Elaina McCartney, SOWG Documentarian
Jack Farmer, SOWG Chair

August 17, 2002

Pre-downlink meeting: Sol 20 was planned as Trench&Drive sol. Pre-drive commands included MiniTES observations, Pancam sky frames and moon photometry. The plan was to drive forward, trench, back drive, turn in place, and acquire two Pancam mosaics to capture images of both trenches. Then a drive of approximately 20 meters was designed, followed by 360 Pancam and an image of the Pancam calibration target to aid in localization and to ascertain dust deposition . Expected on DTE are 120 degrees of the Navcam plus 1 extra wedge in the upper tier, plus front and rear Hazcam at end of drive and all the Mini-TES observations. We're busted in UHF again, and will receive everything FIFO, possibly up to the second trenching experiment (the rest is due on Sol 22). It is hoped that Pancam images will verify trench structure.

Resources predicted: 686 WHr, 11.06 Mb DTE, 49.1 Mb UHF, 90 minutes FIDO time [note: Test Director changed available time to 80 minutes during Science Assessment], 70m coverage (expect another 34m sol on Sol 24). There are approximately 30 Mbits in the UHF buffer.

Mission Success start of Sol 21: FIDO has traversed 143 meters as of beginning of Sol, before confirmation of the approximately 20 meter drive scheduled on Sol 20, and has achieved Pancam panorama, 3 locations, and possibly two trenches.

Long Term Planning reported that we want to get the 30 Mbit buffer down on UHF and get 120 degree Navcam wedge (DTE) to plan rest of traverse toward Camelback, followed by either direct measurement of rocks that have fallen from the caprock, or get to a black rock for in situ measurements and do remote sensing on the caprock. We can drive on Sol 24 (low DTE), but not on Sol 25. There will be no downlink Monday afternoon (end of mission), but the data will come down and count toward mission return.

Sol 21 is planned to be a Drive sol.

Uplink review:

Sol 20 sequence included sky survey, Mini-TES, moon observation, Trench&Go (using the left front wheel, followed by a back-off and turn to right), two Pancam mosaics, drive to waypoint way1 (possibly with wheels threading through trenches), then to waypoints way2 and way 3 (to the left of sightseeing1). Highest priority Navcam is centered on Camelback destination (120 degree wedge plus an additional high wedge at 80 degrees, and front and rear Hazcams.

Assignments:

Mini-TES needs to be confirmed, look for Atmosphere's compressed Pancam and Navcam of moon (UHF), confirm FIDO's location at end of the traverse, continue to assign someone from each theme group to work with Long Term Planning, focus on what needs to be in DTE and what can be targeted at the end of traverse. Mini-TES should have been on DTE.

Science Assessment Meeting

Rover state of health: FIDO drove 17.9 meters, used 66 minutes out of 90 for total execution time of the sequence. All systems are healthy. There are open questions about traversability index, rover time, actuator degradation. The Test Director has announced that FIDO time will decline 10 minutes per sol, starting with 80 minutes available time this sol.

Tactical Downlink Assessments:

Traverse was successful, Mini-TES will be coming down UHF. Sol 21 will be primarily a Drive sol, but need to build consensus on other targets and activities.

• Long Term Planning: Drive target for today is Endgame (approximate distance 42 meters). Seal rock is 20 meters off to left. This target avoids vegetation and opens the possibility of being able to approach a rock at the end of the traverse.
• Soils: Acquired great rear hazcams showing tracks. Request to look at tracks with Pancam to get depth measurements. Need to plan to minimize UHF data volume.
• Atmospheres: Still need to add 40 degrees to heading in images. MOC overfly will be to the east for coordinated observations. Most pressing request from Atmosphere group is the coordinated TES /Mini-TES observation, plus Pancam sky (second priority; all Atmospheres requests are UHF).
• Mineralogy: Plan to look off to the side and in the near field for observations since we will be at the far field eventually and be able to make better measurements then. Note that Mini-TES does not count as FIDO field time. Where are the black rocks?

Assignments:

Theme groups should be looking at what they want to do when we get closer to Camelback. Groups should build and prioritize their activities, as discussed above. Team should be on time for meetings. 

SOWG Meeting

Tactical Operations Summary:

Rover state of health: All systems are nominal, all instruments are good to go. Clarification of execution time: yesterday degradation of the actuators was announced, and a drive factor of 3 was used to determine FIDO drive time. Still seeing some degradation in performance. Went 6 minutes over in execution yestersol.

There is a change in resource predicts from 90 minutes FIDO time to 80 minutes.

Science Observation Plan:

• Atmos: Mini-TES coordinated with MGS overfly, three observations, pointed east at 30 degree elevation, 2 minute time gap between observations.
• Mineralogy: Three Mini-TES for targets Mingus, Billy, Coltrane-1 (not Miles).
• Traversability discussion: .67 meters/minute (traversability index 3). May have only approximately 10 minutes for observations if priority drive is to be achieved.
• Atmospheres: priority is Pancam image set (2 images, same azimuth, 2 elevations, 20 degrees and 65 degrees, 200:1 compression). The 20 degree elevation is the higher priority. Group requests "all or none", end of traverse is satisfactory, with Navcam support and a Pancam.
• Mineralogy: Request 1x3 scan coincident with MiniTES plus end of drive shoot in the blind to characterize the ground in front of the rover. These observations are not a high priority on this sol. Group is more interested in possible end-of-drive observations.
• Soils: localization observation (360 Navca0 at end of traverse will fulfill that request).
• LTP: Drive to AtEndGame with waypoints OnTarge1 and OnTarget2.

Note: Cannot, on a long traverse, do a reasonable stutter stop for possible IDD deployment (discussion to continue). Rationale relates to FIDO hazard avoidance. Question is raised about possibility of using belly images as a proxy for MER's ability to stop 1 meter short and take Hazcams for work volume, but request denied by Test Director.

Long Term Planning should work with engineering to come up with some scenarios and determine how much time the activities take.

Recap of priorities: Driving is highest priority, followed by pre-drive Mini-TES (if the mast goes up), IPS blind at Endgame target (low priority), Atmosphere's Mini-TES and Pancam toward the east (20 degrees elevation higher priority). Soil relinquished its request for Pancam of tracks, and will use Navcam for that purpose. Will request front and rear Hazcam on DTE, plus as much of the 120 degree wedge of Navcam as will fit.

Tactical Uplink Summary:

Planned traverse to EndGame, probably 4 meters short of original plan to buy some science: Full Pancam and Mini-TES series coordinated with TES for Atmospheres was retained. UHF buffer will be emptied on this sol. No Mini-TES or IPS observations were included for Mineralogy. The timing of the Mini-TES and TES coordinated activity was apparently not taken into account. Drive was predicted to take 73 minutes out of total available of 80.

Considerations for the future:

• Option for stutter stop is back on the table, will be available for future sols. Has restricted target of opportunity a.m. CMI in this mission. Engineers came up with method to do stutter step. New method for stutter stop: Extra Hazcam pair uses DTE resources, but can choose to leave out rear Hazcam in appropriate situations. Maneuver would cost 40 seconds.
• Need to check azimuths with information that we have (Atmospheres is asserting 30 degrees at this time).
• There was a miscommunication regarding amount of time taken for Mini-TES; need to book keep arm deploy and stow.
• Last sol to RAT will be Sol 25.
• Positioning of Navcam portion that comes down on DTE becomes more important as DTE data volume shrinks.
• When there is a mast deploy before and after the drive, look at possibility of making one mast deploy after drive. (In this sol, it caused the movement of a time critical Mini-TES.)
• Use MOC images for estimating location after a long drive.

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