posted 01-04-2004 12:57 PM               

I have found Space.com, which seems to have some very good pics up.

The NASA site for the most part still has the content from before the landing. Good stuff, but almost everyone right now wants to see latest pictures/data.

I am sure many will appreciate any URLs posted here. Thank you!

posted 01-04-2004 02:16 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Ed Krutulis:
Are all the Mars images/pictures going to be B&W?

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posted 01-04-2004 02:18 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by mensax:
Is that a mountain, or the crater wall, that I see on the horizon?

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According to Steve Squyres, until they can determine exactly where Spirit landed, and receive data from the stereoscope Pancam, its too early to try to identify features on the horizon.

posted 01-04-2004 09:54 PM               

Don't forget you can use your Shift and Control keys to zoom in and out of the panorama.

posted 01-05-2004 12:44 PM               

And I just happened to have a pair of red-blue 3D glasses in my desk drawer here at work. I looked and the landing site appears very flat, unlike the undulating Pathfinder site. The Spirit site has what may be a ridge in the mid-distance, at the far edge of the light colored nearby "crater".

If you do not have 3D red-blue glasses I looked on eBay and found some inexpensive ones.

posted 01-05-2004 01:39 PM               

Yes, the amount of information you get from them is amazing. For example, for 6 years I had thought the Pathfinder site was pretty much a flat plain with rocks on it. I put on the glasses and I discovered it is anything but. Rolling hills and ridges crisscross the site. Some areas near the lander you can't even see because they're hidden behind ridges. No wonder they do so much 3D analysis at JPL. It has so much additional information.

posted 01-05-2004 02:33 PM            

If you haven't any 3D glasses ask a local cinema if you can borrow a pair? They usually have some for 3D films these days.

Or, really in hurry?

Get your partner's chocolates - unwrap the red and blue ones and save the cellophane wrapper. Sellotape over your glasses or in a pair of cardboard makeups you can make if you don't wear glasses normally.

Red on the left eye - blue on the right eye.

May just work if suitably flattened cellophane to give you first glimpse.

Any excuse for a choccie!

posted 01-05-2004 05:28 PM              

And clever you have scrap materail to eat.

posted 01-06-2004 07:13 PM               

Keep 'em coming.

posted 01-08-2004 03:00 PM            

There may well be 'deep deposits' of sand - sufficiently deep to stop the Rover rolling or clogging up the wheels. A little bit like the sand dunes at the base.

I would avoid Sleepy Hollow for the time being for same reason. Maybe go up to its 'rim' and peer over top - maybe even probe with the drill to see how 'deep' into sand the drill gets down into.

If pebbles/rocks can be seen on surface - those are the areas I would explore first before going into one of these 'no pebbles/rock 'sand' areas.

Pathfinder's Sojourner crossed a pebble free area on its travels and it left fairly 'deep impressions' in the martian soil - and that was only a very small patch.

Just my view of it.

posted 01-08-2004 03:22 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spaceuk:
There may well be 'deep deposits' of sand - sufficiently deep to stop the Rover rolling or clogging up the wheels. A little bit like the sand dunes at the base.

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posted 01-09-2004 08:23 AM            

I've also seen today where they believe Spirit cocooned in its airbags may well have bounced across Sleepy Hollow - which kinda suggests it may be 'harder' than I was cautiously anticipating.

Still, I would still like them proceed with caution when they go out onto the 'sand floors'.

I wanna see more pictures from it before it sinks!

posted 01-22-2004 12:51 PM               

Nasa's Mars rover Spirit has stopped sending useful data to Earth from the Red Planet and mission scientists are unable to send it commands.

Nasa says the problem could either be due to a major power fault, software corruption or memory corruption.

Scientists has tried several times to communicate with the rover but has received either very little or no data.

The spacecraft has entered a fault mode and Nasa is now devising a strategy for getting back in contact with Spirit.

"This is a serious problem. This is an extremely serious anomaly," said Peter Theisinger Spirit project manager.

posted 01-23-2004 12:08 PM               

That after two days having trouble with transmissions, the Mars rover Spirit sent data Friday morning to the NASA flight team in a communications session lasting at least 20 minutes.

posted 01-23-2004 12:22 PM               

Anyway, Good Dog! Glad you're barking again...

posted 01-23-2004 03:54 PM              

NASA Restores Communications with Rover

After two days of nerve-wracking silence, NASA's Spirit rover communicated with Earth early Friday, NASA's scientists said from the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said.

The signal was first detected by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna complex near Madrid, Spain, at 12:34 GMT. JPL scientists said they were trying to determine whether software or hardware was the root of the problem.

Some of the information retrieved indicates the rover's onboard computers have tried to reset themselves 60 times, indicating Spirit was trying to fix a problem on its own.

There was evidence that the "spacecraft believes its in ... fault condition", said Pete Theisinger, the project manager at the JPL told reporters. "We believe we can sustain the health of the craft indefinitely."

The scientists said the transmissions came during a communication window about 90 minutes after Spirit woke up for the morning on Mars. The signal lasted for 10 minutes, and sent data at the rate of 10 bits per second.

About an hour later the Deep Space Network antenna picked up a signal that lasted 20 minutes transmitting at 120 bits per second, NASA said.

The crisis came as the Mars project scientists were preparing for the early Sunday landing of the second Mars rover, Opportunity, on the opposite side of the red planet.

To handle the tests and investigation of Spirit's problems, NASA has formed a special "anomaly" group to free up experts for the Opportunity landing.

Like a naughty teenager, Spirit appeared to have been skipping its night time sleep phase and has remained "awake much of the night", Theisinger said. It was not clear how that could have affected the communications problems.

The problem could be a software glitch that could be easily fixed by rebooting the rover's computers, just "like you would your own personal computer", one JPL engineer said.

But Theisinger said he was inclined to believe that mechanics had played a role, more than likely Spirit's high gain antenna, which provides the rover's communications link to Earth.

This would be a more difficult problem than software, Theisinger said, and Earth-based scientists would have to get the rover's software to "ignore the hardware event".

"We are still critical. We do not know if we can restore functionality. I think it's a sequence of things," he said.

But he was optimistic about several things.

"We have been able to establish we can command it, it can give us information ... and ... the power system is OK. Those are all vital pieces of information," Theisinger said.

JPL experts have not tried to reboot the computers because they have been trying to set up a dialogue with Spirit.

Mission controllers at JPL, the Pasadena, California, division of the California Institute of Technology that manages the Mars project, planned to send more commands to Spirit seeking additional data from the spacecraft.

NASA scientists worked feverishly Thursday to re-establish communications with the Spirit, which landed on Mars January 3 and began its exploration of the planet in earnest last week.

Project manager Pete Theisinger described the problem Thursday as "a very serious anomaly on the vehicle." Signals sent by the rover were said to be empty compared with the rich colour pictures and other data that it had previously sent to the U.S. space agency.