Click to view attachment
(Sol 724) -> (Sol 725) -> (Sol 731)

That last image is indeed, a properly stowed IDD - look at the little metal bracket on the left - that's the normal position

ahh - images out of sequence.

Grr

Doug

Not too fast Doug.

See here: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...NTP1214L0M1.JPG

MIs and all the stuff are being executed on sol 732.

BUT, I think some fireworks would be ok after the next drive.

Edited: This is the whole sequence of sol 731's fhaz pics:
11:09 - IDD unstowed
11:19 - IDD stowed
11:43 - Driving...
14:06 - Already stopped
14:14 - IDD unstowed

Can anyone see whats different about this Olympia region that warrants such an extended stay?

What amazes me most is that after more than 2 months of testing and thinking....
the solution seems to be to simply carry on with the arm stowed like it has always been stowed.
Does this proof that the rover operators actually do believe that Oppy has eternal life?
Or have they build up sufficient faith in the shoulder actuator to proceed as if nothing happened?

For short bumps - they plan to stow it up high, in the hover position above the front of the left front solar array.

But for longer drives, it seems the most sensible thing to do is to park it properly.

It's a delicate balance - you have to do a lot of studying with the engineering model rovers on the ground to find out the very best way to do this sort of stuff.

It's like good old Purgatory. Do NOTHING - make sure you understand the problem- don't make it worse by guessing a solution and trying it. They took a long time to find out what we all thought MIGHT be the answer - foot to the floor for two weeks - but they had to take the time to do the experiments on the ground to find out.

The same is true here - they have to consider the arm - the danger of stowing it somewhere off-nominal, the risk of getting it forever stuck half-stowed, the potential for and risk of damage to arm, rover, isntruments, or all three.

It's a very delicate, carefull procedure to find out the very best way to do something unusual.

It's not like someone can go and give it a kick if it stops working.

Doug

Yes... but... in this new world, where IDD deploys are going to have to be more rare than they were (and have therefore become the new coin of the realm), we are arguably *wasting* a lot of them here.

There had better be a whole *sheaf* of publications coming out of this extended stop...

-the other Doug

The 360 degree panoramic view on Sol 731.

Taken with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

Well - they've parked the IDD once since the problem arose - arguably a sensible thing to do to check the IDD performance in and around the parked position in preperation for the next time it's used.

Arguably the most interesting MI targets of the entire mission, and only one actual IDD deply.... 'wasting a lot' - I don't think so.

Doug

Agreed, I thought once the arm-deployment problem arose, the plan was to do as much science as possible in the area using the "partially stowed" manuver. Once done, they'd park it and get on to redder pastures. So maybe in a Sol or two, we'll either get a nice view of Mogollon, or start blazing a B-line towards V, for victory (go tell your friends).

I'd imagine the science team is painfully aware that aging is starting to put pressure on how to wisely use the rovers. I wonder if Spirit will move between targets also using the partially-stowed IDD?

Bets for THE driving sol?
Mine is sol 735.

I think that's the best best. I'll take 734. We'll have to define what THE driving sol is, though, if they decide to go after another target in the semi-immediate area. But most likely we'll know THE driving sol when we see it

This is jvandriel's pan (with a little cosmetic work) made into a polar view. Comparison with the previous one shows the extent of the short drive.

Phil

Click to view attachment

I'm going for sol 740...
shall we set 30 m as a real drive distance? or the drive where they must store the arm in its cradle? is driving to the "cliff" of erebus (I forget what it is called ) considered a drive?
jb

As much as I'm going bonkers to get to the dark bluff-forming unit at Mogollon-Payson, I can see their reluctance to travel with the IDD unstowed. Whereas we now have limited use of the IDD with the shoulder motor problem, if it jams while unstowed and traveling the use of the IDD could be eliminated or the entire mission could be jeopardized. I feel that the Mogollon Rim will be a site as wonderful as Homeplate.

I think that Oppy is on the way to the Mogollon Rim and may be setting up for traveling. I've annotated Phil's Polar Pan with a likely (potential) route: red is how we came, blue is how we may go.

--Bill