Jennifer Trosper

State from Sol 21

• The rover is in good health and all subsystems are performing nominally. The traverse activities from the previous sol completed as expected. There was initiall some confusion as to whether or not the full 360 NavCam end of traverse pan was acquired and would be available on UHF. When the other 270 degrees of the NavCam was thought to be on UHF, the Science team requested that they be able to use the UHF data to determine whether or not they'd like to do an approach. It was then discovere that the desired additional NavCam data was not acquired and would not be available on the UHF. The decision was made to make this a remote sensing day with the highest priority observation to be getting the additional NavCam coverage.
• Engineering indicated that one of the rover wheels appeared to be elevated a small amount and is perhaps on a rock.
• This is a 70m antenna Sol. The operation time is 70 minutes. DTE this Sol is 11.06 megabits, UHF is 49.1 megabits.

Sol 22 is a remote sensing sol:

• This sol was decided to be a remote sensing sol when it was discovered that no additional data was available to attempt an approach to an intersting target. The highest priority data to acquire and downlink is the rest of the NavCam images from this site.

Sequence Development:

• During sequence development we realized that the traverse factor we were using for the modling was not consistent with the way the vehicle was operating. (The traverse factor was included in the traverse modeling to extend the time modeled for the traverse to simulate motor degradation.) Since the traverse factor was artificial, the vehicle actually traversed at a faster rate. As a result, some of the images from the runout sequence on Sol 21 executed because the nominal sequence finished early. The science team recognized this during the sequence development meeting and the reasons were explained.
• Following is a summary of the sequenced activities:
  • 6 Mini-TES observations on: delta, King tut, Nil, Memphis, Giza, and one sky North.
  • NavCam panorama of the rest of the site
  • 5 target IPS (same targets as MTES)
  • IPS photometry Cal.
  • PanCam cal
  • PanCam mosaic + IPS scan of area in front of rover for soils
  • Moon and horizon
  • Pancam mosaic for geology
• Sequence Approval:
• Resources:
  • Time within allocation
  • DTE bandwidth within allocation
  • UHF bandwidth within allocation
  • Power - not modeled
  • Thermal - not modeled
  • No flight rules or constraints were violated
  • No low level commands were used in the sequence
  • No discussion of command loss or low power fault protection issues.

Sol 23 Considerations:

• The purpose of Sol 22 was to acquire remote sensing in order to do an approach or drive the next sol.

Cumulative Comments:

• It is important for the theme groups to sequence their requested observations, and in particular they should sequence their highest priority observations first. On Sol 15, the highest priority Pancam was not sequenced by the theme group, but the second and third were.
• Given extra time during sequence development, it is worthwhile to review the science priorities as well as to review, in sequence order, the visualizations of the image and remote spectroscopy requests.
• The modeling for IPS points needs to be updated. Ground testing should be performed to determine the duration of IPS measurements as a function of coadds. In addition, the modeling for Navcam images needs to be updated, since they appear to take up twice as much space in the resource modeling as they should at 16:1 image compression after a 12:8 pixel compression.
• The tools do not provide a means to determine the actual length of planned traverse segments. Furthermore, there are no good estimates with uncertainty of the meters per minute that the rover (with hazard avoidance on) can traverse as a function of the terrain type. Finally, there is limited information on the dead reckoning capability of the rover on gyros with respect to heading errors. Overall, there was no way to estimate the traverse duration or error based on the traverse design and terrain expectations, other than the experience of spacecraft team eyeballing the situation. This would not be acceptable in a real mission.
• We need to request a change control board to adjust the Hazcam data volume in the command dictionary from 2.1 to 1.05 Mbits.
• Clarification from PI: we have a mission success location if a) use two out of three in situ instruments, and b) the PI is willing to advocate that the science is new and different enough to make it a location.
• We need a ruling from the test director on whether we need Hazcam from one meter back and Hazcam at the current location in order to perform an arm operation. This may be affected by FIDO's ability to implement a stop one meter short after a long traverse. If not, we may not ever be able to do targets of opportunity after a long traverse.
• Before this Sol, we are at 2 out of 3 locations, zero trenches, and approximately 142 meters. After this Sol, we should have a trench (and another few meters). On Sol 19, we should be able to IDD the trench, which would provide the third mission success location. If that all works out, then all we need to do for mission success is drive another 60 meters. That could easily be done in two Sols, and more than that has been done in one Sol. There are eight Sols left.
• This was this mission manager's last Sol in this test. It has been a pleasure to work with the team. Good luck for the remainder of the test.

Special Notes:

• Starting on Sol 16 and on all subsequent sols, the afternoon sol will begin at 12:15 PM with all subsequent events shifting later by 15 minutes.
• Updated sequence development schedule starting at 0900 and 1415:
  • 70 minute Sequence Design
  • 10 minute Sequence Validation
  • 10 minute Sequence Approval
• We have a test director flight rule to not use approach moves (hazard avoidance off) for total moves of more than three meters.

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