Paolo, Thanks a lot for all your prompt and informative answers to our questions !

Yeah, this is what worries me ... not just the wheels, but the longer Oppy takes to get to Endeavour, the more likely it is some other critical thing will break.

How is the decision made about risk of losing the RF wheel vs. how much losing the RF wheel would damage the mission vs. other potential breakdowns from waiting longer?

A chance (planned?) shot from the micro-imager looking into Oppy's wheel.
Click to view attachment

Scott's idea. This is the LF wheel.

Paolo

There're some shots of Endeavor on the latest downlink. The most detailed up to date.
01881::p2568::22::3::3::0::0::1::7::pancam_endeavor_rim_1_L257
01881::p2569::22::3::3::0::0::1::7::pancam_endeavor_rim_2_L257
01881::p2570::22::3::3::0::0::1::7::pancam_endeavor_rim_3_L257

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2568L5M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2569L5M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2570L5M1.JPG

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Looking for a rock or something stuck in the hub? Is there a once-a-wheel-rev periodicity in the excess current draw?

Just a quick one for perspective:

No this was purely to verify we can image the inside of the wheel well. It is a reference image in case we have a problem later on. I'm not sure, but I believe we will image the right wheel as well.

Paolo

Thanks for that image Mhoward

It really brings home just how HUGE Endeavor crater is!

I think the bit on the far right may actually be Iazu Crater. But still.

I've been waiting for pancam views of the north and far rims! These views show us more of these parts of the rim than we've seen before (we're a bit higher relative to the horizon), but the atmospheric clarity is still far worse than around sol 950 when we imaged Endeavour from Victoria. We may have to wait for winter to get good clarity again.

I've been waiting because the current view of the north rim gives us an excellent long baseline to compare with the sol 950 view. The north rim is close to 20 km away. We are just over 3 km from our sol 950 location, with movement close to orthogonal to the line of sight. I've made a long-baseline anaglyph (the longest baseline I've ever done!) and we can see real 3D structure in the rim. Here's a standard anaglyph, followed by a 2x vertical stretch version, and finally a flicker gif (the different horizon heights between the images may be distracting in the anaglyph versions):
Click to view attachment
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The anaglyphs are aligned on the leftmost peak, and you can see that the rightmost peak is farther away, as you'd expect for the geometry of the north rim. (Both frames are pancam, presented at 100% scale.)

I moved the MI self portrait stuff here : http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5996
With her arm being more arthritic that Spirit's - I didn't think it very polite to leave it in an Opportunity thread .

Sol 1884: There was a "bump" to a new site about 5m away. Another science stop?

Looks like a big cobble called "Kasos," presumably after the Greek island Kasos. Nice drive.

Very cool. Nicely done Are long baseline pics of the west rim (where Oppy's heading) available? Being closer, I would expect to be able to see a bit more detail. I tried doing something similar around the time of arrival at Victoria, but wasn't able tease-out more than "those things are farther away than the foreground"

Location of "Kasos", from a sol 1874 navcam image:

Click to view attachment

Thanks! The west rim wasn't imaged well until just recently. It was visible from Victoria, but only just: you can see it barely peeking over the horizon in this pancam view:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...CNP2386R1M1.JPG
So I don't think we can get much of a long-baseline view of the west rim yet. After we move another couple of km south we should be able to put together a nice anaglyph.

"Kasos" does not appear to be a meteorite in the latest MI views:

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...E0P2996M2M1.JPG

"Kasos" looks like typical Meridianni bedrock stuffed full of blueberries. I wonder if there is now any point in using the IDD "Kasos". I think that Geologists normally like to sample bedrock in context and in situ. Perhaps the pavement adjacent to "Kasos" would make a better IDD target? Of course I suppose that it is possible that "Kasos" originated from deep within Endurance crater and so is a sample of a completely different level within the stack of Meridiani sediments.

EDIT: Here is a useful link I was sent, which reminded me how to check the dates from the rover image file names:

http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/html/filenames_ltst.htm

That's not Kasos - that's old data getting downlinked. That image was taken Mid-March.

I thought I'd have another go at the MI shot that Oppy took of her LF wheel using a neat bit of deconvolution software for CS2.
Just starting to learn how to tweak it, but the first result is interesting and I think that there's a lot more to pull out from it.
Click to view attachment
Original left, deconvoluted right.

This has been reduced in scale a bit for file size convenience and I've yet to play with the shadows part of the new plug-in.
It will be interesting to see the results achieveable if Spirit takes any shots looking under the WEB using her MI.

Q: what about the RF wheel current during the drive on sol 1884?

I have been told they are back to normal.

Paolo

Extremely good news!!!!!

I've seen some "drive direction" pancam shots on the last downlink so preparation for the next drive (a looong one, I hope) should be ongoing.
However, I see that the mossbauer is being (or will be) used too and given its current integration times, it means we should be parked at this spot not only during the weekend. Let's see.

Here a Panorama from Opportunity by Kasos on Sol 1886:

Click to view attachment

Thank you dear SpiritOppy...

It appears that the MIs of Kasos have come down. The pancam IR filters have shown its mineralogy to be quite different from that of the native bedrock. In the MIs, it appears to be a coarsely-grained, crystalline rock. I wish it was a large enough cobble to grind with the RAT. Might it be brecciated?

It may well be my faulty memory, but "Kasos" seems like something new? Here's a crude 4-image MI mosaic.

A bit late - not much spare time being a parent to a three month old! - but here are the colour (R21) drive direction mosaics from a couple of weeks back.





Unfortunately the recent drive direction pans haven't been taken with multiple filters so no colour I'm afraid.

"Kasos" is kind of shiny; fusion crust? Stony meteorite?

Stony Meteorite gets my vote - certainly unusual in a Bounce Rock / Heatshield Rock / Doesn't look like it belongs here sort of way.

As much as it's great to make progress on the journey, I am very happy to see these opportunities for good science on the way!

Could the score now be tied at Iron 1, Stony 1?

I have to agree with Nprev and the Doug re meteoric origin of "Kasos"; one can almost imagine that the leading edge is a little more fused than the surrounding material. So -- re one of my posts in the thread "Earthlike Mars" -- if meteorites are not infrequent on the dune-covered surface of Meridiani, could they be "really" frequent on the surface of the northern basin, which is perhaps a vast ice sheet covered with a relatively thin layer of dust?

If Kasos is too small to RAT, maybe just driving over it might mess it up enough for follow-up analysis...or at least rotate it to show if indeed there is a fracture face, as opposed to a fusion crust face.

Onwards....
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=6022