WOW.......thats a quarter of a KM.........I wonder if they ever anticiapted making drives of that distance when planning the mission? If they were 220m from Viking and Voyager at the end of sol 413 they could be even closer as of now, the end of the sol 414 drive.

There are no pancam images from the latest drive so I presume today will be a no drive day. Also.....I wonder why they didnt name tose two craters Viking 1 and Viking 2?

I remember rover drivers saying early in the mission that they had an ambition to break 100m at some point.

Perhaps they have enough information with Navcam?

When spirit was driving to West Spur it took pancam image forward and backward after each drive. After Spirit left West Spur it only took navcam images aftrer each drive. I think the pancam images are only needed if long drives (100+ meters) are planned. Opportunity may be less than 100 meters from Viking so they wouldn't be necessary.

Perhaps you're right.......the latest flight directors update mentions reaching Viking by the weekend.

I guess they weren't planning on the plains being quite this flat and free of debris. Or that the dust situation would be so good for so long.

This must a be a debris field associated with one of the craters?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2393R2M1.JPG

Updated Opportunity Route Map:

You mean like this?

WOW! over 1km in the past week on Mars!

Freaking Awesome that has to deserve a Mars Bar for Oppy!

Anyone keeping track of the odometer? It has to be really close to Spirit by now.

Opportunity must have surpassed Spirits total odometry by now, or what?

Bingo


Amazed to see the name 'James Caird' up there - one of Shackletons whalers was called that - the man himself helped fund his famous expedition which started off in a large boat called.... Endurance

OI - PANDO - CHANGE THE URL ON YER MAPS

Doug

According to latest Spirit update on the MER site:
"As of sol 435 (March 24, 2005), Spirit has driven a total of 4,197.5 meters (2.61 miles)."

The last odometry total update on Oppy was on Sol 388 when the total was 3014.77 meters (1.87 miles). I believe this was when Oppy was still at the three little craters (or crater triplets) on the way to Vostok. And based on Pando's updated map, we have traversed 1,394 meters from Vostok. That sums up to 4,408.77 meters plus the distance from the crater triplets to Vostok (which I believe was a couple of hundred meters). That brings the total to more than 4,600 meters (2.86 miles). So to sum it up, OPPY IS THE NEW DISTANCE CHAMPION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doug, do you still have any Mars bars left?

Uh, sorry, my bad. Done, and updated.

Also added the current odometer readout... and yes, a champion she is

Updated Opportunity Route Map:

Really its kinna funny it took oppy this long to over take spirit in drive distance given the blueberry innerstate. and 220 is an amazing drive.

mars bar for oppy



scott

Just a thought - did you do your style maps for eagle->end ?

Would be cool to put together a full travel plan for at 1.5m/pixel for the whole - ignoring the stuff inside endurance as that's just too messy

Doug

I started doing that after the heatshield, but yes, it would be cool to do the whole path. When I get some free time...

Are mission planners intending to do any science at Viking crater or drive past? Seems strange they would stop so short of the crater to do a few sols of science. They could have reached the crater with a farily short drive that would probably have left the afternoon free to deploy the IDD - I wouldnt have thought the soil/dunes would be much different where they are now and at Viking. Perhaps they'll make a stop at Voyager Crater instead?

Where are we?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2395L2M1.JPG

We're all in the thread marked 'Welcome to Viking'.

Where are you

Doug

The satellite pics of Viking indicate a darker carater. Not a ghost looking thing like Vostok. I'm not convinced that we're there yet.

Debris from Viking (lower) and Voyager crater (upper)
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2395L2M1.JPG

Part of tiny crater north of Viking (look closely just west of last location I posted)
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2663L5M1.JPG

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe we're about to cross something of another milestone. To my extremely amateur eye, it looks like we are very very close to leaving the landing ellipse...... msss image amazing.

The planetary society has an update on the rovers:

http://planetary.org/news/2005/mer-update_0325.html

And if I read it correctly, from now on we should use the name 'Erebus' for the 'Albert' crater.

"Once Opportunity reaches Viking and Voyager, the rover has another 800 meters to go to get to the next target on the list -- Erebus, a feature 300 meters in diameter that looks like a filled-in, largely eroded crater. "It's interesting enough that we want to take a closer look," Crisp said."

Hui, I've looked among the greek gods and "Erebus" or "Erebos" was the greek god of darkness. By Homer it was the dark residence from the shadows of the dead.

There, "Albert" cannot to keep up! BTW, who was "Albert" actually?

I would mean that ancient name matches to this crater, dosen't it?

I just picked Albert - because Albert was Queen Victorias Husband. I also started refering to the dark area to the NW of 'Erebus' as 'The Albert Dock'. For those who have visited Liverpool - that'll make sense

Doug

Hey Alan,

What's the source for this image? Is there a stereo pair for it? The resolution must be on the sub 10m scale.

http://s05.imagehost.org/view.php?image=/0..._albert_414.jpg

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/im...5/R1500822.html

It may form a stereo pair with this one

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/im...5/R1502302.html

The left wheel doesn't like that dune!!! Oh well...

http://qt.exploratorium.edu:16080/mars/opp...08P1214L0M1.JPG

That is right. However, I think that the MER team are continuing the current practice of naming craters after exploration vessels. HMS Erebus was commanded by the explorer James Clark Ross on two voyages to Antarctica in 1841 and 1843. On the first voyage, the explorers discovered and named the volcano Mt Erebus (later climbed by Shackelton's crew). The ship was lost seeking the Northwest passage around 1845-6.

The MOC pictures show a fair amount of relief on the west and southwest edges. (Could be an illusion I know.) So it will be interesting to see if there are any deep layers exposed, as well as what is making the floor of the crater so dark.

What's then the source(s) for the composite image of Victoria & Endurance (this thread p. 12, by Sunspot) - which I suspect forms at least kind of stereo pair with the southeastern corner of the mentioned http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/im...5/R1500822.html ? (my attachments p. 16)
Was the picture of Vic taken from some larger context image? If it was, it could mean there already exists some suitable imagery for hammering together 3-D pics about some of the etched terrain near Oppy's present location.

They've changed driving direction and are now driving across the dunes and appear to be heading for one of the craters...

Considering the field of view of the hazcam's, if you see something in them, they aren't just heading for it - the rover's basicly there. Counting the dune crests to the crater, it is about 5 dune-widths away, so real close.

Too bad there isn't navcam imagery yet.

Hi all,

i was looking at the pancam from the last sol and wondered if that could be another meteorite, like the one they found near the heat shield ?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu:16080/mars/opp...00P2291L1M1.JPG

I noticed the resemblance in the rock too. Unfortuately the image is not from the last sol but from sol 409 at 12:16, which is 9 days ago! That place is over 700 metres behind now.

How are you all seeing all this. The exploratorium has been down all day.

I wonder if they are planning to trench that dune.

Not intentionally I think

Could look like a rover stop due to slippage

Well, it's not that deep, so maybe Oppy just stopped there and the dune is at an angle to the wheels, so the left one didn't make it over the crest. Both of the wheel tracks seem to be about equal in depth - the left one doesn't appear to be buried in the same way that we saw when Spirit "dug in." Not enough churning to be stuck, is my vote. Besides, we still have 4 more wheels in back to power us over, even if that wheel got lodged.

The exploratorium site has been down for more than a day now. How are you seeing these pictures? your links are not working due to that site being down.

It seems to be working OK for me.....

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/

I don't know what was up. They seems to have different paths to their site. Sometimes, one web address doesn't work. The one I had was not working. I got it now.

The confusing thing is. In looking at the latest pics, I feel we still haven't seen Viking or Voyager. Are we moving now? Have we been moving for the past few days?

Greg, we stand or stood directly in front of Viking, but its near rim is higher than its far rim therefore we cannot see it.

Have a look: http://xs22.xs.to/pics/05131/Drei_Krater_an_Sol_414.gif

If you look closely then you can find that the dunes behind Viking are somewhat lower than the dunes in the foreground.

OK, I suppose, I'll take your word for it that those are V & V. But, that was sol 414. Where are now? Are we moving?

In about the same place - a little closer

http://207.7.139.5/mars/opportunity/forwar...08P1110L0M1.JPG

Doug

This is interesting. Posted today at JPL. It's quite out of date by now, but what peaked my interest is an apparently nice resolution strip of the area EAST of Victoria crater. Is anyone able to find that at MSSS -- is such a thing already published there??

This one
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e19_r02/im...3/E2301344.html
I came across it before but had no idea it the next one to the east

Thanks alan, that seems to be it. The MSSS strip is quite a bit larger too than is visible in the map page.

Is it possible that Oppy has detected its backshell and parachute in the distance? These are from the latest posting of pancam images. The direction is about right, NNW. A dark dot beside a whitish one near the horizon, and they are similar both in L and R images. They sit neatly into the scenery when looked in 3d.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2291L1M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2291R2M1.JPG

Taking a clue from Pando's sol 413 traverse map URL, I found a zoomed-in version for sol 414 which would seem to clearly verify that Alan pegged Oppy's location in his sol 414 location in the "Welcome to Viking" thread.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mer/images.cfm?id=1611

Someone give him a Mars Bar...