The Sol 26 drive went well, and the images taken after the drive showed
some interesting outcrops right in front of the rover. The focus of the
Sol 27 plan is primarily the first sampling of Mars' atmosphere by the big
SAM instrument, so there wasn't much time to do anything else. Now that
ChemCam is working again, the top priority is to acquire better
observations of its calibration target, and 77 minutes were allocated to do
that. But when we saw the new outcrop target, the science team wanted to
take pictures and zap it with ChemCam's laser. So Steve Squyres, the
Mineralogy Science Theme Group Lead for today, asked the Tactical Uplink
Lead (Pauline Hwang) whether she would be willing to consider adding more
time to the plan for additional scientific observations. Steve is the PI
of the Athena science payload on the Mars Exploration Rovers, and because
Pauline used to work on MER, they already know each other. Steve's plea
was well enough received that Pauline agreed to give the science team 40
more minutes to work with. There was much rejoicing, and Mastcam and
ChemCam observations of the outcrop were added to the plan. When I left
JPL a couple hours ago, it appeared that they would be approved and
included in the commands to be sent to MSL early tomorrow morning.

I wasn't scheduled in a tactical role today, but I couldn't resist spending
most of my day at JPL. MSL mission operations are just too much fun to
miss! Because I didn't have to focus on today's planning as much, I was
able to catch up on some other tasks, including processing new MARDI images
to determine how much they can be compressed and still preserve the details
needed for geologic interpretation. I also looked at some older ChemCam
RMI images that were taken in the MSL testbed (a nearly identical copy of
the real rover at JPL) to test various types of image compression. I had
been meaning to get this done long ago, but was too busy with other work.
So far it looks like we will be able to reduce the size of these images
without significantly degrading them. We must make the most of the
precious bits we receive from MSL through the Mars orbiters, so I need to
complete this analysis soon.

Ken

The best news today was that analysis of more detailed ChemCam engineering data showed that the problems noted a few sols ago were very minor and now completely understood, so the instrument can now be used again! While we suspected that the problem was not serious, it was very nice to receive confirmation.

We finally received the images needed to plan the next drive, so the Sol 26 plan includes a checkout of the "visual odometry" software that will be used by the rover to precisely determine how far it has moved using images taken during the drive. Once the data from this and previous driving tests are received and analyzed, all of the rover mobility software will be validated. Of course we are hoping that all goes well, as visual odometry will allow MSL to approach targets accurately enough to put them in the "workspace" of the arm. Even if the rover slips in sand or on a steep slope, it will be able to automatically account for any slip and get where we want to go. This will save lots of time in the future.

Today "Mars time" at Gale crater is about the same as "Earth time" (PDT). The tactical team's workday always starts in the afternoon at Gale, when the rover sends data to the orbiters as they fly overhead. We then work all Mars night to analyze and understand the data MSL has sent to us, then plan what we want the rover to do the next day in time to send the commands the following Mars morning. So today the first shift came in to work in the Earth afternoon, and the second shift will work through the Earth night, finishing up as the sun is rising in Pasadena. Because Mars' day is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, our workday will begin later and later in Pacific time. and the current coincidence of Gale and Pasadena time will not recur for about 5 weeks.

Ken

The highlight of the Sol 24 plan is to test some of the software that will
allow the rover to avoid obstacles automatically. If the test, involving
taking images and processing them onboard the rover, is successful the
rover will drive farther toward our goal, called Glenelg. This location
will have a good view of the intersection of 3 different terrain types,
where we should be able to study the relationships between these geologic
units and therefore interpret their history. But to get there quickly we
will need to use the "autonomous navigation" that we are starting to check
out. After the drive, we have some time for science observations, which
were the focus of the science team's efforts today. It was my last shift
as SOWG Chair for a few weeks, and went more smoothly than yesterday's
planning. The biggest problem today was that the data volume expected to
be relayed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in time to plan Sol 25 is
very small, probably not enough to return the images we need to plan
another drive. Hopefully we will get more data through MRO than expected,
and we prioritized the various data products accordingly. If we don't get
at least one stereo pair of images of the terrain in front of the rover
after the drive, we will have to stay put for a sol. Obviously, this
wouldn't be a problem, but we would like get to Glenelg soon, and it is
about 400 m away.


We received confirmation that the last of the Mastcam characterization data
were acquired, so we were able to plan new Mastcam observations today.
This was a relief to the science team, and especially to me, as fitting it
all in to the plans over the past week required a lot of planning.

Ken

As predicted, we didn't receive enough data through MRO today to allow us to plan another drive. So while we wait for the images taken after the Sol 24 drive to arrive, we planned a bunch of images to be taken on Sol 25. I was MAHLI/MARDI Payload Uplink Lead 1 today, which means that my job was to focus on how best to use the Mars Hand-Lens Imager (MAHLI) and the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) cameras. MAHLI is on the end of the instrument arm, which has not been checked out on Mars yet, so we can't use that camera yet. And you might expect that MARDI won't be used again because MSL already descended to the surface of Mars on August 5th. Well, it turns out that MARDI can still take useful pictures of Mars, looking straight down at the surface just behind the left front wheel of MSL. Eventually we hope to use MARDI to take images as MSL drives, but that won't be possible until the next version of the rover's software is uploaded and installed. In the meantime, we are taking a single MARDI image at each place the rover stops. So my job today was to find the best time to take such an image. The rover planners (drivers) didn't have much to do today, so I asked Matt Heverly, the rover mobility lead, to help me figure out whether this image would be in shadow or sunlight. We had received enough data through MRO to know that the Sol 14 drive went well, and that the rover heading was WSW (116.5 degrees azimuth relative to north). Using this information, Matt modeled the shadow of the rover in the fancy software the rover planners use to build drive and arm sequences, developed at JPL. We had planned a MARDI image on the afternoon of Sol 24 when the surface under the camera was fully shadowed, but didn't know whether it was successfully acquired because it was taken after MRO flew over MSL and received a burst of data from the rover. I thought that it would be interesting to see what the surface looks like when fully illuminated by the sun, and Matt's modeling showed that the surface would be in sunlight after 4:02 PM. Before that time, the rover would shadow the surface, but later the sunlight would pass under the rover for about an hour before sunset. So I suggested adding this observation to the plan at low priority, and the Geology theme lead agreed to include it. Because it didn't conflict with any other suggestions from the science team, it was included in the final plan that was submitted to the second-shift uplink planning team! So my work paid off and I look forward to seeing both the shadowed and sunlit images of the same spot. Comparing them will help us decide whether to take future MARDI images in sunlight or shadow.

Ken

The rover drivers are ready to test more advanced driving techniques and
software, but we stayed put today to finish the last of the Mastcam
characterization activities (the second half of the long-baseline stereo
experiment). So we had more room for new science observations in today's
plan than we have before, which was a challenge for the science team. Lots
of good ideas were brought forward by the various science theme groups,
including ChemCam measurement of rocks and soil, images of the sun and sky
to look for clouds, even neutron spectrometer measurements of hydrogen up
to 0.5 m below the surface. When the usual weather and radiation
"background" observations were included, there was a lot to prioritize and
fit in. But we did a pretty good job of fitting in everything we could.
Unfortunately, there were enough little problems with recent ChemCam
activities that we had to delete most of the ChemCam stuff from today's
plan. On the brighter side, removing them gave the second shift crew much
more confidence that they could get their job done in time to send the
commands to the rover. And we continue to learn how to do our jobs better
and get more science from MSL.

Ken

After a day off, I'm back on shift as SOWG Chair for 3 days. We had a
scare this morning when the Sol 21 data we expected to receive through the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was not received on time. Just as we
were starting to put together contingency plans for Sol 22, most of the
data were received from MRO (1.5 hours late). Happily, the Sol 21 drive
(4.9 m) to place the rover over one of the areas scoured clean by the
descent engines went perfectly, and the images taken after the drive
allowed us to plan another drive today. It was encouraging that the team
was able to recover from the 1.5-hour delay, allowing planning to proceed
as normal. Overall, the tactical team has gotten much better at putting
together complex plans, so we are able to include more and more activities
each day.

Ken

Today we received data from the first ChemCam "rasters," in this case 5
laser shots in a row on 3 different targets. We were glad to see this
capability demonstrated on Mars, because we would like to use it a lot in
the future. The laser is focused on a spot less than 1 mm across, and the
chemistry of rocks and soils is commonly variable on the millimeter scale.
So multiple samples are needed to properly characterize the elemental
composition of each target, and the laser rasters will be useful in this
regard.

The SAM atmospheric sample test ran to completion, verifying that many
parts of this complicated instrument are working well. This was the last
SAM characterization test planned, and the team applauded the achievement
of this milestone. For this test a bit of Earth’s atmosphere was carried
to Mars, and analyzed successfully as planned. Now SAM is ready to acquire
and measure a sample of the Martian atmosphere.

I was sorry to hear today that Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on
the Moon, passed away. His "small step" represented the culmination of an
amazing effort that inspired me as a child and helped lead me toward a
career in space exploration. I hope that NASA continues to inspire young
people with achievements such as the MSL mission.

I plan to take a day off tomorrow, before I begin a string of tactical
shifts on Monday. I’ll send my next update when I’m back on shift.

Ken

We've started getting Mastcam characterization data on the ground, and the key focus test data have allowed us to modify the command sequences sent to acquire more characterization data with the focus quality needed to make use of them. It's nice to see my recent efforts paying off, but of course it takes many people working very hard to make it happen. Today we planned a sequence of images intended to determine how well we can measure the topography of the surface far from the rover using "long-baseline stereo." MSL has several pairs of stereo cameras that work very much like human (and other animal) pairs of eyes. Our brains interpret the information from both eyes to tell how far away objects are, and cameras can be used to do the same thing. The distance between our eyes, or the "baseline" between cameras limits the distance at which this method works. The longer the baseline, or the greater the distance between cameras, the better the ability to measure distance. So our plan is to take pictures of Mt. Sharp, many kilometers from the rover, before and after moving the rover about 10 m. In order for this experiment to yield useful results, the camera must be properly focused. So it was good to receive some of the data from the focus test in time to plan this next experiment.

A different song is played at the beginning of each Martian day (sol) as the daily bundle of commands are sent to the rover. I'm not sure who picks the song each day, but this is a tradition that extends back to previous Mars landers. For example, here's a video to go along with today's wake-up song. It's great that people are taking the time to put together such videos, and I hope they are fun for the public

Ken

We have received all of the full-size MARDI images of MSL's descent,
and they have been combined into a video . Watching this, with the audio from the mission support area dubbed in, brought a tear to my eye. The significance of landing successfully on
Mars using an entirely new, incredibly complex system, is still
sinking in. I am very fortunate to be involved in such an endeavor.

If you are not impressed with the MARDI video, stay tuned: the images
were each heavily compressed to allow them to be transmitted to Earth
quickly. The MARDI team has started reprocessing the raw images
onboard the rover to return higher-quality versions. Of course, it
will take a while to transmit all of these larger images to Earth, but
the results will be much better than the images we have on the ground
today. This is possible because each of the color cameras has its own
memory module that is used to store raw (uncompressed) images as they
are acquired. The raw images can therefore be reprocessed as desired
and then queued up for transmission. This is obviously a nice
capability to have, but the MSL team is still learning how to best
take advantage of it. As the performance of the radio link to the
Mars orbiters continues to improve, data are being received at an
unprecedented rate, so we are reprocessing color camera images to take
advantage of the better data rate.

Ken

More cheers today when the rover planners (drivers) reported that the first
MSL drive went perfectly. It wouldn't be much of a rover mission if we
couldn't drive, so this was very good news. I feel extremely fortunate to
be involved in yet another successful Mars rover mission--we are now 4 for
4 (Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity), with 2 rovers still
active. Wow.

I spent most of the day continuing to work Mastcam characterization
sequences into the near-term plan. In addition to the daily tactical work,
many people are focused on planning what the rover will do for the next
week or so. I've been representing the Mastcam team's interests in these
strategic planning discussions and meetings, and despite numerous
constraints and evolving scientific goals, it has been going fairly well.
But it struck me today that it is a bit strange that I have been so focused
on Mastcam. To explain, I must first summarize how I got involved in the
first place: In 2004, many teams of scientists were preparing proposals
in response to NASA's announcement of an opportunity to develop, test and
operate instruments for the MSL mission. I was invited to join some of
these teams, and was included as a Co-Investigator on the ChemCam, MARDI
(descent imager) and MAHLI (hand-lens imager) proposals, but not on the
Mastcam proposal. The MARDI, MAHLI and Mastcam proposals were all
submitted by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS), a small company in San
Diego specializing in building cameras to be flown on spacecraft. The
company was founded by Mike Malin after he was awarded a MacArthur
Fellowship ( "genius grant" ) in 1987. Each of the proposals included a clause stating that if all 3 were selected,
MSSS would give NASA a 30% discount. Apparently NASA couldn't pass that
up, and all 3 cameras were selected to fly on MSL. In addition to
consolidating the design and test efforts at MSSS, the 3 science teams were
merged into one big team. So I became a member of the Mastcam team, along
with the other Co-Is on the MARDI and MAHLI science teams. But I always
expected to focus on MAHLI and MARDI, having put more effort into the
development of those cameras. While I didn't foresee my recent heavy
involvement in Mastcam planning, I was happy to contribute to the team
effort. I recognized the importance of getting the Mastcam
characterization data needed to improve the quality of the images as soon
as possible, and jumped right in. Hopefully this effort will pay off--we
expect the first results of the focus and stereo tests tomorrow morning.

Ken