The pancam's quite different from the micro-imager optically speaking, but I think the depth of focus is short enough that Oppy could park right next to the west Verde cliff-face and get a sort of "half-way house". The rock surfaces would be closer to the lens than even the ground right next to the wheels - perhaps even as close as it is to the deck, and at that range very small details are resolved, of the order of a millimetre, at a guess? Not a substitute for the MI, but perhaps a consolation prize. The mast cams have never been able to look rock layers "straight in the eye" before, after all.

The answer has, obviously, 6 letters: Ithaca!

I admire your persistence, my friend, but I fear the chance of that happening is about equal to the chance of a rain-soaked Keira Knightley ringing my doorbell in the next 5 minutes, telling me her car has broken down and would I mind awfully if she crashed on my sofa for the evening...

For a little diversion from Oppy's predicament, compare these two rear hazcams, taken on sols 1502 and 1511:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...ABP1314R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...AHP1314R0M1.JPG
There's clear signs of movement in the dust around the rock in the lower left. Also the rover tracks have become lighter (notice that the lighting is very similar between the frames based on the shadows and times of day).

It looks like we've had some significant wind come through here - perhaps funneled by the bay? It certainly wouldn't hurt to clean the arrays a bit and reach even higher power levels.

It is clear from the photos that light coloured dust is being deposited. You clean sweepers...

Brian

Look at the little pile of black dust right up by the elbow joint of the IDD ( FHAZ, Left camera ) It's getting blown away.

Doug

IF the shoulder joint can't be moved anymore I still believe there are attractive and accessible sites to "sniff" with the IDD at/near the wall of Cape Verde.
The wall itself would be definitely out of reach but what about the layering that can be barely seen at the ground, right below the wall? That is actually (imo) a continuation of the wall.
Click to view attachment

Let alone point the pancam into the "blast".

Andy G

I (also)admire your persistence, my friend, regarding Keira Knightley...

Slight movement in the arm on sol 1516. Compare these two frames:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...AHP1158L0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...AHP1158L0M1.JPG
This movement is not in the joint that has stalled, right? I thought the stalled joint was the adjacent joint that rotates about a vertical axis.

Right. The problem joint is the one that swings the arm 'out', not the one moving here.

An update at the martian chronicles blog.

One statement that surprized me:
Also this:

(Stu puts on his 'Pretty Pictures Aren't Evil!" tin helmet...)

Would Oppy becoming a "Martian tourist" be such a bad thing? I can't help thinking that there could be a lot of great imagery possible if she was given free rein - sorry, if her controllers were! - to just wander around snapping away and not have to worry about doing hard science, saving her energy for taking outstanding "pretty pictures". I know, I know, she's more than just a roving camera, and the loss of the arm instrumentation would be awful from a scientific point of view, but if it's unavoidable then we have to make lemons out of lemonade, don't we? We have to face the fact that she's wearing out, and that her sols are numbered, even if her demise isn't imminent. Soooo, what do we do with the time she has left?

I just find it tantalising to imagine what would happen if people with an artistic eye - like Jim Bell - could take time planning how, when and where to take pictures especially for their Outreach and PR impact, pictures that would be so beautiful, so striking (and we can all imagine them, I'm sure) they would be guaranteed to make the front pages of the newspapers, be picked up by the TV news, and enter the public arena as images that were more artistic than scientific.

Think how many people were turned on to astronomy after seeing the Hubble "Pillars of Creation" image and, a generation or more before that, the Apollo "Earthrise" picture... Now think how many people would be inspired to find out more about Mars, and the universe, after opening their newspaper and seeing an images of a dramatic sunset over Victoria Crater... how many people who wouldn't normally give a second thought to Mars, or astronomy, would be inspired by Ansell Adams-type photographs of the rocks and dust dunes on Victoria's floor casting long shadows as dawn breaks over Meridiani... ?

Not saying "Give up on Oppy". Far from it. Just saying that even without the arm her remaining sols on Mars could be very productive... just not in the way originally planned.

I love the pictures too, but I have to ask: if it can't do any more science, does it really justify the cost? We complain about the shuttle and space station because they don't do science; we need to be consistent.

--Greg

I'd argue that the multi spectral abilities of Pancam, sky obs, albedo obs, atmospheric obs, as well as whatever geology it can observe, more than justify <$1m / month. The in-situ life-testing of every component as well, is worth it.

Comparisons with ISS/STS = argument we don't have at UMSF.


Doug

Taking SS words highlighted by fredk and also Stu's references to "Outreach and PR", I would say that Opportunity would become the first PR representative at another planet.

Now, seriously, my feeling is that we are on the last mission extension for the MER.

Side note: The monthly report from the planetary society should be online today or tomorrow.

The pictures are full of good science. There's no need to feel bad about only taking pictures, if they are of new places. Every outcrop has the potential to be slightly different.

Phil

If the IDD is inoperable (and I hope this is not the case) one potential use of the rover (once Victoria has been 'done') would be to drive hell for leather in a SE direction towards that big crater on the horizon.

Can I give you a hug?

We have a rover with two main characteristics, to do good science and to roll.
If the first may be compromised let's take the advantage we can from the second and know and document, a la japonese tourist, the most we can.

I know, I know, utopia...
but Ithaca is the way...

I'll say again. I think they should loop back to the North by going East around the Erebus dune region and back up onto the nice flat tarmac. North of Endurance Crater there there are fresh craters worth inspecting with the visual tools still available.

I dunno, Dan; if the IDD's indeed gone, then that might change the equation a bit. (I'd personally like to see every cobble we can VERY up-close & personal, but losing the arm would make that a lot less feasible.)

If we're down to good driving capability and the main cams, then I say strike out for parts unknown to survey the area to the greatest degree possible; might be time to go for quantity instead of quality. Your idea makes sense, but I hate to even sort of backtrack for some weird reason (can't even specify it!)...subjective as hell, for sure.

How are you about asking for directions? :-)

Seriously, I'd be happy to be told that the rovers are worth it scientifically just for the pictures alone; as someone else put it, there's something that just feels really wrong about shutting down a working space probe. Even so, sometimes feelings aren't correct.

I think Tersheiner has put his finger on it, though; the next mission extension request will be the place where someone has to actually justify the claim that the rovers are worth it for the pictures alone. If that's the case, though, maybe they really do need to take Stu's suggestion and put an artist in charge. :-)

--Greg

Terrible! ...which probably explains it all.

Interesting discussion this...

I don't think anyone's actually suggesting that all Oppy science should be abandoned in favour of turning her into an expensive DSLR. As Doug rightly pointed out there's still a lot of visual science that can be done with and through her cameras. But we are where we are, the arm is an issue, it might be lost, and those martian dust grains of time are slowly but relentlessly hissing through the hourglass, so we have to start asking some questions, making some choices, and thinking of the endgame. As much as we like to kid ourselves, neither rover is immortal, and across the gulf of US politics people are regarding the rovers' budgets with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, drawing their plans against them. So there’s no reason why - if those arm instruments are offline, and if some planning time becomes available - an effort couldn't be made to take, not every day but when the chance arose, purely beautiful or artistic images.

I’m not suggesting Oppy spends ALL its remaining time gawking or wandering backwards and forwards, holding up a paintbrush and squinting like a motorised Matisse, just that there would be an - ahem - opportunity to use her as a more artistic instument.

I suppose I'm just saying let’s not close our minds to any ideas that don’t have “SCIENCE” stamped on them in big bold letters. "Pretty pictures" has become a bit of a derogatory term, I know, but never underestimate the power of a beautiful or just a striking picture. When I give a public Outreach talk about Mars I don’t show them Powerpoint slides showing graphs of its atmospheric constituents, or charts of the composition of its soil, as informative as those might be. No. I show them sweeping panoramas of the interior of Victoria Crater, or the view from the top of Husband Hill. They make people sit forwards in their seats, I see them mouthing "Wow..." in the darkness. That's not a bad thing.

Stu, you sure do talk 'perdy!

I agree 100%

Astro0

I agree with Stu, science is good, but so are simple pictures of an entirely different world. Almost all of us use our eyes every waking moment, and so.. NASA can focus more on the eyes. The dead/mostly dead arm could even be a boon.. wait and see. And of course, 'simple pictures' aren't devoid of science......

We could use Oppy as a learning laboratory station for the next generation of rover drivers. Invite promising university students, even high school students, to be a "rover driver for a day", working with someone from the MER teams to plan routes and uplink commands. JPL staff would stay in complete control, but you might not need the full complement of staff that you would if JPL alone were responsible for planning. Have the universities pony up some $$$ for the privilege of participating!

There are any number of types of extended missions you can design for an Oppy whose IDD is no longer available. Some of them might cost less than others.

For example, I draw y'all's attention to the fact that the MERs are capable of autonavigation. One extended mission I can imagine would have us programming Oppy to drive for five days, taking a Navcam pan at every daily stop, and dumping the Navcams and all the engineering data for the past five days at the end of the fifth day. The MER team then analyzes the data for problems (sand traps, failed wheels, etc.) and, if there are no engineering issues to address, decide if they want to spend some time on Pancam shots of interesting items, and make appropriate changes to the upcoming standardized five-day program. I figure they can do a decent job of that, most times, in 2 days or so.

If there's a serious hardware issue on such an extended mission, you're probably looking at end-of-mission or once-a-month-check-in-stationary-rover mission, so you wouldn't run the risk (or expense) of working tons of hours and spending tons of Mars Yard time trying to work around a major glitch.

Seems like that would save some money -- especially the concept of standardizing a five-day driving program that Oppy could execute without supervision. You build it with easy-to-change parameters for things like daily heading and such, so you can adjust your route as you go along.

Granted, you do face the possibility of Oppy running into trouble while no one is looking. But you're only going to ever be, at the most, five days late in seeing a problem develop, and you simply program Oppy to safe herself if something really serious happens.

You'd still need a driving team and a science team, of course, but many of them would be working part-time on Oppy, the rest of their time could be charged to other programs. And you'd cut the number of DSN sessions down by a half, probably, attacking the extended mission costs at their most expensive spot.

The whole idea would be to move as far as possible, and see as many different aspects of the terrain as possible, documenting the scene every 20 to 100 meters. I can think of a time when you could argue strenuously for the value of a Mars rover that *only* did that!

-the other Doug

There is much science that a rover can accomplish without its shoulder motor. In fact, there is much science that a rover can perform without any of the IDD motors. We don't need to debate all the details at this time.

Even if the arm becomes completely unuseable, the "rover handlers" are unlikely to become simple tourists or artists. As long as a mobile and data-transmitting robot like Opportunity is operational on another planet, I doubt it would be denied a mission extension that could return real-time scientific data and engineering data about the machine's viability.

Ryan has posted another update on Martian Chronicles:



Not a surprise in my opinion, I was surprised it ever was an option. What was the point of making sure the arm was un-stowed after each drive for YEARS to keep it available if the joint failed and then deciding that you'd rather have it stowed anyway when it did fail!

James

Why do I have an image in my head now of Oppy rolling along quietly, cameras turning nervously this way and that, hooting and piping forlornly, looking for all the world like poor R2D2 creeping all alone through that canyon on Tatooine...

Looks like we've got a new picture of Earth in the sky above Meridiani...

Click to view attachment

Colourised close-up...

Click to view attachment

That frame was taken at 4:15pm local time, a tad early to be seeing planets in the sky...

Looks like a good match to me with the STARRY NIGHT sim tho. What are they then? Dust specks?

Could very well be camera noise etc. 4:15pm local is getting quite close to dusk. Do you know if those images are even in the right direction?

I did wonder about camera noise, but the same specks seem visible to me on quite a few of the pancam shots of this view, thru different filters, so I thought... Oh well, maybe I got this wrong, sorry everyone. Just looked like a good match to me.

That'll teach me to get all enthusiastic about "pretty pictures"...

I wouldn't necessarily rule it out yet. In late afternoons on this planet I have definitely observed Mars and Jupiter. My intuitive guess would be that both Jupiter and Earth have lower apparent magnitudes on Mars than Jupiter and Mars do from here.

The two bright and big specks are only visible in a single frame. Also the lower speck is clearly elongated, making it a lot more likely to be a cosmic ray hit than a planet.

There are bright single pixels that are visible in almost all of these frames, which do stay in the same position. I think these are hot pixels in the right hand side CCD, made more obvious by the long exposure times required in late afteroon.

The images are to the east, but east-southeast not east-northeast. Also, the same bright points are nowhere to be seen either three minutes before or three minutes after in the series of flatfield images. Sorry.

Oh well, thanks for setting me straight guys. We live in hope...

I know, it's a detail only but they get mixed on Oppy Odo updates :
As of sol 1497 (April 9, 2008), Opportunity's total odometry was 11,689.21 meters (7.26 miles).
As of sol 1502 (April 15, 2008), Opportunity's total odometry was 11,691.49 meters (7.26 miles).
As of sol 1510 (April 10, 2008), Opportunity's total odometry was 11,689.53 meters (7.26 miles).

Probably a case of commanded odometry crossing over actual progress made.

Doug

full inline quote removed.


No contradiction if the Earth dates (in parentheses) are assumed to be the accurate ones.

From the latest updates:

And I'm not sure what to make of this comment:

Indeed, that surprised me too. I can only imagine that we have some kind of break that is closed by the thermal expansion of the wire during the day.

Sounds quite promising that they may get some movement out of the joint after all, something I really didn't think was likely. A good news update, especially with a bit of dust cleaning as well!

The same report says:

After completing a battery of diagnostic tests, engineers planned to attempt to move Opportunity's shoulder azimuth joint, also known as Joint 1, during the coming week.

That would be this week. I've seen some sequences, which are probably related with this attempt, planned for sols 1528, 1529, and 1530.
However, after checking the pictures downlinked and available at the exploratorium no movement at all is visible. Pictures from sol 1530 (today) are not yet available. Let's see what happens...

Before
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...AHP1157L0M1.JPG
After
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...AHP1157L0M1.JPG

You beat me, Peter.

Arm deployed!!

Click to view attachment

How the troublesome joint is involved there? Isn't it commending side movement?
By any mean, there's progress there.
Probably somebody informed Oppy to stay on the news instead of waiting for Phoenix landing unoccuped.

The only motor needed to move from where it was to where it is - is the one that's had the trouble.

If you look at the image sequence, not only did is succesfully drive the arm out, they also then moved it a tiny bit back, and then out again.

Doug