It seems that we have started down the 'yellow brick road'. This fits nicely with the first leg that Rui and other have spoken about in the Drive analysis thread.
Hi ho, southward we go, looking for cobbles and other interesting sights.

Let's see how our friend handles this terrain.
Today is planned to be yet another driving sol:

01697::p0713::03::6::0::0::6::0::12::navcam_3x1_az_198_3_bpp
01697::p1211::03::2::0::0::2::0::4::ultimate_front_haz_1_bpp_pri_15
01697::p1311::07::2::0::0::2::0::4::rear_haz_ultimate_1_bpp_crit15
01697::p2376::19::12::4::0::8::2::26::pancam_drive_direction_4cx1r_L2R12

Would our resident route prognosticator (ping ustrax) like to hazard a guess as to the planned route based on Steve's latest comments? I was a bit shocked by his comment that the total driving distance would now be around 18 km.

Also, do we have the complete HiRISE picture yet?

Tesheiner, no idea about the distance to cover?

BrianL (let me put my prognosticator gown...), the path I've presented as a possible route for Oppy covers about, in my miserable maths, +-22kms.
Not far from SS's comment, so it does not shock me, it leaves very pleased instead...
My major doubt here is if Oppy will turn east in a different area then the one I have made mention to.

Endeavour is something like 22 km across, so it makes a big difference to our total odometry whether we aim for the closest part of the rim or somewhere else that the science team decides is more interesting. I haven't heard anything detailed yet about what part of Endeavour we're aiming for...

Also there's the crow-flies/actual drive distance ratio to consider. Maybe 18 km is conservative in that respect?

It's a route-driven-vs-crow-flies issue.

Will you say this is ordered trajectory or autonomous?
Click to view attachment

I'm fairly sure that's auto.

That's the last part of sol 1691 drive, so autonav.

I would have said the same intuitively. I don't know if it was the best choice but we can see she had to choose. I wish I'd be a driver to appreciate how good she did.

We've got an SS update...
Man...I wish I could plant this man a Xmas tree in his backyard for the days to come...

According to our Mars' master and commander the fact of making reference to an 18 kms to Endeavour's route doesn't mean that a whole route has been already established.

Regarding my previsized (just made the word now) route and and it's possible resemblances and connections points with Oppy's actual path, SS answered that the team will see about it and that this "doesn't look like a bad route".

Regarding HiRISE images...Another question...is there an idea about when will the images covering the missing ground between Victoria and Endeavour will be made available to the public? Squyres tells us that, he doesn't know, but he advances that "they've been acquired and we're using them, so I don't think it will be long."

And...to wrap this up...just a personal treasure, I've made reference to the fact of what a fantastic feeling it is to see (man! I descend from a navigator!) a reference to Cabo das Agulhas as the departing point from Victoria.
In the e-mail I've sent to our estimeed Commander I've made reference to the fact that my emotions leaded me towards the fact of this naming being able of establishing the perfect image for witnessing Oppy's passage from one ocean to the other...
SS's answer:
"Yes... that's why we chose that name."

All is perfect in wonderland! All is perfect! Let us just follow the road and encourage our brave sailors to find the best of paths!


Of course I couldn't have passed without asking about "my" Spirit which has always been my dearest...what can we expect until Xmas? What's there for our problem child until the three kings arrival?

SS's answer:

"Bumps to change the tilt until there's enough power to drive, and then southward to von Braun and Goddard."

Aiming at 3000 sols each rover that's my wish for this Xmas...

EDITED: Which? Wich wish?

Li Ching-Yuen secrets for a long life, just in case they can help them to reach 3000 sols:

Seems like Spirit has taken these secrets to heart! Nice work, ustrax, getting exclusive news from The Steve. I wonder how many Watt-hrs are needed to get Spirit rolling? 400? Hitting 3000 sols is quite a dream, and I'll be wishing Santa Claus delivers a strong, deck-cleaning wind.

Wow, to see the photo that Climber posted of Oppy crawling through the Meridiani dunes again! This is Mars exactly as we science fiction aficionados (sp?) might have imagined it 50 years ago (I am 60!), to see where the godforsaken Martian winds have clawed the crests of the dunes -- and Oppy for real wending its way among them! Perhaps not unlike the endless waves of the Pacific as Magellan drove across them in, what, 1519?

Ooops, the road is blocked by a "purgatoid" right in front of us.
Click to view attachment

BTW, last drive (sol 1697) was "only" 75m.

If this is because of Autonav, man, we'll make to Endeavour, for sure

Thank you Rui to share this with us. That's gold.

I can see a way on the right from this perspective :
Click to view attachment

BTW, I'm a bit surprised that we did not drive backward for a while

As predicted....
Click to view attachment

Do we go around it, or through it?

It really depends on the sand. If it is firm, we could easily drive over it.
But looking at the HiRise photo, you can see a good path just to the West; around the dune, then angle SSW onto pavement.

Yeah, if you look at my Hi-Res analysis image you can see a nice blue path around the edge.

Well, this is an alleged purgatoid, that has not yet been proven guilty in a court of embedding. I would take this opportunity (snort) to give it a fair trial. Carefully, with all safeguards at max, test the driveability of the surface. At worst, we lose a sol to an aborted drive. At best, we might discover that these pose less of a problem than currently assumed, and that could lead to faster driving in the long run.

I would agree. While it is always best to be careful, I don't believe these dunes are dangerous yet. They are smaller than the region surrounding Purgatory and except for the very crest of the dunes, the the depth of the sand is within a wheel diameter of the bedrock.

Same area in the Laplace edges map:

Click to view attachment

It looks like all the UMSF terrain models did a pretty good job of predicting these dunes. I put a comparison view over here.

Wow ! your words express so *exactly* my thoughts and what makes the fascination of this adventure to me ...

How, for me too, childhood dreams of exploring another planet have become true ... this is not the by now familiar grey craters under the black sky of the moon - But an entierly new world with bizarre red desert landscapes of dunes and steep cliffs, dust devils whirling under salmon colored skies ... all this with us on sightseeing tour ... new vistas that no human being has ever seen before coming in realtime nearly every day !

Science fiction dreams coming true indeed

Can anyone offer a guess as to what this dark, quite linear feature is in recent pancan images?
Click to view attachment
My best guess is it's associated with one of the relatively smooth "rays" radiating from Victoria. But it seems surprisingly narrow and well-defined to me.

Hello,

I'm new to this forum, so perhaps my question has already been answered, but I don't understand what drived the choice of this particular route. From my newbie point of view, by looking at the choosen path, it seems that they try to reach the highest and sandiest dunes. The point where Oppy is now seems to be the nearest "high dunes" zone from the victoria crater. And intuitively (but perhaps am I wrong here), I'm likely to think that the higher and the sandier the dunes, the riskier the run. So why using this sandy and bumpy route, instead of a more direct (and flatter) one to Endeavour ? Are those dunes of scientific interest ?

(sorry for the mistakes and the spelling, french)

Better to ask this in the "yellow brick road to the south" thread.(Mod: Right. Moved posts)
It looks like the choice was between smaller dunes (ripples) with all sand driving and larger ripples with the possibility of stretches of "paved" road. They picked the latter.

Yes, that's the SW corridor.

IMO, and based on the last monthly status report, they are looking for cobbles and the best place to find those are on bedrock. Science wins fast driving.

If I interpret the report correctly, the reason for the intended "cobble study" is parking activity for the coming solar conjunction.
Apart from this the priority is still driving.




Science is more important than driving but the science at Endeavour is probably more important than the science here

So, will there be no new data received for two weeks? Will Oppy do any automated activity?

My guess was that cobbles are perhaps easier to find on sand, since they stand out prominently on the smooth, featureless background. We've certainly seen many on sand before. Maybe they chose to take the current route over bedrock because they want to be on the lookout for any variations in the bedrock over the large distances we'll traverse. Another guess is that driving over bedrock makes it easier to use autonav features, since the surface will have much more contrast than sand.

In the end, I'd say that they have decided that they can make good progress on the bedrock highway, and they don't see the dunes on this route as serious obstacles, otherwise they would have chosen one of the smooth "rays".

While it is true that cobbles can be found anywhere, either on sand or on bedrock, if you are going out to look for cobbles here, it really becomes a question of probabilities. If you consider the likely origins of cobbles, the most likely are primary and secondary meteoritic impactors, perhaps tektites, pieces of indurated material left over from previously eroded overlying rocks (eg, concretions and other cemented or fused materials), and less likely things like dinosaur gastroliths, coproliths, or parts ejected from exploratory spacecrafts which passed by.

As it turns out, the origin of the cobbles doesn't matter, since cobbles are much larger and heavier than the fine sediments in the dunes and ripples that are migrating over the Meridiani surface. As the dunes and ripples migrate with the prevailing winds, any heavy objects that may have once sat on their surfaces will eventually descend to the bedrock and collect with other similar material. Such material tends to concentrate on bedrock surfaces as a lag deposit.

If you want to find an assortment of cobbles in Meridiani, look to the bedrock. I think I see a nice scattering of cobbles in the drive direction pancams which might be worth investigating..

That's also how I interpret the report, they are looking for a target to put the mosbauer on during the solar conjunction (as due to reduced radioactivity any analyzes with the instrument takes a very very long time), and the best place to find cobbles is on the brick road.

This might also indicate that after solar conjunction they will return to smoother area's for faster progress.

I am quite limited in time right now so, in consequence, don't have time to look for the answer...for how long (and starting when) will Oppy be parked? Thanks.

Updated delirium vs reality chart...
Click to view attachment

Ever the optimist - 8/11 to get to that dotted line BRILLIANT

I'd expect a 10-day downtime for conjunction.


D

Last Rover report confirmed that the closer we are to a crater rim, the more wind we can pick up to get a cleaning event.
I'm not sure Porcupine will be deep enough but this is the only place around that could help for.

Come on Doug...that is not what I expect now...it was the arrival day taking in consideration the 20 sols I expected Oppy to cover leg 01...

Sol 1700 is driving day. Expect moving SW again (my 2c).

Click to view attachment

Looking back at our tracks across the pavement:
-> exlporatorium image
It doesn't look too dangerous even directly across the ripples. Advantage of the bedrock pavement and the sparse spacing of the dunes seems that Oppy always has at least one wheel pair on firm ground .... also seems to be more secure to intersect the dunes in an angle rather perpendicular than parallel to it (just the way a ship would fight the waves on the high seas ...

</ armchair_driving_mode off>

What happened?!
Wasn't it supposed to have Oppy parked for several sols?...10 according to Doug?

Solar conjunction doesn't start for a couple of weeks yet!

(Nov. 29-Dec. 15, 2008).

Doug

I knew that...I was just testing you...

EDITED: Oops...forgot to update this...:
Click to view attachment
Thanks Tesheiner!

The latest official Oppy route update has a dashed line that may be a plan/projection/guess as to our future route, following the exposed bedrock towards the SSW.

1700 sols ... wow!

Go Oppy! I'm rooting for 1700 more!

It will be interesting to see what the Mossbauer analysis produces...

We're riding backward by now. I'm a bit surprised we drove about the equivalent of one Vicky full diameter before changing.
BTW, it seams that a duck is coming along with us to get to another crater's Duck's bay
Click to view attachment

Don't assume that just because we're facing one way or the other at the end of a drive, that that is the direction we drove.

Not only do drives often end with a turn-in-place to make the best of any upcomming UHF pass, but drives can often include a switch from one direction to the other mid drive. As an example, the one-sol-record of 219.89 metres included 110m of blind driving backwards, followed by 109m of autonav forwards.


Doug

Good catch, climber... I love this idea, someone could make a comic story from it!

*gasp* In addition to arthritis, Opportunity has caught a severe case of mallarditis!!!