A friend posted the articles from the recent Science magazine special edition on Opportunity. You can find links to the pdf files here:

http://www.ih2000.net/me/opportunity%20papers.htm

I can't wait to see the Heat sheild!

I wonder if the sheild went threw the same DeDusting the rover went threw???


Does anyone know a rough distance to the sheild?

It's about 150 metres away

Doug

Do you think the heatshield will look like this:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/genesis/...ov090804-3.html
Or is it less busted up because the parachute slowed it down? Genesis did not deploy the parachute but it still landed subsonic as did the MER heatshield. ...Can't .....wait....

The Etched Terrain is several km south and Victoria Crater even further. This got me thinking, how are they going to navigate across the plains without getting lost? Endurance was visible on the horizon from Eagle Crater and provided a reference point to aim for, but looking at pancam images of the southern horrizon, there isn't anything to be seen of the etched terrain from this distance.

There are a few small craters like Eagle and Fram visible in orbital images, perhaps they will use those as guides.

Can't see this being a problem. They get their bearings each morning using the Sun and they know the travelled distance very accurately. And this is without using any of the methods employed to find Opportunity's initial position in Meridiani Planum.

For the first 700 meters at least there is also the heatshield as a reference point. Remember, the heatshield was already visible from Eagle crater. So if they use Endurance and the heatshield, they should have a pretty good idea of where the rover is.

That's the whole purpose of those 1k shots of the Sun they regularly take -- to determine their orientation and tilt precisely. (The original design called for a deck-mounted camera specifically for this purpose until they realized that they could do it with the Pancams.)

It's also used for atmospheric opacity measurements as well

See here..
http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/anteam/mera/mera.htm

They can also gauge distance travelled etc using innertial navigation - that's the way they generate the little blue squiggly line that you see on some of the SAP screenshots showing driven distance.

ALSO... You can use doppler from MGS and M0 UHF to estimate distance

And local features ( there are quite a few on the way south - eagle-like craters, fram like craters etc etc )

Doug

Today's the big day (hopefully)

Well - UHF passes are typically 4pm local - and it's almost 9 local now - so it'll be 22:00 GMT before the pass - probably midnight before we see the results on the exploratorium

Doug

That will be the first Sunday drive in a long time

I think spirit drove last weekend at some point

They can plan a drive for a sunday - but not for a sat - because you cant schedule IDD or remote work after a drive without knowing where you are

Doug