Here is a mosaic of 4 images ( 1 with some missing data ) from bedrock with layers.

Taken with the L7 pancam on Sol 827.

jvandriel

Opportunity stuck again.

Here is a mosaic of images made on Sol 830, Sol 832 and Sol 835

with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

Here is the complete 360 degree panoramic view

of Opportunity stuck again.

Taken with the L0 navcam on Sol 833, 834 and 835.

jvandriel

As always we are indebted to jvandriel for a great panorama. Here it is in polar form:

Phil

Click to view attachment

Wow, that makes it pretty clear that Opportunity was trying to go through a trough, and got stuck. I guess they will guide it North a few tens of meters and make an East-West decision there.

Interesting to note the smaller ripples running across the main trough in the drive direction.

Those east-west oriented ripples combined with the turn-in-place manouver are (my wild guess) the culprit of this event.

We have E-W ripples, the darkish shadow/stain running along the trough and a "mottled" or rough appearance of the ripple face to the East of the Rover (although that may have been caused by wheels throwing the sand/silt around?). This area looks mooshier.

Thanks for the 360 pan and the polar!


--Bill

I think it's time to resume this thread.

Fresh nav/pancam pics downlinked on sol 842. Based on the navcams I plotted this possible driving path towards NW.

Click to view attachment

Hey, that's backwards!! No way..... Kenny

> Hey, that's backwards!! No way..... Kenny

That's where the cameras are pointing, and that's the imagery they use for drive planning.

"One step backwards and two steps forward."

Think of it as a step sideways, like this:

That's more or less the idea.
Actually, last pancams are not completely inside the navcams fov but are looking more westward. It gives me the impression they are not only planning the next step but the following ones. Sort of searching for the "Yellow Bricks".

Now that, I like .... just follow Judy and Elton. Kenny

Not good idea of the probable route. It means more risk since it needs to cross over many ripples of crest toward west before taking the south route. I would rather continue on the bottom of ripples going south.

Rodolfo

The trouble is, Rodolfo, that this area seems to have a lot of these ladder-formation drifts, with the main N-S drifts joined by the E-W "rungs", so there isn't a clear bottom trough to use. Perhaps Jammerbugt was an extreme example of the type but there are other cases visible in the nav/pan photos. Even the orbiter images suggest this effect where the laddering may extend to an outcrop area just to the SW of Oppy's current location.

I don't see a risk because of two factors:
- The ripples (on mine or similar proposal) are fairly small and N-S oriented.
- The actual crossings "on sand" cover less then the wheels lenght (1.25m, iirc); there is always a set of wheels on solid ground.

Blue bricks, Tesh, blue bricks!
Look, you can see them from here:Click to view attachment

Who was worried about taking too much time to study the sandtrap?

Here we go!
Sol 843 is driving day.

Bye, bye, Purgatory-III; see you ... hopefully never again!

Click to view attachment
(Navcam mosaic, sol 843)

Edited: Added a fifth image to the mosaic.

[quote name='Tesheiner' date='Jun 8 2006, 03:55 PM' post='57560']
Bye, bye, Purgatory-III; see you ... hopefully never again!
(Navcam mosaic, sol 843)

Don't be shy Tesh, tell us how much they pay you to follow YOUR route?
Will be nice to see how Oppy did cross the dune out of view there

Well, looking to the post-drive images (nav & pancams) it seems they don't plan to deviate westwards any longer but drive southwards again.

It's just me or anybody else here see the sand just ahead as "fluffy" as P-III?

I think CosmicRocker is right on this matter:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...indpost&p=56538

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...indpost&p=56700

I think they should try to stick to the rocky road or, in the absence of it, try to follow the contour of this buried craters rim...

120 degree wide perspective view of the sandtrap, for comparison (I guess the other frames aren't listed in the pointing data yet).

And the beacon is back!

Err... If you mean the cosmic ray hit mysterious speck in the sky above the right rim of Victoria, then I think it's clear that a band of renegade far-rimmers have breached our defenses and booted the beacon from its rightful spot on the near rim over to the far side.

Fear not my friend...
Everything is under control...

Not really (and I'm a near-rimmer too).
If we are talking about the white dot on this pancam, it's too close to CC (aprox. 7.2º). The beacon, near or far rim, is about 15º (plus/minus 0.5º) to the left of CC.

No no no Señor Tesheiner...Aqui:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P0705L0M1.JPG

You have 20/20 vision, eh Ustrax?

I do, I do...
And it automatically calculates paralaxes...

Ole!

A look in the drive direction on Sol 842.

Taken with the L2 pancam.

jvandriel

Hmmm. The question is do we do this as the crow flies or as the sailboat tacks?
Two quite different journeys!

Q: Does a rover have the duende nature?


I suspect the going is going to be a bit tougher and slower in the weeks ahead. From the various pans it looks to me as if Oppy veered left and tried to cross the ripple almost at the 'root', where it merges with the main N-S dune. But even though this little incident (not accident! appears to have been partly just bad luck, possibly exacerbated by the turning and back-and-forthing breaking the crust layer... there does seem to be a subtly different texture to the dunes near where Oppy fell through the crust, and there appear to be similar areas up ahead... 'appears' to me, anyway, I hope I'm wrong, but I'm starting to wonder if my Sol 987 arrival prediction might have been over-confident...

Large-size perspective views from sol 843:

Has anyone noticed how much the pavment seems to move when Opportunity drives over it.
You can see it pretty clearly in this image. Notice how the sand has shifted and fallen into the cracks by the large pavment block near the rover tracks.

Would any of the geologists in the crowd like to comment on this? What can this tell us about the local
geology?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...GGF0006L0M1.JPG

Yes there is some risk unless the Oppy goes further north until the ripples sizes are lower. If Oppy turn on West, so we are going to have another lamentation! The risk is that Oppy with a very cranky speed, won't be able to climb a very soft slope. The speed is important to overcome any ripple. So I advise to run on the bottom of the ripples where has less sand amount since it is closer to outcrop.

Let us see what the rovers evaluate the many route options: Risk-Time-Capability. A good mix of trilogy will work great.

Rodolfo

...and therin lies the problem, I think. Opportunity has only been using the L2/R2 filters lately, and that makes it difficult for her to see the blue line on a dark background at a distance.

Señor Tesheiner, a slight modification of the route maps might save the mission.

Si, allí si está!


On that way, Oppy won't be able to cross these crest of ripples !

Rodolfo

> On that way, Oppy won't be able to cross these crest of ripples !

Indeed, another set of pancams (looking south) were taken on sol 843 after driving; usual procedure for planning next movements.

BUT tosol (844) plan contains only another drive-direction pancam mosaic; no more driving-related sequences. It means, either the tracking web is filtering some sequences or there is no movement planned for today. If it's the former, means they are searching for a different path. We'll see.



Exactly! I already said they should take the driving mosaics in color (L257) not only B&W.

Marscat?
It's you mhoward or do we have another marscat?

It's me; I was just messing around. I don't think I'll use that account.

[quote name='mhoward' date='Jun 9 2006, 03:41 PM' post='57747']
It's me; I was just messing around. I don't think I'll use that account.

You mean, THIS mhoward ? :

Yes; hard to believe I'd ever do anything goofy...

Mmm, no pics downlinked yet...
Maybe I'm a bit impatient but they were expected to be "on earth" at about 1245 GMT (reference).

Sol 844 pics down. Looks like a short move. But boy, does that beacon glisten beautifully on the near rim!

Beautiful view of Near Rim!


Good for posting an interesting URL reference!

Rodolfo

Sol 844: