Well, we all know PSP is coming. What do you think MRO will do that's cool in the first few weeks of it's official PSP? Don't worry, you won't get any insider info from me;-) But I am curious as to what you might think.

The only thing that I know is finding a Phoenix landing site is the highest priority, and MRO will have it's highest priority towards finding the site, ASAP.

I have an odd feeling that it would remove some element of surprise from the landing. We'll know how the place would look like before Phoenix lands. Maybe the pictures of the proposed site should be published with a "spoiler warning"?

LOL! One thing you have to realize is that the exact location of Phoenix's landing won't be known until lt actually lands. I think the Phoenix team has 3 areas they are looking to land in, and HiRISE'll try to tell it which of them is the safer. I think there's about a 120 km long eliptical area where Phoenix will land, it's not that precise...

I think we really need to solve the "gullies" issue, because they're crucial to our understanding of present conditions and processes on Mars, so I'm hoping for lots of close-ups of gullies.

I'd also like to see close-ups of the caldera of Olympus Mons, so I can visualise better what it would be like to walk around up there. And - as you're subtly taking requests - how about a lovely portrait of what I've always considered to be *my* crater, in Ganges Chasma, which has hypnotised me ever since I first saw it in the Viking days. Everyone knows the image...

Click to view attachment

... so some nice pix of the landslides and crumbling crater edge, thank you!

LOL. I'm not by any means taking requests, although there will be a system to do so at some point in time... Just interested in your thoughts, that's all.

Hello. I'm Richard Leis, Operations Specialist for HiRISE. The title means little - simply put, I get to look at pretty pictures all day, in between more tedious work. This job is a dream come true.

My favorite region on Mars is Memnonia, and I hope my suggested observations are taken early in PSP. I like the Memnonia region because of methane. Both methane and water vapor abundances appear to coincide on Mars and there is a little blip in the water-vapor-concentration graphic produced from Mars Express PFS data at Latitude 0, Longitude 210 that lies roughly over Mangala Valles, within the Memnonia region. I'm no scientist, but it will be nice to see whatever I can see on the floor of the outflow area.

Mangala Valles and the surrounding Memnonia region is clearly one of wind erosion and yardangs and the stripping away of much evidence about ancient fluid flow through the region. I like to imagine, however, that the obvious is not so obvious, and that methane and water vapor in the region might actually mean something.

The Mac on my desk at work has a name: Memnonia. I just had one of the tech guys change the name of my laptop to Memnonia2. The only real reason I'm obsessed with Memnonia is because I received an A on a paper/presentation about the region in "Mars" class, taught Spring 2005 by the HiRISE PI, Dr. Alfred McEwen

Was joking tuv, don't worry...

Okay everyone, hands up who hates Richard?

Hmmm... a Mars-obsessed scientist who gives his computers names... I think you'll fit in well here!
Welcome aboard Richard, good to have another Insider with us. This place gets more like a martian X-Files every day!

Looking forward to reading your comments and insights over the coming months and hopefully years...

FatBoySlim and I (that's my laptop) have enjoyed the HiRISE imagery to date

Doug

Since the information on clays at Mawrth Vallis just keeps getting more interesting all the time, I'm really hoping MRO studies many more valleys/channels in great detail (HiRISE + CRISM). One would hope that Mawrth is not one of a kind!

Hey Doug...This forum ain't what it used to be anymore...
It's loosing all it's credibility...

I just want it known that pretty much everyone at PIRL (And HiROC, their are in the same building) names their computers after something space related, we have names like Pandora, Tethys, deimos, phobos, Mars, Jupiter, etc.

In my little home network, here, my computer is named HAL. When I got an add-on hard drive to accomodate the large files I was stacking up, I named it HAL Jr.



-the other Doug

Still working on my undergraduate degree, so it will be a few more life times before I am a "real" scientist. HiRISE turned out to be an incredible and timely opportunity. Wow, space operations will hire anyone off the street these days - like me

When I was a kid during the Voyager 2 grand tour, my participation in planetary science was limited to cutting out pictures in the newspaper of Uranus, Neptune, and their moons and pasting them in a scrapbook. With the Internet, the "People's Camera", forum software, image galleries, HiBlog, the PDS, etc. those of us who want to can participate in brand new ways. To me, that is as important a breakthrough as the advanced capabilities of the current generation of robotic explorers.

My now-ailing laptop (due to some stupidly spilled tea--no, not beer--yesterday) has no name, but sure needs some good thoughts from everyone. Typing on a USB keyboard now, trying to burn out the bad stuff via a prolonged power-on...

Keyboard flakiness from spills _usually_ go away after sitting a day. If you have to use it again quickly, passing a hair dryer back and forth for about 5 minutes may speed up the process. Some folks use compressed air, but that risks blowing droplets further inside the keyboard enclosure which is not good especially if it is a laptop.

My old G3 Blue and White Mac is "neptune". I also had a PC called "mimas" because it had apparent traces of physical abuse by the previous owner. If I ever lay my hands on a rust covered computer, it will be "mars". As long as it boots, of course.

Back to the subject, here's another thought, taken from the HiRISE website.



So, where do you think we will have stero images, maybe even stero color images? Just curious as to your thoughts.

Columbia Hills would be great tuvas.. .it also might help Spirit in her current condition to drive back safely up Home Plate and towards the rougher terrain south in the hill-complex.

Nico

Is that the goal of Spirit now? The way I see it, Spirit's dying slowly, it won't be too long before it's gone... But, I have little doubt that there will be a picture taken of Spirit soon, perhaps in Stereo.

Oooh - Them's fightin' words.. She's not the healthiest it must be said but her power levels are rising and all it will take iss one good cleaning event and she should be strong enough to last another year.

Oh YES, Sir !

Gotta side with Helvick, here...we need to respect superstition's eerie power over electromechanical devices & speak no evil about our babies!

For example, every time a US Air Force aircraft is launched, the crew chief makes a point of always touching the plane one last time (usually a rub like patting a dog). Silly, yes...but if you don't do it, you feel uncomfortable till that plane's safely back on the ground!

LOL, don't take it personally... Spirit's got some more time, but of the two rovers, she's dying alot faster... And she's limping. Still, she might get somewhere, I really don't know...

Last time I counted Oppy was the one with more things wrong (shoulder joint and steering actuator vs just a wheel motor). Although none of these are a threat to the mission so don't have anything to do with them 'dying'. Granted Spirits wheel problem is more of a disability at this stage, but I have no doubt that she can still make significant progress this summer.
Power levels are on the rise too, so far from dying I think Spirit is starting to 'come back to life'. And as others have said all we need is one good cleaning event - which given the summer atmospheric activity we saw last year is not unlikely - and Spirit will be in great health.

Dying is a strong word - and a totally inappropiate one for either rover at this stage in my opinion.

James

Spirit's in better shape, except for the wheel, but she should climb McCool hill to get in position for cleaning events, and that may only be possible to a limited extent. If she gets to Korolev or those other outcrops on McCool hill, that might be good places to angle <literally!> for a cleaning. Unfortunately, Gusev's an intrinsically dustier place than Meridiani, and the sheltered hollow of the hills is likely a bad place to wait for a dust cleaning event.

Isn't it great how we're so defensive of our brave rovers? Any insults or harsh words and gloves are being thrown on the ground or slapped across a cad's face so fast you can almost hear a sonic boom. And they say chivalry is dead...

Seriously, "dying" is waaaaaaaaaaay too strong, come on. You could say both rovers were "dying" from the second they emerged from their cocoons, as Mars' cosmic rays, radiation, alternating extremes of temperature and dust started to assault them.

Lots of life left in our brave gals yet.

It's anyone's guess as to which rover will outlast the other. As far as power goes, either is one cleaning event away from leapfrogging the other. As far as mechanical/electrical, either could be struck a fatal blow at any time. There will be no winner or loser in longevity, only the bereaved and the surviving.

Wow, you guys are really big rover fans... They really have been remarkable, but you guys are going to have to face it, there's an increasing chance every day that there'll be a catastrophic failure. Spirit is already limping, Opportunity has it's problems... If you get really lucky, they might survive until Phoenix lands, but I doubt much longer than that. I'd be surprised if they survive till the end of next year even... But, well, I suppose we'd better get a big back on track (This topic seems to get shifted a bit...)

I'm not sure you "get" our devotion to these rovers tuvas, to be honest. We're all well aware that either could die any day, that they're living on borrowed time, they're one wheel turn away from chirruping their last and tumbling over into the martian sand like R2D2, and we're not kidding ourselves that they're immortal. But many of us here have been following these missions since they were approved. We've followed the rovers' construction, watched their launches live on tiny RealPlayer screens on our monitors, followed their progress week by week and month by month until they arrived, then sat up all night anxiously waiting to hear that they'd landed safely after their long journey. We waited then for the first pictures to appear, and cheered, or cried, when they did. Yes, cried, I actually did that, I'm not ashamed to admit. Then, with the rovers safely down and working, for the past 3 years almost, we've started or ended or broken up our day - or all three - by going online to look at the latest pictures from Oppy and Spirit. We've mentally walked beside them on their epic journeys, accompanying Spirit towards then up and then down the Columbia Hills again... and keeping Opportunity company as she paced impatiently around Eagle then emerged onto the Great Plain and took off for Endurance and then Victoria...

... which sounds like an obsession, perhaps, and perhaps it is, but I don't care. These rovers aren't just machines to us tuvas - okay, well to me - they're much more than that. I hate using the cliche attached to so many things now, but the rovers really have been "The People's Rovers". They're our eyes on Mars, they let us wander its surface, they show us things we've only dared to dream of before. They've made Mars a real place again, a place we can imagine our grandchildren or great grandchildren walking and living on. They've not just ground into rocks they've burrowed into our lives and our consciousness. They've inspired us to spend hours creating panoramas, mosaics, poems and images. They've made people scattered across the world into a community with shared values, ambitions and dreams. They've changed our lives, in many ways, and it's not an overstatement saying that.

And as gorgeous as their pictures are, Cassini, Galileo, Hubble, MGS or any other probe you could name hasd not done that and I doubt any future probe will have as big an impact either, not ever MSL, because this is the first mission to Mars - or any planet - that people like us have been personally and actively involved in, and have been encouraged to become involved in by the people behind it, you see?

So, don't be quite so cynical or amused by our devotion to them. They matter to us, to our vision of the future, and it will be a tough day when the first one dies, and an even tougher one when its partner does.

I actually understand alot better than you'd think, beleive it or not. I was one of those who watched the launch of MRO, actually. Perhaps the reason I'm not quite as, well, obsessed by it was the fact that I was gone when they landed, I was in a place where I couldn't watch any of the updates until fairly recently. I got home from there actually August 12, 2005, the same day MRO was launched. And somehow watching things from that far in the mission just doesn't have the same effect. But you are probably right, I probably never will fully understand your devotion to these things, althought I think MSL might have a greater affect than you think, and there IS a very good chance that it will last some time.

Anyways, I did see a powerpoint on CTX targets, there are some interesting targets coming up. I haven't seen what HiRISE wants, but the TAG meeting was today. TAG meetings are the meetings where the difference science teams have a big telecon to decide where to target, where to do coordinated targets, etc. Today was the first MRO TAG meeting, that's exciting news!

As a side note in the name of peace, there may be a generational difference at work here as well.

Tuvas, I am assuming that you are relatively young in comparison to me (43) and some others in this forum. Many people of my age and maybe ten years older were utterly (and purposefully!) convinced during our childhoods that we would have the opportunity to at least visit the Moon--if not work and live there!--and just maybe Mars as well. We were ready, we were able, we wanted that future very badly.

The 70s and 80s were in most ways bitter disappointments to us; we saw our dreams fade away as the NASA budget was cut, Apollo virtually faded into an urban legend, and the national/global focus turned inward instead of outward. We've been waiting for tomorrow all of our lives, and it appeared that it would never come.

Spirit and Opportunity have provided us at least the vicarious gratification of seeing another world in semi-personal terms. This is a gift beyond price, for we can at last truly know a little bit of the realities that drove our imaginations wild as kids; for me it brings a little peace, a little closure, and a lot of satisfaction.

Not trying to put you down at all, Tuvas, hope you understand that, okay? Just thought you'd like to know what drives some of us more-rabid older Rover fans...we'll always want to see what's just beyond the horizon with the MERs, and only wish that we could be there ourselves.

Yeah, you tell him, Stuey! Marsaholism is a treatable disease, and JPL has just what the doctor ordered. There's at least 1200 guys and gals out here that salivate for that next peek around the corner or over the rise - that close-up inspection that dreams are made of.
You don't know me, tuvas. I rarely venture out of the MER pages, but we're in conjunction now, and I've got withdrawal symptoms, so I'm increasingly restless. I find your HIRISE color swaths to be somehow mesmerizing and comforting to scan down slowly, murmering "Spirit's down there somewhere."

If it hasn't already been discussed somewhere, I'd like to suggest to JPL that a new screensaver should be produced that does just that: puts up new HIRISE images as they are produced, and slowly scans down them. The image could fill the screen except for a little data box in one corner that identifies the pic and its latitude/longitude, resolution etc. Knowing that the images are newly produced and publicized would offer the same kind of fascination for real-time exploration that we get from MER. The realization that, if something MER sized were down there, we would see it, could become as addictive as MER pancams. I wouldn't be surprised if some poor souls had to buy an extra computer, next to their work machine, just to run the screensaver 24/7.

Just an idea. I already run the MER screensaver, but only rarely does it show something new, so I can turn away from it at will. If a HIRISE screensaver were updated daily, I might finally become NASA's slave!
(Not such a bad effect at budget time. Send copies to everyone in Congress!)

It would be very cool, but there's a few problems with it.

1. HiRISE images are processed by HiROC, not JPL. The folks at JPL actually don't see them until we put them in a specialized system behind the JPL firewall, or the few of them that have access to our system.
2. If you've read my entry on the HiBlog, you'd know how much processing they require. One of the biggest problems for doing quick processing is the geometric projection, which takes on the order of 2 weeks, because the exact position of the spacecraft must be calculated.
3. Such a system would require constant comunication with the servers, which would considerably slow down the network traffic, delaying actually the finished product (Well, maybe...)

But, generally speaking, we will be releasing them ASAP. A real time system is imposible, we did the best that we could during transition imaging, we released a small part only a few hours after it was taken. However, to accomplish such a thing, it had to be done with a real person. Sometime, it can work, but not that often, and I sincerly doubt it'll happen again (Well, maybe for the first image from PSP, but that's as far as I'd dare to guess).

Will the big black and white image of Victoria/Erebus be going up on the "zoomify" website too?

Don't know, we actually don't run that, JPL does. We're working on HiView, which will ultimately solve the problem.

Incredible how this two babies reveal the martian in all of us...

Great words Stu, great words...
Passion was, is, and will be the fuel feeding space exploration.
Taking us beyond.
Thinking that we know everything make some people miss all the glory that emotions provide and that's just...silly.

FYI, HiRISE turned on this morning. I don't know about the other instruments, but I'm assuming that everything has or will be turned on today. At HiRISE, we marked the turning on of the camera to be the start of PSP, so, well, it's now official, at least for us. We expect to receive our first images late Tuesday/early Wednesday morning, so...

Exciting stuff !!! Do you know what the first object/region on Mars to be imaged by HiRISE will be?

Yes, I do know, it will be ________. Well, I guess I can give a round ballpark, it will be mid-southern region, in the -30 to -60N 120-150W range, more specific than that I don't dare make...

Huumm... Viking 2 coordinates are 47.93N, 133.74E...

Yesterday evening would have been the UHF test with Spirit.....hopefully we'll hear how that went soon.

Doug

Any idea what the test involved? Was it a simple communication session or did they intend to relay any data from Spirit?

If I were doing it, I'd have scheduled a pass that included forward commanding from MRO, and then uplink from Spirit at 32k, 128k and 256k within the pass period (if indeed that is possible) - and so yes, some data but probably nothing that wasn't going to get downloaded via Odyssey anyway. All pure speculation on my part though, so don't take it seriously.

Doug

Wipe that smile off your smily, ustrax! Those were negative north coordinates, or as we Earthlings say, south...

Phil

Damn
Me and my bad english...
If it is South why don't you just call it...South?...

That would be the area south of Arsia Mons...
Maybe a slight detour of 8º to the W?...

HIRISE is powered on again !

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/HiBlog/

Are you ready for these immense images ?

Robert

Hey all, just so you know, there won't be as much publicity with the start of PSP as there was with Transition imaging, I imagine someone'll be here tonight, maybe even a hiblog post or two, but don't count on as much as with the start of transition. Tonight's election night in the US, we just don't think it'd be possible to have a major media event with everything else going on...

We really don't mind... just get some new pictures posted!

I don't do that, so I can't make any promises. But I can tell you that the first picture was succesfully taken, no idea when it'll come down to the earth, let alone be released...