Heatshield AHOY!

:-)

What a mess!

Wow - lots of chunks

I think somebody flushed the toilet on Opportunity - we're getting a LOT of pancam imagery from Sol 114. Imagery that was taken in MAY!!!

I guess being out of the crater really opens up the UHF passes for a full horizon to horizon pass every time - 15 minutes of 256kbits (190Mbits+ ) - instead of just the top 120 degrees or so when you're in a crater

Doug

From the long range images of it - it didnt seem to "look" too badly damaged, now were seeing it up close it looks much worse lol. And that must have been a looooooooong drive on sol 324.

There you go ladies

I've labelled the big bits so we can sing from the same song sheet. I'd suspect that they'd like to look at A for the science of the imapct, and almost certainly E because it'll be a nice piece of heatsheild detached from the danger zone near C and D

I think C/D will be avoided like the plague - too much chance for danger - but when we get the R navcam frame for the middle of that mosaic - I think we'll see that B is 5 - 10m further away than C/D. If they're happy to look at B -then I think we'll see A - B - then possibly E - or just leave after B. But - like the Parachute and backshell - C/D has too much potential to hurt the rover - it's got to be 2m tall

For scale - from A to E is about 38 metres - and Eagle Crater was about the size of the gap between B and E
Doug

Could the object you labeled C in your picture actually be a rock?

This is one mangled piece of metal. When I look at a picture of the original heatshield I can't say that I recognize any piece we see here... Can someone identify the part(s)? And Doug, I think Sunspot is right. Chunks C and E look like rocks.

Now where did that BIG trench go

How can it be bended and folded like that without digging a deeper hole in the ground?

Did it land on a rock on the ground perhaps?

Here's the pancam image of the hole :

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...75P2357L7M1.JPG

It's probably deeper than it looks, we're not close enough to get a look at it

So it jumped out of the impact hole and did not make a "genesis" impact

Well then the hole is free to study, great

When I was refering to C and D - I meant the two parts of that central lump which pancam has resolved into being one lump. I'm shifting the naming of D to be whatever piece of heatsheilf is behind C - and keeping it upright.

That piece way out at E really is a bit of heatsheilf. Colour images show that -



Apart from, you know, LOADS of bits of heatshielf - we can see three springs that pushed the heatsheild away from the backshell as well. There's three more out there somewhere

BIG picture





In there is a tiny pic of one of those brackets that held the springs pre launch

Doug

It'd make a LOT of sense to approach that rock - it's a nice size for IDD work.

Park there - and IDD the rock whilst Pancaming the heatshield

Doug

These rocks seem to attract Crap from Outer Space.

As you all remember, Oppy just about hit a similar rock just before bouncing into the Eagle
crater. And we haven't seen one like it for hundreds of metres.

I think it might be two springs over by B - so that's four - and possilbly one just to the left of impact crater A

Doug

Maybe the rocks are magenetic? It is odd.

This is a far out idea, but what if the rock was actually ejected from the impact site. There don't seem to be any marks in the sand that would indicate that, but maybe they've been covered up in the months it took Oppy to get out here. Just a thought.

Why am I reminded of Beagle 2 when I look at these pictures?!!

James

No - I think that rock lived there -it's got a slight upwind highlight to the soil around it which is a slow forming feature I'd imagine.

there are other bits and peices ejected out from around there- but I dont think that's one.

And HELL yeah - I want to see what B2 looks like

Doug

Great picture Doug. My guess, based on how bent up this heatshield is, is that the thing came down sideways so there might be quite a deep hole it made there.

Great pics! Christmas is early this year!

Tom

'technically' - I've got what I asked for for my Birthday - a colour mosaic of the heatshield - but I was expecting more YOU'VE GOT 6 HRS ROVER DRIVERS. I TURN 26 ON THE 23RD.



Doug

Now I know what the Mars Polar Lander looks like.

Happy birthday to Doug.......

That image of the heat shield is another candidate for your book, Doug. It's like an image from star Wars, only for real!

I hope your birhday wishes come true. Have a good one.

It's still time! Hope, you get what you want!

I turn 36 in January, and I'm hoping Huygens will make my day! (Actually it's not the same day.)

Last year I was hoping for a good christmas present vom Beagle-2 (never arrived, you know ) and a good birthday present from MER ... I got SO MUCH for my birthday and the year after!

Tom

Great 3d heatshield pic from Marsunearthed.com:
3D Heatshield Picture

Hmm - those ones done without any TLC just dont work for me at all. I dont get much perception if any with that.


..some time passes...


THAT'S better




Doug

Your work is superb. Thank you Doug.

It would be interesting to compare the amount of accumulated dust to that on the rovers. Too bad it looks wobbly and is a hazard.

Outstanding images...They really allow us to better appreciate the scene.

There's one thing I don't understand from an earlier comment, though. Why would it be so dangerous to closely approach the large piece of the shield? It would seem that they took much greater risks with Opportunity while inside Endurance crater. I would have thought they'd want to get close enough to at least take some MIs of the shield's surface.

Boy, do I agree with you. They seem to have really precise control over positioning of the rovers except on big slopes and in deep sand. They can get as close as they want. It's not like the thing is going to attack them. Now the Martian with the raygun behind it........

Awesome color mosaic - and Happy Birthday!

It really does look as if it impacted sideways, but the fact that it is so bent up suggests it's compressive strength on impact was less than the compressive strength of the surface it encountered.

If this area is anything like what Opportunity has seen elsewhere on the plains, the soil is only a few centimeters thick, at the most. Under the soil is bedrock. I think the weaker heat shield deformed when it landed, absorbing much of the energy, and creating a crater no more than 10-30 cm deep.

This is going to be a pretty interesting site to investigate.

Happy Birthday, Doug!

Tom

Happy Birthday Doug!

In honour of all your outstanding work, I vote we - unofficially! - christen the crater made by the impacting heatshield "Doug's Birthday Crater".

Anyone second that?

Stu

How about 'Doug's Dig' for that trench? Happy Birthday.

My point was - you dont want to go up to it when that mylar might flap around and hit the PMA. Worse -touch it with the IDD and it falls over. It could happen. Quite how a 40kg off piece of heatsheild has ended up on it's end is anyones guess - and it looks quite precarious to me. Especially when there' a nice big bit sat flat on the ground that can do no harm to anyone

Thanks for the Birthday wishes chaps

Doug

(PS - How about 'Dougs Ditch' ? )

Since two of the three craters that Oppy has studied so far (Eagle, Fram, Endurance) began with E, why not simply and elegantly name this crater "Ellison"?

...because then people over here in the UK will think it was named after the ex-Brookside "actress", Jennifer Ellison, who couldn't act her way out of a crisp packet, and is best known for rather, er, revealing photo-shoots in lads mags...

Think we're better off with the word "Doug" in the title.

HAVE A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY, DOUG!!!

What happened here? Bouncing airbags, bouncing heatshields?

The heatshield from a different perspective:

One more navcam picture.

Not much of a hole at all. Oppy could dig something like that with its wheels.

Ahh - see, there's an 'Ellison' Crater on the moon. (really - it's just around the far side - google for it )

Doug

I think we're not seeing much of the hole because of the bedrock so close to the surface. There's probably just a few inches of soil and blueberries, that's pretty much it. The heatshield was fairly light, and when it hit the ground looks like the aluminum foil insert broke away from the rest... Sort of like tossing a pie plate to a concrete covered by a thin layer of sand...

That's a bit different from the Genesis crash, which landed into a fairly soft soil (mud).

Happy birthday to me...



Happy birthday, to me...



Happy birthday dear meeeeeee...



Happy birthday to me



(Went to the a local zoo that is big on Primates - they're great to sit and watch. Somehow, nice though lizards and giraffes and elephants and rhinos are - they dont play to the camera like these guys - that was the best pic I took today )

I got what I wanted A book on Donald Campbell, Jeremy Clarksons new book, a panorama of the heatshield - AND - we went to see the monkeys. Doesnt take much to make this 26 year old happy ;P Just $850M of rover and a couple of monkeys.

Doug

Happy birthday Doug, didn't realize you were such a pup (26? ain't nothin'... )

I was trying to get the 3d's I did up, but from work I don't have any ftp space to access, damn Yahoo pictures is mostly useless...

I disagree with Akuo's assessment that Oppy could dig something similar with its wheels...in the 3d images the crater looks a bit deeper than the wheels. I hope we get a lot of close up shots of the crater.

Anyway, I've got a link to my 3d images, though they aren't much different than the ones Doug posted so you're ok if you pass...

Eric's version of the 3d images of the heatshield

Eric P / MizarKey

Hope you had a nice Birthday Doug

I like this image from the navcam...the small dunes look like snakes heading towards the rim of Endurance.

At least it isn't 850 million dollars worth of monkeys!

Happy Birthday and thanks for all the great pics on this board.

It's been very clear from the start of MER-B's explorations on Meridiani Plain that the plain is a very thin layer of basalt sand mixed with Blueberries, spread over a flat sheet of underlying sedimentary bedrock. What's happening -- as Ray Arvidson predicted in advance from MGS' orbital observations -- is that the sand has blown in from other places and is slowly eroding away the rock layer from the top down, powderizing the soft matrix rock and leaving a residue of Blueberries mixed with the immigrant sand. But of course once the thickness of the sand layer builds up beyond a certain point it stops the erosion process until some of the built-up sand blows back out of Meridiani and the erosion resumes -- so the overlying sand/Blueberry layer will ALWAYS be very thin. (I wonder how many Blueberries are mixed with the sand that's blown all the way through Meridiani and out the downwind side?)

That circular impact mark makes it clear that the heat shield came down flat on the surface and then bounced -- whereas the Genesis capsule, which was wobbling greatly during its fall, apparently came down on one edge.