Jennifer Trosper

State from Sol 25

• The rover is in good health. The arm is currently deployed at the expected location on the soil. The Mission Manager has approved an extended mission although the power is degrading and very little time will be available tomorrow (20 minutes) and the next sol (10 minutes) for operations.
• Resources for today are: DTE 13.11 Mbits, UHF 24.55 Mbits, 30 minutes of operations time.

Sol 26 is a Spectroscopy sol on Rock Center:

• The main objective of this sol is to acquire spectroscopy data on the ratted area on Black Lab. Data will be acquired from CMI, APXS, and MB. Additional PanCam observations have also been requested back towards the lander for lander localization and other purposes.

Sequence Development:

• Sequence development actually started during the SOWG since there was time left.
• There was discussion regarding whether or not the RS observations should be taken first prior to the IDD operations. The discussion determined that it is the science team's call on this. There is additional risk associated with doing the RS observations after the IDD operations simply because the likelihood of receiving a fault during IDD operations is probably greater than during RS observations. And, if that happened, the RS observations would be skipped and the IDD contingency sequence would be executed. Science decided to leave the RS activities first.
• Following is a summary of the sequenced activities:
  • 5 target Mini-TES sequence
    • RAT1, Soil Mini-TES, Rock center
    • 10, 20, 30 degree elevation
  • PanCam for aerosol properties
  • PanCam for lander localization
  • PanCam soil survey
  • PanCam cal target
  • IPS calibrations
  • IDD placement on Rock Center
    • CMI, APXS, MB measurements and hazcams
  • Rexmit APXS and MB from sol 24
  • Sequence ends with the arm on Black Lab for the night.
• Sequence Approval:
  • Time within allocation
  • DTE bandwidth within allocation
  • UHF bandwidth within allocation
  • Power - not modeled
  • Thermal - verified that the reduction in UHF time is still valid to keep the Mini-TES alive for one more sol.
  • Low level commands - mast move absolute for sky images. Parameters were verified.
  • First time events: waking up with the arm still deployed is a first time event.
  • Communications - Mission Manager indicated that, in the real mission, at this point if we hadn't already created some sequence in which the vehicle would autonomously communicate with us in the case it didn't receive any future commanding from us. There currently is not a sequence like this on-board the vehicle.
• Sequence was approved an uplinked.

Sol 27 Considerations:

• Everyone is going home (including FIDO) so ... nothing really to consider.

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.
• We have a test director flight rule to not use approach moves (hazard avoidance off) for total moves of more than three meters. Note that this is a Flight Rule that can be waived per Mission Manager (and has been on Sol 23).
• Before this Sol, we have completed the requirement for 3 locations, one trench (actually two), and have driven approximately 202 meters (out of 200 required). There are two Sols left.
• It seems like the SOWG chair spends a lot of time writing down the basic observation reqests. It may be useful if the team leads, in addition to delivering their sequences, deliver a summary of the observations to the SOWG chair which he can mark up and prioritize.

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

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