I think it's time for a new thread.
Opportunity is leaving the area where Kasos and other targets were "sniffed" and imaged, making a 20m drive westwards during sol 1891. Besides, we are reaching the 16km milestone.

Here's a Q&D "post-drive" navcam mosaic.
Click to view attachment

Edited: we are in "restricted sols", right?

Quality and detail?




ONWARDS!

> ONWARDS!

Rui / Ustrax, did you hacked Doug's account?

It will be interesting to see what route they take for the next few km. If they stick with driving on rocky terrain whenever possible they will make a big detour to the south west and still have to get across some nasty looking ripples when they move east. On the other hand if they cut east fairly soon they will avoid the bad ripples but have to cover a long distance without firm bedrock beneath the wheels.

I was doing the same questions since we continued SSW after the first science stop.
Right now, I think the path will be over rocky terrain; still SSW for some 700m and then E / SE another 500m or so. The problem, as you said, is after that.
Click to view attachment

Once this last patch is cleared though, it's clear driving for most of the remainder. That is going to get exciting.

Mmm, no answer so I'll try to do the math by myself...

<speculation mode on>
Images/data from sol 1891 were downlinked around 05:30UTC so very late night at JPL. That data will be waiting the whole night (*) until early morning in California when they will be processed by the MER team during the morning shift.

(*) Meanwhile, we at UMSF are already making mosaics, discussing about the future path, etc.

<speculation mode at maximum>
Data/sequences for the next drive should be ready for uplink after one shift (six hours), around 12:00PDT or so. That will be 04:00 local time @ Meridiani, early enough for the rover's morning uplink session.

So, we are NOT in restricted sols. It's time to

<speculation mode off>

Looks like you're right!

How did you know? *I* did not know that I would be done with the sequence by noon today! And I was the RP2 today!!!

Paolo

Paolo, some of these guys know so much you'll probably have to kill them at some point. Not me, of course. I'm woefully ignorant. Just want to be clear on that.

BTW, will you be able to provide us inside info on how the sandbox testing is proceeding, or is that not for public consumption? Yes, I know, that question should be in the Spirit thread, but I got lazy.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=140816

You know I didn't!
My only source of information on this subject is Scott's blog (Mars and me) about Spirit's early sols. I would be really grateful if you could provide us a brief (or not so brief ) description of what is an usual working day for an RP.

That's a good question. A good description of the uplink process can be found in:

"Working the Martian night shift - the MER surface operations process" by Mishkin, A.H.; Limonadi, D.; Laubach, S.L.; Bass, D.S.

and

"From prime to extended mission : evolution of the MER tactical uplink process (2006)" by Michkin, Andrew H., and Laubach, Sharon.


Paolo

> Sorry for the length of the post ...

What! The lengthy the better, IMO.
I'll need some time to go through it...

---

And back to "back seat driving mode", I've just checked the data to find that today's drive has already finished beind covered 70+ meters. That places the 16km milestone right at the current position (or perhaps a few meters behind).

Here's the latest navcam mosaic looking due south.
Click to view attachment

Finished reading it, and really enjoyed. Many thanks for this detailed description!
A few questions:
- I suppose the beginning of a shift is conditioned to the downlink time, right?
- All this teams, meetings, peer reviews, are duplicated one for each rover? I assume yes.

Yes start of shift depends on downlink time and each rover has its own team that go through the meetings and review process.

Paolo

Thanks Paolo, I found your posts v interesting. It's easy to forget just how amazing and complex all this is. A good reminder of how alert all you guys need to remain and how intricate planning and procedure has to be to make sure things are right and that there is max cross checking to ensure that there are no boo-boos! ..........Even just bumping a couple of metres. There's no "just going for a spin on Mars"!

PS - I seem to remember that Emmenthal has lots of holes in it!!!

Tesheiner: That places the 16km milestone right at the current position...

I like the ground view of your 16km marker.
Click to view attachment

...I knew those labels had to be huge on the ground despite the resolution of HiRISE!

Good laugh

Could someone enhance/zoom the horizon? I can see some bright pixels right there; may be the 17km mark.

good to see her moving towards the goal again

(and glad that the weeks-long-Moessbauer-Integration part apparently must have been skipped this time

Ha ha ha Astro0 Very nice.

I've made a true 16 km milestone

Hmmm.... a milestone with kilometers on it...

Talking of miles, we must be pretty close to the 10 mile post. (Only 93m past 16km, and we did 70 odd of those tosol)

Here is the sol 1892 colour (R21) drive direction mosaic.

And my version

Ooh, that looks far too much like a headstone for my liking.

I'm reminded of this gem from Scott's blog:

This sol we had another 48 meter direct drive, the mid-drive survey and localization remote sensing, and then 47 m of
driving using auto-navigation. The total was 95.2 meters, bringing the mission total to 1830 meters. Nextersol, we
should break one Earth nautical mile, which is 1852 meters. As we drive another kilometer and change to the base of the
hills, we will continue to bring you as many arbitrary numerical achievements as we can come up with.

One or two more drives and we'll be over 10 miles! Go Baby Go!!

Remember, the more Emmenthal you have, the more holes...but the more holes...the less Emmenthal

The holes are where the blueberries have dropped out...

Phil

I got my Phil,
On blueberry hill . . .

That's possibly the funniest post I've read here in a very long time. Classic.

...DEFINITELY a strong contender for the annual Worst Pun on UMSF award!

Well, baby is technically going, but not really in the spirit of the phrase (we'll just ignore that unfortunate choice of words).

Looking at Oppy's history since setting out from the rim of VC, she was pretty steady on 30-35 sols per km for the first three km (if we ignore that pesky conjunction layover that was forced upon her). The last one though took over 70. Obviously, for good reason, losing a wheel would certainly slow that pace even further. And in addition to wheel rests, there were a couple of unfortunate delays that perhaps made for an unusually slow transit.

Paolo, do you think the pace of this past km is indicative of what we will see the rest of the way (barring further mishaps, touch wood), or does Oppy still have a chance at picking things up and reaching Endeavour within your original hoped-for timeframe?

Edit: Sorry, this should go in the discussion thread. Could someone all-powerful move it there for me, please?

Oppy's average rate of travel over 1897 sols = 0.5895 furlongs per fortnight

That sounds about right. I apparently didn't use the same data as you, but it would have been easier to check if Google's calculator, or I, knew the exact length of a Martian sol.

I used martian fortnights, so no conversion of sol to days needed.

ETA: looks like another drive tosol.

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...W1P1311R0M1.JPG

Oppy has passed the 10-mile mark tosol.

http://twitter.com/MarsRovers/status/1924611977

Congrats on the ten miles! (Even though I think we should relegate "miles" to the past...)

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/09052...p-10-miles.html

- Right now I'll be more excited by ten centimeters by Spirit than another mile by Oppy, though...

But that is only 8.7 nautical miles so she still has a way to go.

Keep in mind that the definition of a nautical mile is the great circle distance corresponding to a 1 degree change in latitude. Because Mars is smaller than Earth, the distance will be less.

It's one minute, not one degree - and on Mars, it's JUST under 1km.

I stand corrected.

Clearly, where α is awesome,

Op ≥ 10α

Wondering if those regular 70m drives have something to do with the RF lubrication issue?

I think the answer is yes. From the latest PS update:

However, it is possible to advance two hops of 50 meters each one after a pause of 2-3 hours to cool things?

Probably yes, but in that case the evening communication session would be missed, I'm afraid.

2-3 hours won't do much. Over the Memorial Weekend we had a 4 Sols pause and the RF currents came downa bit just to jump right back at the same level. I think we just have to live with it.

Paolo