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MARS rover - Daily Updates - posted Feb. 16, 12:30 pm PST
NASA - JPL ^ | Feb. 16, 12:30 pm PST | NASA/JPL

Posted on 02/16/2004 1:37:55 PM PST by Phil V.

Daily Updates - February 16, 2004

Opportunity Status for sol 22 Check Before Digging posted Feb. 16, 12:30 pm PST

Opportunity spent much of sol 22, which ended at 9:39 p.m. Sunday, PST, making a thorough "before" examination of the spot selected for digging a ditch the next sol.

Also, Opportunity completed upward-looking observations before, during and after Mars Global Surveyor flew overhead looking down. Opportunity and Global Surveyor have similar infrared sensing instruments: the miniature thermal emission spectrometer on the rover and the (full-size) thermal emission spectrometer on the orbiter. Coordinated observations of looking up through the atmosphere with one while looking down through the atmosphere with the other were designed to provide a more complete atmospheric profile than either could do alone.

Sol 22's wake-up music was "Invisible Touch" by Genesis. In preparation for digging, Opportunity examined the trenching site with its microscopic imager, its Moessbauer spectrometer and, overnight, its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer.

The plan for sol 23, which will end at 10:19 p.m. Monday, PST, is to dig a trench with alternating forward and backward spinning of Opportunity's right front wheel in order to see what's below the surface. Inspections of the resulting hole are planned for sol 24 and the morning of sol 25.

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Spirit Status for sol 43 Mega Drive posted Feb. 16, 12:30 pm PST

Spirit spent the wee morning hours of sol 43 gathering data about a wheel-track target with the Moessbauer spectrometer, then tucked its arm and drove. It used a two-session method engineers call a "mega drive" in order to make good progress toward the crater nicknamed "Bonneville." The first driving session covered 19 meters (62.3 feet) after long-running morning activities shortened the time for driving. After a rest, Spirit continued another 8.5 meters (27.9 feet) in the afternoon, resulting in a total drive of 27.5 meters (90.2 feet), a new one-sol record. Sol 43 ended at 9:58 a.m. Monday, PST. The remaining distance to "Bonneville" is about 245 meters (about 800 feet) from Spirit's new location.

For sol 44, which will end at 10:38 a.m. Tuesday, PST, controllers plan "touch-and-go" activities: deploying the arm on a target called "Ramp Flats" before continuing toward Bonneville.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mars
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To: r9etb
Rather humorous that the tire tracks make a nice "14," in keeping with the Valentine's Day time stamp on the picture....

Looks a little like what Ted Kennedy's Oldsmobile tracks might have done right before sliding into the drink...

21 posted on 02/16/2004 2:01:06 PM PST by ErnBatavia (Some days you're the windshield; some days you're the bug)
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To: TXnMA
'Cept when we call it "caliche"...

You're stretching it for a Texan - "caliche" is three sylables!

22 posted on 02/16/2004 2:16:05 PM PST by _Jim ( <--- Ann C. and Rush L. speak on gutless Liberals (RealAudio files))
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To: Phil V.
Check out the "burnout"! Cool
23 posted on 02/16/2004 2:27:30 PM PST by Professional Engineer (Spirit & Opportunity~The race is ON! Which will find the first Martian trout stream.)
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To: TXnMA
My Ex is from the town of Panhandle, TX. I always thought she was saying "cleechy"
24 posted on 02/16/2004 2:29:49 PM PST by Hoboken
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To: TXnMA
I think that the white is just the effect of soil compression and a different reflective surface . . . take a look . . .


25 posted on 02/16/2004 2:31:53 PM PST by Phil V.
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To: Phil V.
I think that the white is just the effect of soil compression and a different reflective surface . . . take a look

Yep, it's striking how much simple compression -- especially with a smooth-surfaced compactor -- can change a soil's albedo. We see it all the time in photos of archaeological excavations (as in bootprints). And, yes, the illumination incidence/reflectance angle relative to the lens axis has an 'amplifying' impact on this effect, as well...

26 posted on 02/16/2004 2:41:45 PM PST by TXnMA (No Longer!!! -- and glad to be back home (and warm) in God's Country!!)
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To: Phil V.
Speaking of compaction, look how strikingly smooth and vertical large portions of the far wall of the trench are. No doubt those top-notch soil scientists at JPL can tell a lot about the soil properties from features like that -- as well as from the way "nodules" of compacted soil cling to the trench wall.

Here on Earth, we would expect those walls to crumble and collapse somewhat as the exposed soil dries out. Wonder how those walls will change over time on Mars -- and what those changes (if any) will tell the soil guys...

Very interesting stuff!!

27 posted on 02/16/2004 2:57:12 PM PST by TXnMA (No Longer!!! -- and glad to be back home (and warm) in God's Country!!)
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To: TXnMA
full pic from front haz cam . . .


28 posted on 02/16/2004 4:50:25 PM PST by Phil V.
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To: Phil V.
Thanks! Your full-size photo answers one question I had: I wasn't sure if those were hills at the top of the horizon arc in the stereo images -- or if they were arc-segment (scan line) artifacts resulting from the 72 ppi screen resolution.

If I weren't way out in the TX boonies at the end of a 24K (max) limp string, I would be downloading the raw Mars rover data and massaging it with NIH Image and Deneba/ACD's "Canvas", which is my real graphics workhorse (on both the Mac & PC). I was interested (but not surprised) to learn that the folks at JPL rely on Canvas (with its powerful transparent layering capabilities) for some of their compositing, etc.

BTW, I have been following the "how to view stereo pairs" discussion closely. I usually can anti-cross merge stereo pairs with ease. Those of yours that give me difficulty are usually so because the image centers are significantly wider apart than my (6.3 cm?) interpupillary distance. Downloading and downscaling them a bit usually fixes the problem... Or, I can resort to cross-merging -- which is a bit uncomfortable.

Of course, if you examine the trench image pair, you will see that only a small area is common to both images -- hence, all I see in stereo is just the center section of the trench.

Thanks again!

29 posted on 02/16/2004 5:27:34 PM PST by TXnMA (No Longer!!! -- and glad to be back home (and warm) in God's Country!!)
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To: Phil V.
Thanks! Your full-size photo answers one question I had: I wasn't sure if those were hills at the top of the horizon arc in the stereo images -- or if they were arc-segment (scan line) artifacts resulting from the 72 ppi screen resolution.

If I weren't way out in the TX boonies at the end of a 24K (max) limp string, I would be downloading the raw Mars rover data and massaging it with NIH Image and Deneba/ACD's "Canvas", which is my real graphics workhorse (on both the Mac & PC). I was interested (but not surprised) to learn that the folks at JPL rely on Canvas (with its powerful transparent layering capabilities) for some of their compositing, etc.

BTW, I have been following the "how to view stereo pairs" discussion closely. I usually can anti-cross merge stereo pairs with ease. Those of yours that give me difficulty are usually so because the image centers are significantly wider apart than my (6.3 cm?) interpupillary distance. Downloading and downscaling them a bit usually fixes the problem... Or, I can resort to cross-merging -- which is a bit uncomfortable.

Of course, if you examine the trench image pair, you will see that only a small area is common to both images -- hence, all I see in stereo is just the center section of the trench.

Thanks again!

30 posted on 02/16/2004 5:27:45 PM PST by TXnMA (No Longer!!! -- and glad to be back home (and warm) in God's Country!!)
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To: Phil V.
Thanks for the updates. :-)
31 posted on 02/16/2004 5:29:06 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: Phil V.
Thanks for the ping!
32 posted on 02/16/2004 10:22:16 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: r9etb
Rather humorous that the tire tracks make a nice "14," in keeping with the Valentine's Day time stamp on the picture....

They're crafty that way at mission control. :-)

33 posted on 02/17/2004 4:21:14 AM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Phil V.
Phil look at this pic from Sol 25 Opportunity. Must be an impression made by the arm.


34 posted on 02/18/2004 7:10:17 PM PST by tet68
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To: tet68
Thanks. Yes, it's an after shot following one of their whiz-bang tests. I'd surely like to understand the cohiveness of the soil . . .
35 posted on 02/18/2004 7:41:42 PM PST by Phil V.
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