Paolo, sorry but I haven't seen your question before, do you mean how am I doing regarding my prediction in terms of time for arrival?
Opportunity is 94 days behind the schedule (if there was no drive tosol), I expected her to reach the end of leg 01 in November but we're still about a hundred meters from reaching that goal, that will put us at Endeavour's shores around...April 14, 2010...
Click to view attachment

James and Phil...Porcupine...Porcupine...Where have I heard that name before?...

If all the terrain model predictions are right, once they bust out into the flats Oppy should just about be able to fly.....

Our route to Endeavour so far has tended to stick to exposed bedrock. Looking at the entire Victoria-Endeavour region, I can see a potentially tasty stretch of bedrock to our south/southwest, which I've circled in my image below. Perhaps the long-term plan is to maximize time spend on bedrock (easier driving, greater chance for interesting science).

I've sketched a potential route below, starting from our current location, that covers lots of bedrock and also allows for a peek into "mini-Endurance" (is that what people are calling it?)
Click to view attachment

no new images for the last four days ...
The latest I found on the JPL page from Sol 1793 shows apparently its backing up from a drift ...



Now I am a bit confused ... anyone any update on Oppy's current situation ?

Sure!
Some data already hit the pancam web and today's drive was a looong one. More than 150m southwards.

yes but that can always change...
Since craters are being named after vessels of exploration, I went to the list from where Porcupine came and, after looking at it, I'm in a mood for...Lightning!

How come you get to name everything? I liked calling it 'mini-Endurance' for two reasons:

1) Looks a bit like Endurance
2) Smaller than Endurance

Personally I think we should avoid using ships for our own informal names to reduce the possibility of there being a conflict between the two. i.e. ending up with same name for different objects.

I could easily see a different crater getting the official name Lightning - and that would get confusing.

I vote for sticking with Mini-Endurance.

I vote for sulking...

New images from both vehicles up on Exp, now.

This shot is particularly good. The landscape has the kind of aesthetic that would be perfect for advertising cars or chocolate or shampoo.

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...J0P0713L0M1.JPG

It makes me want to drink a big bottle of water!

Wow, SFJCody, these are the coolest dunes yet!

Just checked the imaging plan for today and it's driving day too so we are no longer in restricted sols.
There's also a very interesting imaging target planned for tomorrow:

01797::p2409::19::16::16::0::0::1::33::pancam_endeavor_look_R12

Looks like it's time to start with the Phil-O-Stretch on the Horizon with an observation like that

I'm on it... I'll just take off my anti-astigmatism glasses...

Phil

Very good news ! If all goes well, this will be the first fully-devoted-to-driving non-restricted-period since the beginning of the big trek.
In other words, Oppy has now finally reached her "full cruise speed" for the great journey

BTW.: what is the exact duration of restricted/non-restricted periods again ?

Add another 120+ meters to the odometer; that's the result of today's drive. Southwards once again.


I don't know of any equation, but the basic principle to be on non-restricted sols is "you need X working hours (X=6?) on JPL's local time between the downlink time of a given sol and the uplink time of the next one".

Slippage on the last drive?
Latest navcams:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2009-02-11/

I think that's what happens when you do a turn-in-place with a FR wheel that doesn't turn, but still drives.

From the Hazcam Front and Rear images it looks more deliberate than slippage.

Maybe a partial turn in place or a trenching activity to characterise the dunes?

It looks like a turn in place as Doug said...sorry, but from the Weels, Girls and Beer Trilogy I missed the first episode...
Not knowing where Oppy is looking at can the turn have oriented her to get those planned Endeavour pancam images?

Before your last comment I would say the turn was to put the rover in a better attitude for UHF communicacion with Odissey; such manouver was done plenty of times in the past.
BUT now I think it may be to move the LGA out of the FOV while imaging Endeavour.

Nahh - the LGA wouldn't have been in the way of something on the Horizon - I put money on either HGA occlusion, or UHF optimisation

This is a result of a meneuver we call "turn for comm". At some time during the initial part of the day, we get told what is the optimal heading for the UHF pass and if it is not too way off the end of drive heading we try to include commands to turn the rover at that heading. Sometimes it might get quite tricky to sequence a safe meneuver (especially when autonav gets involved), most of the times it is very easy. If the turn for comm is large and the pass allows for more downlink, we include "penultimate" hazcams right before the turn to take a look at the tracks and wheel state. For small turns the field of view of the HAZCAMs is wide enough to cover the end of drive tracks, maybe I would have included at least a RHAZ penultimate on a turn like this one.

The look of the tracks in the FHAZ is a result of the point turn (= turn in place) with the RF wheel steering actuator stuck. This soil seems to be quite firm. If the soil is very soft you get quite a bit of digging. You can get lots of qualitative info from just the Hazcams!

Paolo

Thanks for the explanation Paolo, btw I've answered your question about the comparation between Oppy's progress on my route proposal and the real progress at Meridiani, in the meanwhile there was some progress and Oppy ended, finally, the leg 01 of the journey, so this is the answer that matters...

The first half progress left me quite pleased with the result, only 9 days of difference between the real and the estimated distance covered by Opportunity, the second half was quite different, being Oppy now with 94 days behind the schedule, certainly the Santorini stop has a lot to do with this, how many sols did Oppy spent there? Around 60?...If we exclude those I'm not completely disapointed with my predicted average which was of 100mts/day...
Here's the final map for the first leg:
Click to view attachment
Doug, it's the definitive!

We are clearly behind in the 100m/drive average, but in a few Km we are back on a parking lot type of soil, so I assume that we will be able to do long drives consistently and for many many sols.

Paolo

All. Just stop 1 minute and try to put Paolo's sentence in the 5 years back 2004's context.
These rovers are amazing! (and so are the drivers )

Looking more and more like a parking lot with every drive!

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1312R0M1.JPG

Look at the FHAZ and Navcam and any of those ripples you see can still be a sandtrap. Never let your guard down! When I'm talking parking lot I mean So. Florida like terrain, where the speedbumps are the backs of alligators ;-)

Paolo

Fredk: this will quite challenge Eduardo's ability to find where we are

After all this time, you still doubt the Master's abilities?

Not yet, climber. Not yet.

Off course, once we get to the flat and featureless terrain it will become more complicated to register the navcam mosaics with the map. At that point, the rover's mobility data will be an invaluable asset.

Seriously, thank you for doing that for us. It's adding a whole new dimension to this wonderful road trip.

So you admit it

The rovers shadows look a bit subdued... is there a dust storm?

The images were taken quite late in the day, at 16:20. It may be that.

It's just the dust on the lens ... after five years ...

I wouldn't call those images dust-storm indicative. Very long shadows mean late in the day, mean decreased contrast between shadow and lit surfaces.

Yeah... I've always wondered what the Rovers are really capable of when they are as fully dedicated to driving as they were for prolonged stationary study campaign in the past like at the looong "Olympia" Stay or just recently during "Santorini".

Just imagine what such a 100-or-so Sols stop would mean in equivalents of dedicated driving, even with a moderat 50 meter-per-sols average, such a driving-only period would put us 5 Kilometers further towards our goal

And I'm fully aware that the driving is not an "end in itself" but serves the science in the end. So I'm
always kind of thinking of the Rover's wheels als the ultimate long range science instrument deployment tools ...

So we're done with the hard part? What were we ever worried about!

Here's my map for the whole second leg of the journey...I believe this time I won't be so lucky...
And 8 months seems now a lot of time seing how Oppy is flying...

EDITED: new pancams images are at exploratorium but no sign of Endeavour...

I think the real "parking lot" terrain that Rover Driver mentioned is still some 2 or 3 kilometers away to the south east ...

That is correct. Parking lot=no ripples.

Paolo

They were taken but not downlinked yet except for the thumbnails.

... and no "Anatolia's"

A bit further south from the Sol 1797 position there is a somewhat weird feature.

Click to view attachment

Looks like the dune's are disturbed with (seemingly) very dark sand blown away over the bedrock, or a very long shadow. Area is clearly darker then its surroundings but it doesn't really look like a 'hidden crater' or Anatolia type feature. There are a few more spots around where patches of very dark sand seem to be covering the bedrock just to the lee of some dunes, but this is the most prominent. It these are high dune's, casting a shadow, then it doesn't match up with their 'wavelength' unless they are very steep.

Can't really think what to make of it...

I for one don't think we are on 'parkinglot' material yet, the dunes may be smaller but there are more 'disturbances', especially further south, and some of them might be potential dust-traps.

Regards,

Geert

Doesn't look like there is a drive today, but there is one planned for sol 1800.

As Tesheiner explained in the map thread, Opportunity moved backwards ~10 m and then forwand for a net gain of about 4 m. Must be a good reason for such a drive--but I'm coming up blank--Paolo can you explain? Drive images are down at the Exploratorium.

On 1797 the RF drive currents where high. My take on it was that it is due to wheel soil interaction but other felt different and we canceled the 1798 drive. On 1800 we drove backwards that in the past help redistribute the lubricant, then drove forwards the same way we drove on 1797 and we'll see what the wheel currents look like. At the end of the drive we also did a few steps in a way they match the natural curvature of the RF wheel as another test to see if the currents are back to normal.

Paolo