Just a few meters away from Erebus.

Panoramic view of Erebus taken on Sol 593 with the R2 Pancam.

jvandriel

Why is it that I can't seem to view a number of these great panorama jpgs you guys post? I've tried with both Firefox and IE6.

I have no idea -it works fine here.

Doug

Few meters, are you sure, jvandriel?
Consider those are PanCam images... using parallax calculator, Oppy still about 60m from the rim!

Perhaps you have a pop-up blocker that's interfering. Try holding down the CTRL key when you select the image.

No, that isn't it. I get this message on the browser:


Perrhaps it's on a server that I don't have access to somehow.

Well - it doesnt contain errors, because I can see it fine ( and clearly, so can loads of other people )


Doug

Antoniseb,

Maybe you can save the file to disk (right click it, save link as...).
then open it with another image viewing program. Does that work?

Any chance that your service provider is filtering\"optimising" your connection, or that you have a firewall\AV running that is choking on some of the larger images?

I reckon I read >98% of all messages here at the moment and view all linked images - I've never had a repeatable issue with stuff hosted on UMSF.

Ditto. It's not like me actually running it helps, because the hosting company is in the US, and I'm in the UK - it's not like the server's under my stairs or something

The odd page not found, but clicking again and it works...

but I must admit - from 1.2 million post views, I've never heard mention of attachments not working properly

Doug

I've had a problem somewhat like this... mine was due to unknowingly having two fierwalls running. Agnitum Outpost, which has worked fine for me in the past, was the one objecting to the situation so I turned it off and things have been fine since.

Your problem is perhaps not the same but I would check firewall, virus scanner and pop-up blockers.

Antoniseb--

We should probably take this up in another forum. I've had the same problem for at least three months with 30% of the images here, and occasionally at other sites as well. I receive the identical error as you:

The image “http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=1576” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

I've done a bit of research, talked to Road Runner (my cable operator), and have still found no solution. If you figure it out, let us know.

Edit: Joffan-- Thanks for the advice. I checked out the firewall, antivirus and pop-up prgrams, all to no avail. You'd think it'd be something obvious like that.

I frequently have the "contains errors" problem.

I've had the same problem on my home computers since mid July. It seems to be limited to large files (~ 1Mbyte) that are hosted on unmannedspaceflight. Large files that are actually hosted elsewhere (e.g. marsgeo.com) don't have the problem.

Since I don't have the problem at my work address, and I have the problem on multiple computers at home, I thought it might have something to do with my ISP.

My home computers are all running WindowsXP SP2 and IE6.02, but have different firewalls: Norton, Windows, or McAfee. Disabling firewall doesn't seem to fix it.

Dilo,

for Opportunity is 60 meters, a few meters, after driving 6 km ( 3.7 miles ).

jvandriel

New fantastic rover panoramic view by Tman and me.

Sol 592: Oppy arrived the South Shetland Outcrop

http://xs47.xs.to/pics/05380/Sol_592_Oppor...y_Sol_590_1.jpg (425 KB)

I tried that too, and ended up with the download tool acting like it got the file, but the target directory being empty afterward.

I've had a similar problem for a while now, except I only get a broken image with no messages when the popup appears. At first I thought it was just me.

I turned off my firewall, but that didn't help either.

hmm wonder how Oppy's power situation is doing.

Guys I've started a thread in the Forum Management section for these issues:
here
Let's see if we can figure it out there.

Me too. I haven't seen an opportunity power update since Sol 526 when power rose to 650Watt hours following a cleaning event after Sol 524.

According to my last updated model she should be getting about 557 watt hours now assuming no change in Tau. I've almost finished a substantially more accurate model that yields a slightly lower number - 544 Watt hours.

Again assuming we've had no cleaning events or significant changes in Tau in the meantime.

Planetary Society's MER update has the power situation from a few days back in this update. Joy Crisp tells that Oppy is getting 630 Wh and Spirit 885 Wh.

Cool.

On Sol 526, TOA insolation was ~ 4381 watt hours (per m^2), Oppy generated 650 watt hours. This update means that on or about Sol 582 when TOA insolation was ~ 4230 watt hours Oppy generated 630 watt hours. My earlier estimates are based on a constant rate of dust deposition reducing the efficiency of the panels by 0.2% per sol - that's the rate that was seen at the start of the mission but it is clearly not happening at the moment. There is virtually no change in panel efficiency between Sol 526 and ~582.

The lack of a major\global dust storm during the past Martian SH Spring\Summer seems to be having a knock on bonus effect of almost eliminating dust deposition.

Excellent news for now - hopefully in the longer term the reduction in dust loading doesn't lead to significantly lower night time temperatures at the onset of the winter.

Steve Squyres Update: September 26, 2006(?)

--- The decision's made... we're going to go west, counterclockwise around Erebus Crater. ---

http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/

I remember that in the winter, when Oppy was inside the Endurance crater, was able to raise their power output after a cleaning by a mist frozen water in the early morning. Maybe, if the Oppy is inside in the Victoria crater, it will help to clean the Oppy's solar power panels during the winter 2006.

I wonder if it will be true or not.

Rodolfo

I think that section looks most interesting - wide sections of the cliff that might even be undercut by wave action? I'm glad they're not daring the dunes in the center... at least not yet.

There's an outcrop of pavement near the rim of Erebus just SW from Oppy... I expect the first full panorama will be there followed by proper route- and target-finding evaluation.

No way will the team risk stranding Oppy in Erebus, when Victoria is looking like a feasible target for her.

At this side of the crater? Where, where?

Imho, the first movements in the next days (after tomorrow?) will be heading NW, not SW.
Hint: On sol 596 they requested a set of images (for planning purposes, I guess) looking North.

The upcoming winter season will be very tough even if dust deposition were a non issue. Minimum insolation happens at around LS 81 (That would be around Opportunity Sol 883, 18 July 2006). Daily insolation will drop by ~ 33% by then so even with no degradation in the performance of the panels power is going to get very tight. We haven't had an update that told us what the Tau numbers have been like recently but it looks clear enough now and as I mentioned earlier I suspect that in the upcoming autumn\winter season Tau will drop below the 0.45 minimum of last year. That would give a small boost to the power power that can be generated but it also allows increased thermal cooling at night. I know that prior to landing at Meridiani some of the team were concerned that if Tau dropped below 0.2 that would lead to night time temperatures around spots with lower than average albedo (ie around 0.12) that would be low enough to cause Opportunity to fail.

Those concerns are a good few months away though - right now I suspect that the planners are much more concerned about navigating ripples and dunelets.

LONG BASELINE ANIMATED GIF OF EREBUS
SOL 590 - 593

This long baseline animation shows a 3D effect on far rim, and seems to bring out some new features.

Using the labeled panarama provided by Bil Harris, I am confident that the crater seen at the upper right of the animation, contains the Payson outcrop/cliff, that was mentioned by Steve Squyres

You may need to manually center this flicker in your browser window, because one of the images was very large, and I failed to crop it effectively.

The larger, SOL 590 image, is PIA06341, acquired from NASA's Planetary Journal.

File Size 1.3 MB

590-593-TIF-JPG-PAN-Erebus-longbase-flicker.gif

Jack

They left out the second 'c' in the name
592 p2590.12 13 0 0 13 2 28 pancam_deception_L234567Rall

Today (sol 597) is driving day at Meridiani.
Oppy should be driving in just a few hours.

Am I reading this correctly when it says no data received today?

2. What EDRs do we have on the ground from sol 597?

Actual number of EDRs by sequence number and image type:

Sol Seq.Ver ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot Description
--- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
597 p0765.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_5x1_az_288_3_bpp
597 p1110.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_mi_1024x1024x1bpp_pri56
597 p1212.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_ultimate_2_bpp
597 p1311.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_ultimate_1_bpp_crit18
597 p2124.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_cal_targ_L456
597 p2385.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_drv_dir_L2R2
597 p2626.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_sky_radiance_thumbs_L457R247
597 p2629.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_horizon_survey_L456
597 p2936.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_veryhigh
597 p2936.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_veryhigh
597 p2936.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_veryhigh
597 p2936.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_veryhigh
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2956.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_minloss2_LUT3_high_DNTH2000
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 p2977.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 mi_open_min3_DN2000_LUT3_medium
597 Total 0 0 0 0 0 0

Yes and no.

Actually there are (until now) no images from sol 597 downloaded today.
But check on item 1 (EDRs from any sol) and you will see that yestersol (596) navcam 4x1 panorama was downloaded.

Today drive should be already executed (around noon local time), but we should wait until tomorrow to see the results, which imho is a drive NW crossing two or three ripples.

ohhh..... this just turned up at exploratorium

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1131R0M1.JPG

Patience, people - South Shetland is definitely worth a day or twos investigation....

Ditto. I'm surprised they have taken so long to look in detail at the pretty rocks that are all around. I can't wait fro the MIs.

What are taking so long is not the activity, but the images download.
Actually, that forward-hazard cam image posted by Sunspot is from sol 595, some days ago.

I dunno why the download (I mean Mars->Earth, not JPL->Exploratorium) is taking so much these last days. Maybe an issue related to few available UHF passes . The fact is that no images from any sol were downloaded on sol 596 and just a few from sols 594 and 596 were received on sol 597 (yesterday).

Patience.

Or it may be even something different.

Check for yourselves the data on the MER Pancam Data Tracking Web. It is reporting that the planned activity for sol 597 (yesterday) was related to a driving day (front & rear hazcams, navcam, and pancam images). The report for sol 598 (today) includes a driving too.
But the set of sequences for both sols look too similar -- actually, both include a set of MI pictures -- to be true. It looks like 597 activity was not executed at all and was re-sent to be done today, OR that the Tracking Web is not correctly updated.
I don't believe those are actually two driving days in a row. They don't plan a drive without analysing the data/results from the previous one.

There were problems with the tracking website afew days ago...... or maybe another computer reset.

Part of the surrounding of Erebus.

A panoramic view taken with the L2 Pancam on Sol 593.

The route around the West.


jvandriel

I guess I'm a little surprised that they are willing to sink so much time into this crater. Perhaps they are looking to work their way thru the strata and find an overlap with that of Endurance, extending the total series of contigious layers they can document. Or maybe they are just tired of driving and the scientists were demanding more scratch and sniff days. I think circumscribing Erubus in this fashion will add, at a minimum, some 6 weeks to the time needed to get to Victoria. There is only so much time before they have to find some north facing slopes and if they are not to Victoria before winter starts to set in, they could have power issues.

Good panorama. I have the bits-and-pieces to it, I haven't had time to assemble the images into a pan.

Referring back to the MOC Erebus "maps" posted in the "Route Map" thread, your pan is centered on the dune field on the Northwest rim of Erebus along the possible rover route (sorry, ripple field does not sound right). I imagine that when Oppy gets to that large dune on the horizon, right of center, the decision will be made to turn South and enter Erebus or go North and drive Northwest around the ripple field and then into Erebus.

--Bill

I think a big part of the decision comes from Steve's philosophy of getting the biggest return on investment from the rovers in terms of science. Back in the early days, the figure quoted was (IIRC) $4M per sol - i.e. can we get $4M worth of science done on this sol.

Obviously that number is lower now, but I think the attitude still stands with the MER team. They wouldn't want to sacrifice any potential findings at Erebus now just in case Oppy suffers some kind of critical component failure on the way to Victoria later.

It's a hard tradeoff for them to make, so I'm guessing there's enough interesting stuff here to warrant the time spent.

Agreed. The planners weighed the potentially good science at the Mogollon outcrop _vs_ the potential hazards of getting there and came put with a positive balance. In a way, it was a clear decision. The route along the eastern rim of Erebus has a lot of ripples and would be slow going to navigate through them, and the Vermillion outcrop may be of lower quality tham Mogollon. The NW route (Passage?) around Erebus is along the Burns Formation outcrop and ought to be good driving, and we can examine the "horizontal stratigraphy" (facies changes) along the outcrop. Large-scale it is consistent, but what about small-scale changes? We've had to look through small windows while surfing the ripples.

And, seeing the Mogollon exposure from across the bowl, it looks interesting. I look at it as the Holy Grail of the geology of Meridiani (heh, maybe we should adopt a "Monty Python" naming scheme...)

This route is risky, but not foolish.

--Bill

Burmese,

I agree with you that the western route would take more time than the eastern one. But if you have a look to the MOC imagery you will see that such detour will add just a small fraction to the whole distance she has still to cover until reaching Victoria. And in terms of time, I don't believe that Oppy will "put the pedal to the metal" after Erebus; the pace in terms of m/day will be around the same. So that fraction in distance will also be a fraction in time, discounting the time doing science at Mogollon Rim.

Bill & Jvandriel,

That panorama shows the dunes due west to the rover position, and imho the route on the following days will go by the right side of the dune field until reaching some point around the outcrop seen at the right of the dune field near the horizon -- that one indicated by you, Bill.
I agree that such will be a decision point; due south or still west. My guess is W (and maybe even NW), but I like your (Bill) idea of going through the crater if there is a path.

... or maybe an error executing the planned sequence (e.g. forget to close the MI cover), throwing away the whole day.

If Oppy's taking the Northwest Passage, then they should've named the cliffs "Burgess Shale". :-p It seems like they've adopted Grand Canyon names for Erebus for some reason, maybe because as geologists they are all familiar with them. Therefore, I think the "NW Passage" could be called Bright Angel Trail?

It sounds like they're not taking any chances; if they don't find a safe route into Erebus, then no rolling dice. Since Erebus is probably much easier to navigate around than Victoria, it ironically might have more science gain... although if Victoria punches through several distinct layers, that would be worth the trip even if they can only be viewed from the rim.

I hope they will go roughly SW first to get a close-up panorama of Erebus from just east of the the large drifts, where there appears to be pavement at the lip of the crater. Then north, then west around the big drifts and south to the interesting cliffs.

1. What new EDRs from ANY sol were received on sol 598?

Number of EDRs received by sol, sequence number, and image type:

Sol Seq.Ver ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot Description
--- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
No EDRs found!!!




...oops just looked at the time.....a bit early for anything to have come down yet .