Don't forget too, folks, the incredible progress we've made since sol 912 or so. There were no guarantees that the "apron" wouldn't be as slow moving as the rest of the etched terrain. (Even though I predicted in this very forum that it would be easy going!)

Of course this is no reason to "slack off", but they certainly are not.

Whats gone wrong and where?

Restricted sols and DSN congestion - we've only mentioned a few times The sort of constraints whereby targetted remote sensing and IDD work are the most efficient use of the rovers time.

Doug

ahhh yes, one of the dishes broke down.

A broken dish sould NOT prevent Oppy to go to a bowl

I am not aware of any broken dish. Which ones?

Rodolfo

It`s the Green Bank Telescope...

Look at this giant Telescope before...
Click to view attachment

...and after receiving this heavyweight data-package from Opportunity...
Click to view attachment

The 70m Madrid DSN dish is currently down.

Doug

Bearings in the Madrid Spain antenna failed. See the the Space.com article at http://www.space.com/news/060802_dsn_problems.html.

Hopefully the people in charge can get the things fixed in time for New Horizons' Pluto flyby. We'll probably be wanting as many 70m antennas as we can get.

Yes, but it was planned to be out until October, and will be out until January. So what's the net now, in September, for MER?

Everything is going through the remaining DSN antennas at Goldstone California and Canberra Australia.

SOL 939 showed up at the PC tracking site to be a SOL with RAT, APXS and MI stuff

Hopefully we'll soon be on our way again. I still think it's a waste of the RAT to grind here. They could just use the brush to remove the dust coating.

They took some pics of the RAT to see how much "bite" it had left. I guess it must be ok.

Well, the decision as to where to go to get burgers ought not be that difficult...

Click to view attachment



-the other Doug

Are those the only problems though? I was under the impression that we had had a drive fault as well. Hence why we have seen no IDD activity so far. Restricted sols and DSN problem of course make recovery from any faults very time consuming.



I still find it hard to beleve anything infront of the rover can be RATed - maybe just a brushing?

Thanks to Doug, Floyd and Jeff7. On that time, I was away on vacations.

I realize that the DSN needs a minimal redudancy. As an example, each of the three zones times, Australia, California, and Madrid must have their pair as a backup. But it think that it is time to innovate the DSN technology by employing many smaller anntenas rather than 70 meters (35 meters) as a array which have many technological advantages, higher communication concurrency, better gain of signals, and something else who knows.

Is there ESA cooperation with NASA with respect to DSN? ESA also has an anntena in Madrid.

Rodolfo

I like your style Rodolfo. Nice to know it all comes down to winning that bet.

It seems to me it will be nearly impossible to make a return trip from the bottom of Victoria though. Perhaps it could appropriately end up being Oppy's final resting place. Going down 70m over 200m gives you over 20 degrees of slope on average (ie. a straight line path assuming the edge of the dunes is 200m in from the rim). It's likely a fair bit steeper along any given path and will be slippery just like Endurance was. That said, what a view would be missed if our baby could not get down in there to look up at the cliffs. I'm hoping they'll take a chance even knowing it's probably a one way trip.

Perhaps a series of long traverses could get Oppy back out but I'm not very oppymistic. A circumnavigation first would be in order (and in keeping with the spirit of Victoria) with some sniffing at the bits of the apron and rim that are interesting especially those dark dust lanes. OK Ill shut up about that now. Promise.

I seem to remember Dr Gorevan mentioning they had a basement full of rock samples drilled with the RAT so I'd imagine they have lots of pre-flight data. In fact, they were trying to find a hardness analog to the sedimentary rocks found at Meridiani, but had not found one yet (this was a few months ago). Apparently the perhaps obvious Plaster of Paris was too soft. I suggested trying Hydrocal (a much harder modelling plaster) but don't know if they ever tried that :-)

Airbag

I consider the likelihood of entrapment as very remote. The rover is stable on such slopes, they can use switchback techniques if a straight line ascent causes slippage, and most importantly, the drivers have shown the ability to deal with any obstacle thrown their way. Unless of course it starts dragging a lame wheel...

Brian

This, may be ? http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all..._P2577L5M1.HTML
This can give information on the hardness of evaporite at the very top of the apron that could then be compared to whatever they'll find all the way down to the cliffs inside Victoria. Just a thought.

Yeah, that must be the target. But is likely to be a loose piece of evaporite in my opinion, look at the much larger bit that Oppy drove over here (the new target (Cape Faraday) is on the far left, just above the wheel in that image)

btw: MB scheduled for 940 to complete the IDD set

So we may have the next driving sol on 941 (Saturday) or 942 (Sunday).
Great!

I don't remember they use to plan drivings on the week-end but I understand that's fine since "they" can't do anything anyway before feed-back is downloaded.
Two questions there : Did they did that before? Often? Does it means that, if drive occurs on Saturday we can get pictures on Sunday on the Exploratorium even before most of "them" will see them? I suspect they have access to exploratorium from their home...as well as to UMSF

But we havent had any images come down for 2 days now. We had images come down from Spirit yesteday so perhaps there are more issues than we're aware of.

And as we should all know by now - that tells us exactly nothing.

Doug

IIRC, they did that plenty of times.



Well, today's evening downlink session at 4pm or so (Meridiani time) will correspond today with around 06:00 UTC (i.e. 02:00 EDT, 23:00 PDT). What does it mean? It means that unless the JPL guys are working on a night-shift, we living in Europe will see those images before them.
And assuming a driving sol on a few days, that picture will be still valid.

Steve:. And you know, I mean if, you're in the U.K., I'm in Ithaca New York, if, as long as the scripts are running well and we're updating quickly (and it's often we don't but we try our best). You know, if you're awake and I'm asleep you can see pictures...

Doug: Before you do.

Steve: ...from Mars before I do, and I think that's great! And I hope that other projects in the future will do the same thing.

From last autumns Q'n'A

Doug

Yes, I remember that. As restricted sols occured on a regular basis and it's based on JPL-Ithaca circadian cycle , can we deduce that we have this "advantage" here in Europe more or less when restricted sols end up?

Imaging plan for sol 939 now includes a "drive-direction" pancam mosaic.
No, it's not a driving sol but it means either 941 or 942 will be.

I wanted to tell everyone Thanks for all the in depth coverage of both Rovers and how everyone in Unmanned Spaceflight has made me gain more knowledge of The Rovers. I try to ask questions from time to time but all of you in here have kept me updated quite well regarding the Rovers. Keep up the good work and I do hope soon we all get that Amazing View of Victoria Crater we have been waiting for. Beacon???

A Loyal Fan and Member

Bobby

I feel the same way, Bobby. My wife thinks I'm nuts because every now and then I show her a map of the rover's location. She doesn't get it.

Anyways, talk about dramatic pauses, the rover could have easily driven to the edge of victoria by now.

I feel like politics is the only thing holding Oppy back at this time.

Here's a 3x vertical stretch of the full 360 navcam view from (essentially) the current location, sol 931 (navcam pan from mhoward's equirectangular pan):
Click to view attachment
It highlights a number of features. Aside from the "entry point" features and glimpse of the far rim, we can see clearly old crater Zeta (below green bar), the "helluva view" ridge in the etched terrain to the north (red bar), and the highest part of Vicky's rim (blue bar), which also contains the beacon.

Here's the view (5x stretch) from sol 855 (from here):
Click to view attachment
Again, blue bar is highest part of rim (with beacon), and the red arrow points to our current location near Emma Dean.

Remember these images are stretched - I estimate the highest part of the rim is only 1.5 or 2 metres higher than we are now! Nevertheless, if I were at Meridiani I'd scamper up to that high ground for a look around - it's probably the best view for km's (Endurance might even be visible from there).

But I don't know if that's the best thing for Oppy to do...

I've been thinking the same thing - the beacon looks like the place to be.

I still think were more than likely going to head to the closest point on the rim but the fact that they are taking a new set of drive direction pancams tosol is intriguing. After all we already have drive direction pancams from (very nearly) this position. It may take an extra sol or two but I would love it if we headed for the beacon.

And in other news: Looks like I was wrong, they *are* going to RAT Cape Faraday. It'll be interesting to see how well that turns out.


Should be an interesting downlink (if we get one tosol!) in a few hours.

I agree and so does Climber. And I'm sure when we get to the far rim later this year or early next year, they'll give that beacon a good looking over.

Yep -- I imagine the Beacon will look really impressive from a far rim location, situated as it will then be across the crater on the other side, where we'll see it in context with the rest of the near rim...

-the other Doug

As much as it hurts to admit it, the parallax is making it really difficult to defend a far rim location at this point, unless I am totally lost.

...from out of left field, has anyone noticed the occasional, purplish hue that some bedrock has displayed since we arrived at the annulus? I understand that the colors are uncalibrated and must be properly described as false-color, but it seems to me that relative differences in color should still be relevant. I think we have rarely, if ever seen this hue in the bedrock before.

I first noticed it in the attached sol 912 composite from near the annulus boundary as we left Beagle. It appears again in the sol 934 composites of rocks on the left side of Emma Dean. I don't know what to make of it; I'm just throwing this observation out. ...any thoughts?
Click to view attachment

We'll have plenty of beacons to play around soon . We'll probaly have morning beacons and evening beacons as the sun will illuminate different ones during it course. For the time being I think they (we) are going to the boat ramp but these news drive direction pictures could mean that they plan not only to have a large or small baseline by taking pictures from different angles but also from different ALTITUDES (ok only 2 metres). Do you think we could have an interest in this? Will be more 3D ?

Is Exploratorium down again and what timing??? On the verge of getting to Victoria and no updated pictures

I don't think it's Exploratorium that's down, no images have shown up at JPL or (more importantly) on the tracking site either.

Thta's something new : I reply to myself !
I hope all of you red Steve's first update since feb 5th (thanks Doug)
So, we're going to the "alcove" (aka boat ramp) and then either to Cape Verde or Cabo Frio (You should be happy with the names, Ustrax ). So the idea here above of a vertical 3D will still be possible...with the navcam only
Stu & All, you can modify the naming on your charts

You might say so... :

"Hi: I have just, finally, done a new update on the Athena web site. I'm still not entirely certain when we'll arrive at the rim of Victoria... it depends on what happens with the ongoing IDD work on Emma Dean. The earliest we can possibly arrive there is late on Sol 943, and that's only if we get several lucky breaks. It could be later than that. But rest assured, we're going as fast as we can!

Also, when you read the update, you'll see that we have adopted your suggestion of naming prominent features along the rim after places visited by the Victoria during the first circumnavigation of the Earth. That was a very nice idea, and it suited the situation perfectly. I really appreciate the suggestion.

Cheers, SS"

UMSF has done it again!

Good work Ustrax!

Well, Steves update, dated the 14th, doesnt mention any problems with the rover, although I suppose he could have written it a few days ago. It is a bit worrying that no data has turned up for 3 days now. We've had images come down from Spirit every day, so i'm not sure about the restricted sols/ DSN issue now.

There's a huge difference between not having images or tracking data, and having 'no data turn up for 3 days'

We've seen the same symptoms a dozen times. A script falls over, a server needs a reset etc etc - it's nothing unusual. I can say with convinction - there is nothing wrong with Opportunity.

It's silly to try and make a call on what the spacecraft is doing from a LACK of information.

What information do we have in the public domain?

From imagery on the groundwe see..
931 - Targetted remote sensing and short drive
932 - 935 - Targetted remote sensing
936 - Putting interesting target in IDD work volume
and nothing from then on out...

From tracking data, we see what has been commanded

935 - Targetted remote sensing
936 - Bump drive imaging to put something in IDD work volume
937 - Untargetted remote sensing and imaging of magnets (good stuff for a restricted sol while looking at FHAZ from 936)
938 - not much going on.
939 - a HUGE sol of Ratting, pre and post rat MI images, APXS and Mossbauer work.

939 has only just finished. If there was something wrong with the rover - would they have scheduled a hugely busy day on 939?

940 I would imagine more IDD work - good integrations for Mossbauer etc.

Seriously - you're clutching at less than straws. All the information that we actually HAVE is indicitive of a very very healthy rover ( I've not seen a day as busy as 939 for a long time). To then negate that information and suggest there is something wrong with the rover because the pipeline of imagery, which we know to be unreliable at times.... that's a bit silly.

Doug

Doug's right, don't worry.

No downlinked data seems to be making it to the tracking site, but normal new sequences are showing up, which they wouldn't be scheduling if anything was wrong.

OK, I apologise, i'm over reacting. It's just that we left Endurance Crater for this drive south 620 days ago, and now were probably ONE drive day away from reaching the rim of Victoria Crater.

I'd would expect the weekend to be where we are now - hopefully no IDD faults like we've suffered before - and then driving next week.

Doug

That's the BIG avantage of not participating to the "Pool ...at VC" : one can change his bet
(nearly) seriously, SS wrote to Ustrax Sol 943 at the earliest and that's on Monday. So, next week will be it. That was an easy one for you Doug (not serious again, oups, sorry )
Seriously : I bet that SS update + what is written here above will calm all of us down. I don't know if you feel the same but I'm kind of relax-nervous now. Just feeling a nice pression coming in. It's nice to know that they discovered something interesting near Emma Dean and we'll have even more next week.

I'm happy too! Cabo Frio is located in Brazil, where I'm from.



Like this?
Click to view attachment
Comments?

BTW, as I said on another thread, I think they will head to Cape Verde (Cabo Verde or "Green Cape") given their preference to north oriented slopes.