My updated route map (sol 848).

Click to view attachment

The rough patches are the brackets within the middle and rear wheels that were used to bolt the thing down to the lander deck.

26cm is the wheel diameter I've heard quoted - 81.7cm is thus the diameter

I can make 9 'gaps' between them out until that turning point near the horizon on the left track, so that would be approx 7.4M

Doug

un-needed quote removed

Everything is correct except "81.7cm is thus the diameter" the diameter as longitud.

Rodolfo

DOH - the circumference

Doug

I hadn't previously put a great effort into measuring distances from the imagery, but I had made some rough tests to get a feel for it. These messages suggested to me a test of a combination of methods, and the results seemed worthy of a brief mention.

I measured the distance to a small rock in front of Opportunity in a sol 848 navcam to be 4.2 meters using AlgorimancerPG. I measured the distance to the same rock as visible in a pancam from sol 846 as 23.3 meters, again using AlgorimancerPG, and concluded that the straight line distance between the two points was approximately 19 meters. That result agreed with the number Rodolfo posted.

Then, I went to Doug's lookback measurement using the counted cleat marks back to the last turn, which he measured as 7.4 meters. I realized I could estimate the location of that turn, and measure the distance from the sol 846 location using AlgorimancerPG. The largest error occurs at this step, because I must guess the location of the turn in relation to the much foreshortened location of the 9th cleat mark in a hazcam image. Be that as it may, my estimated distance was 10.2 meters, which, added to 7.4 meters yields 17.6 meters. That's a bit short for an estimate including a turn, but sufficiently close to the straight line distance to make me feel comfortable with such estimates from raw imagery.

This is probably not much of a surprise to those of you who routinely make such estimates, but I was long overdue in going through this drill a bit more rigorously. Perhaps there was a way to do the last part more accurately...

I'll take my chance...But just as far as Beagle for now...

Possible route to Beagle Crater

Tom: Very good analysis and coments!

I have own method which is empirical. I took the best distance-sol made by the official JPL. I measured its distance up to a milimeter to take a reference and again I measured the desired distance in milimeters and compute with the reference to get the results. However, this measurement has minor deviation error specially for short distances. I will try to learn to use the AlgoriancerPG tool.

Rodolfo

An updated route map (sol 849).

Click to view attachment

The Oppy's site must be a bit behind of outcrop, perhaps by 1.5 milimeter. The reasons are two:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...DPP2428L2M1.JPG
The outcrop on the left side is somewhat at south of Oppy.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...DPP2428L2M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...DPP2428L2M1.JPG
Oppy has not yet arrived to stay on the outcrop but somewhat few meters behind.

Rodolfo

I'll wait until all five navcams are downlinked to make a polar projection and better pinpoint the current position. If any change, you'll see them on the next "map release", hopefully tomorrow.



Those pics are from yesterday not today.

This is the current view; at least 40m of rocky terrain ahead.
Click to view attachment

Uh oh. I think I see festoons in the foreground

These are not the festoons we are looking for. You can go about your business.

Brian

Hard to say from this angle, Dan'l. Could be iron pyrite - "Fool's Festoons"
We've seen 'em before.
Looks like the 'ejecta shards' have thinned out a bit. Maybe because we're farther from the rock pile.
Best look again tomorrow.

but also:

<sigh> That it should come to this - layered rock has become merely a distracting feature of a good driving surface...


Shaka, I'm ready to abandon the hypothesis that the scattered stones we saw earlier are outlying ejecta directly from CC. Rockpile droppings it is.

If you shovel them in around your evaporite garden they'll make your hematite blueberries grow larger.

I can see who has been watching too much "Star Wars"

Route map, updated to sol 850.

Click to view attachment

The only trouble is, it takes a billion years!

You might be interested to know that I had just completed my sol 850 route map when you posted yours -- and your map and mine was within a pixel of one another!

Corner crater was 4.64 degrees wide -- which put it at 432 meters distance and the distance moved since last sol was 36 meters ( pancam / navcam parallax measurments ) and the distance to the next major outcrop along the dune trough was 107 meters ( pancam parallax ) and the angular separation between corner crater right edge and a really neat 5 meter tilted crater at 85 meters +/- 15 ( navcam parallax) was 112 degrees...

I don't think I will bother doing an independent map anymore.

Excellent analysis though, keep it up!
I also look forward to your imaging work. Though I have never been on the other forum, what I have seen here is superior quality.

You know Zeke4ther, there is no excuse for you not to have visited The Other forum.

I can understand not participating, but not even to kick the tires and take a test spin?

So... what will it take to get you into a used, low milage Mondeo -- hardly ever on the road except for occasional trips between Mars and Reading with the wife and kids to pay on the £127,000 mortgage?

If you are simply interested in some more color by Horticolor, you can try here.

Good to know that. Sometimes I miss a sort of "double-checking".

>I miss a sort of "double-checking".

I suspect that your routes are checked quite often...

--Bill

The sol 850 drive was the longest yet since getting stuck. This long straight chute Opportunity has been following just keeps going and going. In the last 4-5 drives Opportunity has made it about halfway across this old crater basin and now begins the drive up, toward the opposite side. I think the view from the opposite side should be awesome. With a little luck she could be there by next weekend.

Tesheiner,

I registered today just to post a big THANK YOU for all your efforts over the past 2.5 years -- keeping a sol-ly route map of Opportunity current.

Great Job!

Tom

Sol 851 hazcams are on Exploratorium. It looks like about a 30 meter drive.

Route map, updated to sol 851.

Click to view attachment



Thanks for your kind words, Tom.

... but 2.5 years is too much! I was even unaware of the existence of this great forum.

Those were "the dark ages" when we could wait months to see MER locations update on JPL/NASA/MER site...
Thank you Tesheiner from me too....

Next week, Oppy will slow down the transverse due to restricted sols. The source of the information is from Mars' JPL.

Next week the rover will be on restricted sols, meaning the end-of-sol data from the rover does not get to Earth until late in the day, so the team plans every other day without it. The plan will be for Opportunity to drive every other day. On the days off, the team will plan light remote sensing and downlink some of the unsent data that is building up in memory.

Rodolfo

The part of the report I find interesting is this:

Sol 846: After little progress in two adjacent troughs, Opportunity moved one more trough to the west. Slip checks were used to prevent driving with over 40 percent slip. The soil was relatively firm, and the rover made 9 meters (30 feet) of progress.

Sol 847: Opportunity conducted atmospheric science and took rear-looking images with its navigation camera.

This was the point at which I thought perhaps they were on the verge of another embedding and they did indeed make a course correction. The hazcam shots hinted at a bit of a mess when they did this, and I have been waiting to see the rear navcam shots of this area. The report seems to indicate those pictures were taken on sol 847, but they have not yet appeared on either JPL or exploratorium sites. I would like to know more about how they managed a turn and drive so quickly in an area that was causing them slippage problems.

Brian

Is it realistic that with the restricted Sols and the upcoming soft terrain that Opportunity will get to the edge of this old crater next week? Are we expecting that the terrain after that will be more rigid?

I am neither sure about the advance type of surface since the MOC does not show good resolution pictures. Surely, MERB is approaching a large pool of outcrop which will help it to transverse climbing small crests of sand toward East until the point in which MERB will go straight southward to CC.

Rodolfo

An updated route map (sol 853)

Click to view attachment

From the Sol 853, Oppy is about 306 368 meters from the north rim Corner Crater.

Rodolfo

Re-edited on distance correction.

[quote name='RNeuhaus' date='Jun 19 2006, 04:21 AM' post='58881']
From the Sol 853, Oppy is about 306 meters from the north rim Corner Crater.
Rodolfo

Using last week speed as a reference and assuming there is 2.5 the distance AND 10 days of restricted sols we'll need another 20 sols to get to Beagle! Bigre...

This is the latest version of my Opportunity map, just from Erebus to Beagle. The 100 m grid distances are counted from the landing site. They are only approximate. Each big square is 500 m across and will eventually be a separate illustration.

I'll be in the UK for the next three weeks with only very limited access to UMSF, but I hope we'll reach a conclusion about the location of the beacon during that time.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Thanks for sharing your excellent maps, Phil -- duly blogged!
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000611/

--Emily

Nice map, Phil.

I used to think "ahh - HiRISE imagery will make doing route maps much better, I'm looking forward to it", now instead I think "ahh - HiRISE imagery will make Phils route maps much better, I'm looking forward to them"



Doug

Gorgeous map Phil, as usual. One of the reasons I love seeing all these maps is reading the names of the features that now seem to flash by as we head south... can't recall anyone ever mentioning the "Vermillion Cliffs" before? Did we see those on any images? Can anyone point me to them if we did.

Vermillion Cliffs... beautiful, just beautiful... What a planet we're exploring here... what an amazing world we're going to make of it some day...

Thanks for the phantastic map, Phil! Which program do you use to compile it?

Btw.: How do you spell "Vermilion/Vermillion Cliffs"? Cause on the web I most often found the "double l" version. What is correct?

Michael

the name Vermillion Cliffs comes from:

http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/archive/2005_09.html

and my spelling would appear to be a typo! I'll fix it.

I use Photoshop for everything. I would wash my socks with it if I could.

Phil