Seeing the distance covered in the last few sols, I wonder, what is the longest single drive accomplished by Opportunity? Will its new hazard-avoidance software allow it to reach new lengths?

Longest ever was 220 meters not far after a crater called James Caird - Sol 400-and-something

Doug

They could (eg Bottomless Bay to Duck Bay), but SS said in the TPS article to expect more stops as they check out the "flight" software.

thinking way ahead, i wonder if after the dip into duck bay, they might consider sending her fastly and furiously over to Big Crater

The thing I really like is the contours I'll bet somewhere out there there's a nice digital terrain model as well.

That longest drive was on sol 410.

Phil

Phil: Anyone who has a jpeg of your amazing and historic Opportunity route map should know that. I don't leave home without it. Even though a wheel's steering actuator went bad shortly after that drive, I can almost imagine Opportunity challenging that record on the annulus these days, using the new software.
There must be, but we can only hope it might be released or leaked some day. There are a number of ways we might create our own approximation, but none of them are easy. I've seen suggestions of available stereometry software that supposedly can create digital 3D files from stereo pairs, but I haven't found any yet that I can use.

Another option would be to reverse engineer these contour lines into xyz datasets, but I don't have the patience to manually digitize that map. I have been experimenting with an automatic digitizing program from Source Forge called Engauge Digitizer. I've used it in the past to convert images of simple graphs into scaled datasets, but it is having some major problems with this contour map. Perhaps someone else can do better, but I can only get it to recognize some of the contour segments.

If anyone can turn the contour lines into sets of random xyz values, I can easily convert the random points into a regular grid.

Anyway, if one sums up Spirit (7092m as on 04-24) and Oppy (10509 as on 04-24), and add the recent drives, we're now over 17688 meters which is the 11 miles mark

They replayed a Rover program on NASA-TV where they discussed how to jam as much science as possible into the 90-day warranty period. That was more than three years ago!

My latest version of the route map, updated up to sol 1164.
Given the fast pace on the way back to Duck Bay with probably just a few stops in between I decided to hide the "zoom window" until Opportunity is back again at Duck Bay and starts the drive into the crater.

Click to view attachment

Great work on the maps, as always! One suggestion, if I might be so bold. Would it be possible to use different colors for marking the progress and stops for the return journey? It would be a nice enhancement to what is already an excellent piece of work.

When the rover was driving clockwise I hoped --for mapping purposes only!-- the return route would be quick and far from the rim to avoid overlapping. Obviously that's not the case.
Using a different color don't solve the overlap problem so I thought it would be a better solution to make the clockwise leg a bit "transparent".

Here is the map, updated to the last drive on sol 1173.
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I works for me.

Thanks for all your work!

Very nice indeed. Excellent idea, and thanks!

Anybody figured out where we went? I tried but couldn't...

The rover's data tell we are about 64m to the west and 22m to the north of the pre-drive position.
I used a polar projection made from the latest navcams to plot the current position on the map and it's consistent with the rover's autonomous data.

Here is the latest route map, updated to sol 1184.
Note that Opportunity is currently in the vicinity of where she was roughly 100 sols ago!
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Congratulations Pando, you've reached 300.000 viewing!...and to you Eduardo

Here is an updated route map (sol 1187) but don't trust too much on this latest position because it's based only on the rover's own position data. There was no navcam imagery taken after drive so I couldn't double-check the new position. According to that data, Opportunity drove about 86m yestersol and is currently on the vicinity of Cabo Anonimo.

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Updated route map (sol 1188).
The latest images are not so "fancy" but enough to be used as reference to plot Opportunity's current position 35m ESE of the little crater seen on this navcam image.

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Thanks as always, Tesheiner. I like the higher transparancy on the clockwise route in your latest map.

If your 1187 position was based on rover data, could the drive distance have been an overestimate if they were doing the drunken sailor's walk (as it looks from the hazcams)? Could that explain why the 1188 drive looks so much shorter than the 1187 drive?

The 1187 position *was* based on rover autonomous data, but if you check that map (1187) with this latest one you will find a slight adjustment on that position. I did it after finding a few meters (3m) difference between the rover's own distance data for sol 1188 and my own estimation based on the navcams.

Regarding the short drive on sol 1188 my take is that they were testing some new driving technics. The fact that a long drive on sol 1187 didn't end with the usual post-drive nav/pancams but was followed by a shorter move on sol 1188 (this time with the navcam/pancam pics included) makes me think that it is a sort of "test".

For the next sols, bet that we'll be again at Bottomless Bay in one (two as a maximum) more move.

Eh, this is über-amazing. Eduardo's work that is. I was just dabbling with my ouija board.

Here is the latest route map (sol 1191), right from the oven.

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Got to be over 11km now 10791 at 1177 - a good 200m+ since then.

Doug

Sure it is, taking into account those 11km are not "net driving distance" but "odometer".
For instance, latest move (sol 1191) looks quite small, but there was a lot of action during the drive.

Current position (sol 1194) derived from the rover's autonomous navigation data.

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According to that, we are right to the south of a little crater but there are no (not yet) navcams on that direction to confirm it.

Latest route map after a 75m drive due west on sol 1196.

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I wonder if they'll take the straight shot to Duck Bay now.

The "post-drive" nav/pancam mosaics taken on sol 1196 are pointing at 252 and 260 degrees respectively, so my 2c are on that approximate heading for the next move.
Click to view attachment

I wonder what the purpose would be for taking such a long arc.
(I guess I do see a little rough ground extending out from Bottomless Bay. That could be it.)

That could be it, or they still want to be far from the rim to finish the driving software checkout.

From the latest MER Update on The Planetary Society:

"There are multiple steps in the checkout process for each of these capabilities, and one of those steps for the VTT checkout was slated for today... At the current time, we've got 3 more boxes to check off and we're planning on checking one off today."

Anyway, I'm only betting 2c, not 1000$.

Doesn't look too rough to me.

An updated route map (sol 1198).

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Another update right from the oven (sol 1201).

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Thanks for the update, Tesheiner.

I'm very intrigued by a small dark feature in the map very close to the sol 957 position. I don't think it was imaged on our first visit there. It appears to be about a couple of metres across. Curiously, it has an "artificial" look to it, as if it was created by intelligent entities - it doesn't look like a rock or outcrop. In fact, it looks surprizingly like a rover. I can't wait till we get there and image and minites it and put the rat to it.

"Well, in my dream, we were driving along and we came across a set of tracks. We asked Houston if we could follow them, they said yes, so we followed them, and we found another rover that looked just like ours..." -Charlie Duke, 1972



-the other Doug

.

Sol 1202: Less then 100m to the tip of Cabo Verde.
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Looks like the "beacon" may get passed up... again.

Sol 1203: Back at t Cabo Verde.
I think it's time to reactivate the "zoom" window.

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Opportunity might have bumped into herself if it had went some 10 meters or so further....

I wonder if it is possible to actually put Opportunity onto the "zoom window" instead of the red dot.
That way we can see how big Opportunity is relative to the landscape and maybe even its orientation. I am not a photoshop guru so I do not know how difficult that would be. It is nice to see the old Opportunity there!

Here is the updated route map for sol 1204.
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I did that sort of SFX for Spirit when she left the winter haven but the result was not what I expected.

As this is my 1000th post I just decided to be as OT as possible

An updated route map (sol 1210).
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... and another one (sol 1211), right from the oven.
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And nothin' says lovin' like somethin' from the oven...

-the other Doug

And what would be nice now would be an overlay grid of contours or slope measurements to plot our "ingress"
route. Is there a correlation between darkness of the substrate and steepness of slope? Presumably we want to avoid the sandy areas adjacent to the capes?

Route map for sol 1214.
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Fresh map for sol 1216.
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