We're still 300m from that, so it might be some other nearby feature.

Bill: Unusual drive direction...
alan: Interesting feature about 400 meters to the ENE
EGD: ..and and NOT a depression, in which case it'll be a long time before we go anywhere.
Floyd: ...looks darker and a different texture from the surrounding outcrop.

Okay, I'm a bit slow on the uptake here. You all seem to have some implicit understanding of what's coming up. Change of direction and a possible lengthy stop... it must be good. Are we talking about a dried water feature, possibly an ancient lake or river bed? Perhaps our first encounter with hydrated rocks or clays?

Well, the northwards move on 2381 could mean they want to have a look at that feature. Santa Maria is still a few hundred metres south of us, and to my eye there's no obvious obstacles along a direct ESE route towards Santa Maria.

On the other hand, it may just be that they want to follow the bedrock highway stretching to our ENE for more than a kilometre, before getting onto the flat sand for the final stretch to Santa Maria. Bedrock is easy driving.

What I think I'm seeing is a zigzag contact where the east side is slightly elevated (about the height of the local ripples) exposing the layers. There are a number of other similar appearing features (linear breaks between pavement and dunes) visible in the area linear I've outlined in the attached image. Most of these I suspect the contact has been covered by the ripples. I pointed out the zigzag feature earlier because I thought it was the next target because it and the V-shape to the east of it appear to be the most likely spots to find an exposure that hasn't been covered by the ripples. Don't know what's going on with the mottled area that I've circled, maybe its slightly lower and this has interfered with the formation of the N-S ripples.

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The area circled seems brown compared to normal bedrock in your color image. (alan, you must have flipped or rotated the color image as it is oriented the same as all the black and whites) I'm guessing there is something interesting about the exposed bedrock, but we will see.

Seems the image pipeline is busted somewhere (Exploratorium and JPL sites have not updated in the past few days) but I infer from map updates and other information posted on UMSF that information from Oppy is getting to earth just fine.

Hay Doug, now that you are at JPL, can you give the pipe a kick?

Thanks everyone for the clarification. Looking forward to what we see when we get there.

Quick stitch of drive direction stamps images from 2382.
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I'm wondering where's that thread talking on "You know you're an UMSF hardcore" (or somethink like that)...
I did a similar one some time ago to get this polar view and try to use it to fine tune that sol's position on the route map.
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Data from sol 2383 drive is flowing down. Something like +60m eastward.

In case you missed it, a twitter from Scott 14 hours ago: "No rover driving today: flash is too full; nowhere to store the data we'd generate. Gonna downlink and delete a bunch over the weekend".
Can't remember this occured for a long time.

It's been a long time since they've done autonav. I'll bet that a lot of those data are mid-drive navcam (and some rhazcam) images for autonav purposes. It's been just about two months since they started autonav so maybe those images have piled up.

Looks like we have a likely arrival date:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/scien...2010/07oct_yss/

Does Oppy use less juice rolling downhill, as it is towards Endeavour?

The slope down to Endeavour will still be very subtle (a degree or less on average), so I'd expect the rolling friction to dominate.

I'm surprized anyone gave them a date as specific as "mid 2012", considering how unpredictable these things are...

As Oppy rolls downhill, would she spend some more energy stopping than accelerating? It is in this case so gradual as to not be an issue, but what about steeper slopes or drop-offs? Was that issue covered in the Victoria threads? I'll check!

That must be someone adding 2 and 2 and getting 5, cos surely they can't know an arrival time yet; that will depend on so many variables - how long Oppy stops at Santa Maria, what she finds there, how many other distractions she encounters along the way, how many tech faults crop up, etc etc. I really wish people wouldn't fix dates to these things, there's no point, and I'm surprised someone at NASA has done it. But someone must have given them that date, so...

And although I can't wait to see it, I'm also wondering just how 'marvelous' the view will be across and into the crater once we get there. I mean, it's not a pit, or an abyss ( © ustrax ), is it? The hills on t'other side will look amazing, for sure, but we won't get the same impression of depth as we did at Victoria, will we? It'll be a mega wide-angle view, won't it?

But I suppose it makes sense in the context of the "Year of the Solar System" press release - linking Oppy and Curiosity together like that, a clever move, "the torch being passed" and all that...

It will certainly be impressive, but the sheer size may actually take away from the view!

Think of the really well known features of Mars, you can't possibly see all of Olympus Mons from any one point (except the crater), you'd just have a slightly sloping surface all around you.
Same with Valles Marineris, except at the ends, it's just a big cliff stretching out of view, the other side is so far as to be below the horizon.

How often did Spirit see the rim of Gusev? It depends entirely on the opacity of the atmosphere too.
Or for an Earth example, you never see the whole ocean, just an beach. The scale is incomprehensible on the surface.

I'm welcome to be proven wrong when it comes to Endeavor of course!

I honestly don't care what the view is like when we get there, as long as we get there! For me, it's the views of the farside hills that are going to be exciting; I'm a sucker for that Ansell Adams mountain range stuff, and I think we'll get some stunning pics of the far slope, especially when the low sun casts shadows inside and across that big crater there (which STILL hasn't got a name... bizarre... but not a priority, I know)

Stu, I've been holding onto this news for a long time...they were keeping it all a big surprise for you, and I'm not supposed to tell you or anyone else but since you keep pushing and pushing, and no one else is listening, they're going to call that crater: "Atkinson" Congratulations!!! Now start writing an "Ode to Stu's Faraway Crater"

I've submitted a few suggestions, keeping to the "Ships of Exploration" theme of course, so it'll be interesting to see what they eventually go with.

It's not important, I know, they have a lot higher priorities, I'm just getting frustrated being asked in my talks "What's that crater called?" and not having an answer.

Re Arrival Date.
I thought only Doug moved to JPL. They must have contracted Ustrax also... since he is the only one to KNOW this

Bit late (due to travelling) but here's the Nav Cam view from Sol 2375 (29 Sept 10) - love the challenge of Nav Cams!! If anyone wants to check out the full res 3mg version then you can download it from http://picasaweb.google.com/10220631534056...768508164336818

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Nice! Playing around with it, I came up with these:

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Phil

Not working with Doug...My commuting is longer, takes me out of the Solar System...
http://www.facebook.com/#!/NASAsKeplerMission

And yes, obviously the arrival date is well kept in a safe in a swiss bank along with the meaning of life and the recipe for my chocolate cake...
@Stu...what do you mean no abyss? How deep is T-H-A-T thing? And, just curious here...what names have you suggested for the far wall crater?

Not exactly a 'ship of exploration' I know, but "Mayflower" - the ship that transported the Pligrims to the US in 1620. She dropped anchor off the coast of Cape Cod in Nov 1620 (so if they announced the crater's name in November it would be a nice way of marking the 390th anniversary...)

...or...

"Half Moon" - the ship that "discovered" the future site of New York in September 1609, captained by Henry Hudson.

...or - ahem - my personal favourite...

"Golden Hind" - after Sir Francis Drake's ship, which circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580.

They'll go with something else entirely, I'm sure!

But we really do need to find another meteorite so it can be called "Craggy Island"...

Do you think they will go with a differente theme other than Cook's journey for a name inside Endeavour? I would call it...Elizabeth

Well, the convention on crater naming is to give them names after ships, but no-one has been able to track down the names of any of the rowing boats on the Endeavour, so I don't know what other link to Cook's voyage they can use. But it'll be something fitting, I'm sure; they haven't let us down yet.

Whatever the view from the rim of Endeavour is like, it won't hit us nearly as quickly as at Victoria - the view will be revealed much more gradually. And when we arrive at Cape York, we'll be only around 25 or 30% closer to the far rim than we are now, so the view won't be dramatically more detailed. But of course we'll be able to see the inner part of the far rim which we can't see at all now.

Good points, Fred. I still have high hopes for farside views tho, especially as we'll be able to see lower down the slopes.

Nice time to look back at the journey so far...

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The size of Endeavour is roughly similar to the central part of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles ~13 miles from rim to rim. (overlay image below)

Now the Vally has some spectacular views from the "rims" and on a clear day from the floor of the Valley the mountains do look spectacular (maybe Doug will take a gigapan for us from Van Nuys on a clear day.) However, those mountains above Los Angeles are anywhere from 700 to 4000 feet higher than the center of the San Fernando Valley, whereas Endeavor's rim is gong to be nowhere near that high. So there will likely be some nice views, but nothing breathtaking.

There's a reason I chose that location. I grew up atop that lumpy intrusion at about 11:00 (when I was known as GHD).

I wonder if it's a deliberate decision to try to get there before Curiosity lands, maybe for operational reasons? Or even propaganda purposes - a nice huge pano of Endeavor would make a great lead-in to the landing.

coughahemphyllosilicatescoughahem

What?

Get there ASAP is the charge. Getting to phyllosilicates before MSL is a great motivator

News tweeded by Scott Maxwell about the current data backlog:

Shoot, still not enough data cleared off of Opportunity to permit driving. Working to fix. Will resume Wednesday, it looks like.

(In other news, new images have finally appeared in the Exploratorium)

And there are a couple of bright spots visible in the middle distance which I think are close to where we expect Santa Maria to appear. I didn't expect to see it yet so I won't be surprised if it's not.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...W8P2420R2M1.JPG

Couldn't resist a quick stitch and colour of these pancams from Sol 2383 before work Too addictive!!

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And have to add the 'mighty mountains' - well...... crop of crater rims stretched

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Not exactly where I was expecting but very close - I think this is our best bet yet. Let's keep an eye on it...

Thinking about my golf shot comment, a couple of quick searches eddicated me as follows:

Endeavour is about 22km across, while the average golf course is 6km in length. Gravity on Mars is about a third of its force on Earth, so when we get to the western edge, one might imagine playing a round of Martian golf to get to the ultimate 18th hole!

Would these bright spots along the crater rim be frost? dust? a different rock layer?

Exposed bedrock looks bright like that in L2/R2 (as you can see in the foreground of that same image).

In relating these latest views with the estimated contour map, it seems bang-on-the-money.
Hope some breezes do blow...

Like Doug said, it's all about the phyllosilicates. The plan is not to be an opening act for MSL , the plan is to scoop MSL!

I presume that the flash is now completely filled with rear hazcam images taken for use by the autonav software?

It seems a shame not to download these rear hazcam images because they could be used to create nice driving movies. The dunes are currently perpendicular to the direction of travel, which would give a good sense of movement.

The only recent sol for which all of the rear hazcam images seem to have been downloaded is sol 2358. I wonder if downlink time could be made available to download a few more sol's hazcam movies. I remember long ago when Oppy first landed that many impressive drive movies were created. However, I have not seen any new movies recently.

I understand that Mars and the Earth will be on opposite sides of the solar system early next year and so for two weeks communication with Mars will be impossible? I also understand that Oppy uploads low priority photos when it is given nothing else to do. I wonder if Oppy will upload all of its low priority rear hazcam images to MRO during these two weeks without further intervention?

(Edit: Last paragraph changed to use the correct terminology)

It's not Earth-Mars distance that defines MER downlink budgets. It's the quality of the UHF pass to MRO/MODY which changes from Sol to Sol (a good pass, 150Mbits. a bad pass, <50 )

The reason to downlink those recent ones was to establish, on the ground, if RHAZ would have enough things to look out to start being used for AutoNav again rather than the Maxwell-Shuffle with Navcam.

I notice that neither the sol 2383 rear hazcam nor the navcam images of the ground in Oppy's path have shown up at exploratorium, now there is this from marsroverdriver's twitter:

Yes it IS frustrating but, when they landed they never thought that the usuable sols/ total sols would be so good. Soujourner rate was, what, 2 out of 3?

Poor Scott...he's a thousand times more frustrated than any of us up here in the peanut gallery!

Doh!



Maybe Oppy's having this little delay because Spirit has borrowed her good luck
</wishful thinking>

Couldn't resist the challenge of another Navcam .............from Sol 2382 - 6 Oct 2010. If anyone wants to check out a higher res version go to http://picasaweb.google.com/10220631534056...939131567821730

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Love the shadows of the Pancam. (For Astro0 et al - looks a bit like Ned Kelly hit Mars! I knew we got there first!!??)