Dust kicked up by rocket exhaust?

Probably because Phoenix's engines blew dust onto it.

yeah, dust definitely seems to have been moved around there and below (in the picture) it.

In the time it took me to hit reply, two of you posted my exact thoughts

Make that three, Doug.

Question: I didn't catch this in yesterday's press conference, when are they planning to take some serious multi-filter scenery shots? I recall them saying they're going to do an opposite view in one filter first, I guess this was it? A related question, does anyone know the typical data volume relayed per Odyssey pass?

A typical MER 128kbps pass is 50 - 80 Megabits. Phoenix would, I imagine, be the same. It'll be interesting to see if they decide to do really good passes at 256kbps (like MER does from time to time). With that big helical UHF antenna, I can't imagine why they wouldn't - 256k passes are usually 90-130 Mbits. (info here - http://mgsw3.jpl.nasa.gov/seq/relay/srpr/0...s00.apgen.notes )

Doug

I haven't seen anything here yet (nor in the press conferences) about this problem with a covering on the arm. From an AP story:

The one snag on the lander occurred when the protective sheath around the trench-digging robotic arm failed to unwrap all the way after touchdown and now covers the arm's elbow joint. Deputy project scientist Deborah Bass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said scientists still planned to move the arm Tuesday, but it could take an extra day to fully stretch it.

NASA lander in OK shape, photo caught Mars landing

Anyone know anything more?

Barry mentioned that the bio barrier might just be folder over the arm at one end, but that it wouldn't be a problem at all, they can just brush past as they deploy.

Doug

It was mentioned in the presser yesterday that the cover didn't fully deploy. It was characterized as an inconvenience and not a show-stopper, and that they had prepared in their sims for situations far worse than this one.

Edit : Beat to it!

no surprise that people say the same thing at the same time, since this thread gets about 1000 views an hour!

Wow! Consensus in 2 minutes!

Here's a graphic showing the Dusty Rock (along with the Rolling Rock). The original mosaic is found here (S_001EDN_POL_SR10D0E_R111M1.jpg)

The red dotted line in the graphic appears to indicate a margin inside of which dust was deposited and scoured, probably by the thruster blast. The blue zone in the graphic is where I would guess dust was just deposited. Beyond the blue zone, it looks like the terrain is unaltered.

Click to view attachment

-Mike

Thanks--could you post the source?

I did a color correction based on the known colors in the Phoenix Logo. It is attached below.

I also made up a couple of 3D images based on the famous landing leg image. The first is a crosseyed stereo image -- stand about 4 feet away from the monitor and cross your eyes to combine the two views. The second is a standard red-blue anaglyph. It is pretty neat to see the mount of dirt that piled up as the leg slid on landing.

Did they sent a B&W Stars & Stripes?

I was wondering too about the Stars and Stripes. I can't imagine it would be B and W.

It's in color, but is rather dark and the raw frames can play tricks in this case - contrast stretching coupled with CCD bias, nonlinear DN curve, etc.

See the brightened and saturated crop:

It's colour, I'm sure, but perhaps it's an un-polished anodized aluminium, thus not too shiny or bright at this illumination.

Doug

Unbelievable information in just one sol, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Phoenix Lander are two amazing spacecraft indeed!
Well done JPL !

I would have not imagine it was not in colors. I mean, we've not got "real" colors scenery yet.

This deck view is in fact the first RGB color set to get transmitted down. For "real" colors you'll have to wait for calibrated imagery.

No, but I can mail it to you, it's Delphi

There seems to be alot of cobble sized rocks. What if the bottoms of some of these rocks are frozen in the ice layer below? Is the arm strong enough to pull a rock free of the ice? (I would image not). Is it a concern that the arm won't be able to get down to the ice beause of the armor of frozen in rocks above?
Do we expet the ice itself to be largely rock free (ie rocks have been expelled by freeze/thaw)?

Some rocks already moved rather easily. It was a surprised to me. One possibility would be that Phoenix landed a bit sideway and moved soil and rocks. That could explain moved rocks, soil in the footplate and scratches in the soil. Just trying to propose another thought on what we see so far.

At touch down - vertical velocity was 2.4m/s - horizontal velocity only 0.1m/s

Looking at these images, it occurs to me that a significant part of the landing site is obscured by the solar panels. Does the RAC have the ability to observe these areas?

I'm not that surprised several small rocks were moved by the thrusters. Remember this is 1/3 Earth gravity and those thrusters undoubtedly pack quite a punch. Not sure of the exhaust velocity, but it's bound to be in excess of a few Machs and that's fast.

I seem to recall mention at a press briefing that once the arm was extended, they would look at the other foot pads.

2,4 m/s give 8,64 km/h which is more than anticipated (I guess it was 5 km/h). Can we say it was a "hard" landing?

5 miles/h was anticipated. Any landing you can walk away from is a soft landing. Obviously, Phoenix can't walk away anywhere, but it still landed softly.

2.4 m/s = 5.37 miles per hour. Advertised landing speed was 5 MPH , not 5 km/h. It's important to keep units straight approaching mars

Ah, once again km vs miles, I misunderstood so the landing speed was perfect in all directions. This drive me confident to skycrane system. Finally the "only" unknown will be to release the lander and not to stop at xxx meters from the ground.

I have a question about the Hi-rise images of all the proposed landing area's of Phoenix, many of them show lots of rocks, how big are the rocks ?
Where Phoenix landed, so far we see only fairly small rocks ( I know they chose it because of the lack of rocks ).

Yes - I think they've mentioned observing the landers soft-underbelly with the RAC - and Mark Lemmon told Emily that they might even use the RAC for DD monitoring as it has quite a wide FOV compared to the SSI.

Doug

Thanks for making that color correction. I posted my version of that image without color correction, but I tried doing it with the American flag as a "calibration target", though that failed. My guess is that the colors on the flag are not very saturated on the spacecraft. Would be nice to have a picture of the DVD from Earth to better "calibrate" the color.

This one could do: http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z213/ef...phoenix_dvd.jpg
As a matter of fact, I based my color on that and also on the "true" false color Phoenix 3-frame mosaic.

Maybe I'm just slow. But I just now noticed the name of the web address displaying the Phoenix photos:

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_527.jpg

I wonder who on the Phoenix team is a Harry Potter fan? Fawkes was the name of Professor Dumbledore's phoenix.

Maybe this time, the nearby rocks and soil targets will be named for Harry Potter characters?

Anyone knows a thing about a microphone on Phoenix?Seems like noone has mentioned it and I'm not sure now that theres one!

It's hard to get out of the MER mindset, isn't it? We see distant hills and want to see them closer. But just wait -- the story isn't "over there" -- it's "down there"!

Any chance they use MER's capability software for this?

no mics..

May 27, Tuesday
2 p.m. EDT - Mar Phoenix Lander Briefing - JPL/Tucson (Public and Media Channels)

I am posting this at 1:50 p.m. EDT


Jack

Great minds work alike. I found myself thinking:

"The terrain is a bit featureless here... It'll be a good thing when we can move to someplace more interesting... Oh wait a minute! That's not an option!"

I think after Phoenix it will be clear to everyone that you either want your lander to have mobility --or-- have the capability of precisely droping a rover next to an immobile lander. The second option might be a smart way to explore Mars:

Drop lots of cheap immobile landers to do an initial reconnaissance (very simple vehicles like the early Soviet Mars landers). If the area looks interesting then drop in a "cheap" rover like MER. If the area looks extremely interesting then drop in a billion dollar class rover or send astronauts.