MER-2 "Opportunity"

[ronatu]

Great photos, I like the map you posted  

I don't Karry

[Vitall]

More details there:

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~jcanvin/mer/

Last picture but one: solar panels so heavily covered by dust, that it looks like a miracle that they produce any power.

[ronatu]

ВИКТОРИЯ!!!!!

September 20, 2006

We seem to have cleared an important hurdle. Sol 944, which was yesterday Earth time, was "Boot Day" for Opportunity... the day we rebooted the rover computer with brand new flight software. The rover woke up that afternoon with the new software running, and sent us data right on schedule. We're still going through the data, but so far everything looks good. We're also going through the same process for Spirit on more or less the same timescale.

This new software is going to be a pretty big deal for us. It includes lots of new capabilities... things that we've figured out over all these sols of flight operations that we've now, with this new software load, taught the vehicle to do. One capability is something we call "go and touch"... the ability to send the rover to a target and deploy the arm onto that target all in one sol. That's something we've never done on Mars before. Another is automated dust devil finding, which should be pretty cool if Spirit is still hanging in there once summer rolls around. And there are a bunch of other things too. The rovers are getting older, but they're suddenly a whole lot smarter.

All of this software has been thoroughly tested on Earth, of course, but today is the first time we've used it on Mars. It's good to see everything working the way it's supposed to so far.

It's going to take a little while to shake out all of the new software, and to convince ourselves that it's all functioning properly. There'll be two sols of checkout at least... one to upload a bunch of new software parameters and confirm they've gotten onboard safely, and another to make sure all the key driving commands work properly. That sol is going to be interesting... just a lot of little rover moves that don't really go anywhere, but that give us confidence that we're ready to start driving again.

And, of course it could take longer than that. You have to proceed carefully when you're dealing with new flight software.

You may be wondering why we chose now to do the boot with the new flight software. The reason is that in a few weeks we will go into what's called "superior conjunction", when Mars goes out of sight behind the sun. There will be a stretch of time when we can't send commands to the rovers at all, and during that time we want to have complete, unequivocal confidence in the software that's onboard. Getting the software onboard now will give us the time to gain that confidence.

Anyway, once we've got this initial few sols of software checkout behind us, we know where we're going! As of right now, we are just about 50 meters away from the rim of Victoria Crater. The latest images show the upper part of the far wall in some detail for the first time. The topography there is substantial, to say the least... the images show near-vertical cliffs that are roughly 15 meters high, and that's just the upper lip. There's a lot more crater below that that we can't see yet.

We are, frankly, feeling a little overwhelmed by what we see so far. It's very reminiscent of our first glimpse into Endurance Crater, more than two years ago. We figured out how to deal with that then, and in time we'll figure out how to deal with Victoria too. But for the moment we're feeling a bit awestruck.

And the best is yet to come. Once the software checkout has been completed, we're going to drive to the closest point on the rim. This is the alcove between Cape Verde and Cabo Frio, which we have named Duck Bay. We'll have to tiptoe up to Duck Bay pretty carefully; if those images of the far side are any indicator, it my drop off pretty steeply! We'll shoot some Navcam and a bit of Pancam from there, pick either Cape Verde or Cabo Frio for the big Pancam pan, and then start moving into position.

So the next few weeks are going to be interesting. It's tempting celebrate a little now, frankly... having come all this way, over so many months, and finally having our goal in sight. But I'm not really going to feel like we've "reached" Victora Crater until that first big Pancam picture of it is on the ground. Stay tuned.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=7551

[ronatu]

[ronatu]

And Beyong:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sfjcody2/route_to_big.jpg


too big size for forum...

[Tiger]

Интересно, а ближний край, тот, что под песочком, тоже обрывистый и скалистый?  :roll:

[ronatu]

Интересно, а ближний край, тот, что под песочком, тоже обрывистый и скалистый?  :roll:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=7551

[Старый]

Ну когда он уже внутрь то заглянет? Уже нет сил ждать.

[Зомби. Просто Зомби]

Ну когда он уже внутрь то заглянет? Уже нет сил ждать.

Любишь, блин, беспилотную космонавтику, люби, блин и саночки... неделями дожидаться :mrgreen:

[ronatu]

Ну когда он уже внутрь то заглянет? Уже нет сил ждать.

CKOPO[/size]

[foogoo]

Ну когда он уже внутрь то заглянет? Уже нет сил ждать.

Любишь, блин, беспилотную космонавтику, люби, блин и саночки... неделями дожидаться :mrgreen:

[голосом чукчи]Однако от человека с Марса картинки ещё дольше ждать.

[ronatu]

...Однако от человека с Марса картинки ещё дольше ждать.

[Ворон]

Там-то вроде Зима.

 А роверы, бедные, ползают...    :lol:

[Старый]

Эххх, стенки засыпаны песком... Боюсь ничего интересного...
 А всё равно интересно!

[ronatu]

Эххх, стенки засыпаны песком... Боюсь ничего интересного...  

А НА МАРСЕ ВООБЩЕ НИЧЕГО ИНТЕРЕСНОГО НЕТ....":)

http://www.roving-mouse.com/planetary/Mars/Atlas/

[ronatu]

Эххх, стенки засыпаны песком... Боюсь ничего интересного...

How about this (inmyhumbleopinion)?

The Victoria impact fluidises an ice-rich layer buried, say 100-200 metres below the surface. Some of this material drains out from under the crater rim and collects as a temporary lake in the centre of the crater.

The crater rim collapses in an irregular pattern into the void created, forming the cliffs and bays we see now. It's all over in minutes or hours. Then, over a much longer period the ice lake sublimes away and sand and dust blows in, covering the original topography of the crater floor.

It occurs to me that the loss of water-ice from a sub-surface area around the crater would explain the depression the crater sits in, as well as the multi-scale polygonal cracking described in the Parker and Grotzinger paper (I forget who linked to it - sorry, and thanks.)

P&G say these cracks "suggest that the outcrop material has undergone dessication or diagenetic volume-loss to depths of perhaps hundreds of meters beneath the modern surface" -- but a 100m deep dip in the top of the layer would surely speed the process up locally, at least.

[ronatu]

[Старый]

The Victoria impact fluidises an ice-rich layer buried...

Ну ё-моё! Ну наконец то они догадались!
 Талдычишь им два года что это за спецглина... Ну теперь и НК про это напечатает, а мог бы и два года назад и первым в мире...

It occurs to me that the loss of water-ice from a sub-surface area around the crater would explain the depression the crater sits in, as well as the multi-scale polygonal cracking described in the Parker and Grotzinger paper (I forget who linked to it - sorry, and thanks.)

It occurs to me - осенило, ёксель-моксель!  Забыл он где читал - в топике про океан имени меня!

P&G say these cracks "suggest that the outcrop material has undergone dessication or diagenetic volume-loss

Ха! Ну дождались. В конце-концов должен же был ктото и вторым сделать это открытие, оно ж в прямом смысле лежит на поверхности.
 Ладно, тут это офтопик, это надо обсуждать в океане имени меня.

[Старый]

Ронату, чей это, кстати, текст?

[ronatu]

Ронату, чей это, кстати, текст?

Это дети пишут:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=3205&st=315