LAPIS 3 Telecon - 2/6/01 - 12:00-1:00 PT

1. Steve Squyres, Professor at Cornell University, Principle Investigator

(or PI) for the Athena science payload gave an overview of the '03 Mars

Exploration Rover (MER) Mission, 3: In the summer of '03, twin Mars

Exploration rovers with Athena payloads will be sent to Mars, touch down in different location

and traverse across the surface. Each MER weighs about 250 lbs., is 4ft.

tall, and can traverse 100 yards in one day (compared to Sojourner which

traversed about 100 yards during the entire mission). The science objective

is to learn more about what Mars was like in the past, how much water

existed, and in what form. The rovers will be robotic field geologists,

carrying a toolkit or payload of instruments including high resolution

cameras (which have 3 1/2 times the resolution of Sojourner's cameras), a

spectrometer, and an arm carrying a microscopic imager, two spectrometers,

and the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) which will be able to abrade the surface of

rocks down to 5 mm in order to have clean surfaces to look at.

Additionally, the rovers will be able to dig trenches by locking 5 wheels

and rotating the 6th and then using instruments to characterize the trench.

These rovers are difficult to learn to operate. It would be great to "joy

stick" the rovers--see what they were doing in realtime and respond

accordingly. However, Mars is too far away, so we have to send a command

and the rover has to be able to obey the command and figure some things out

on its own. We can tell it where to drive, but it decides what path to take

and how to avoid the obstacles. Also, it runs completely on solar-powered

batteries so it works during the Martian day and sleeps during the night--so

we have to work on that schedule, too.

2. Ray Arvidson, Professor at Washington University and Deputy Principle

Investigator gave an overview of FIDO and LAPIS: LAPIS 3 participants will

be involved in the test mission with the MER prototype, FIDO. FIDO has a

similar

structure to MER and carries elements of the Athena payload, including

imaging capabilities, an Infrared Point Spectrometer, an arm with a

Microscopic Imager (which can also have a Moessbauer Spectrometer). FIDO

helps train the Athena team in realistic settings with mission-like

constraints and allows them to test operational sequences. FIDO is tested

both in the Mars Yard--a big, Mars-like sandbox at JPL--and in various

desert regions around the U.S. Through LAPIS, students plan a portion of the

test mission that supports the objectives of the primary mission. The first

year of LAPIS, 1999, the students drove the rover on the longest traverse of

the field tests and used instrumentation to collect remote sensing data.

The second year, 2000, the students were involved in taking the rover from

it's final location and navigating back to the lander, acquiring science

data along the way. This year the tests are considered "blind tests" which

means the participating scientists and LAPIS 3 participants will not be

told where the test site is. Since these field tests simulate Mars

missions, participants will only be provided with data similar to what they

would be able to get about Mars (i.e orbital imagery).

The field tests have two main objectives: 1. To help train the science and

engineering teams in rover operations by doing field trials in realistic

terrains; 2. To test operational sequences. The focus of this year's LAPIS

plan will be to have the rover dig a 10 cm long trench and characterize the

stratigraphy and the elements. Trench digging will be an integral part of

the overall plan for this spring so that that LAPIS work will be real and

important to the overall mission.

2. Cassie went through the LAPIS 3 Program Plan. Schedule changes so far are

as follows: The WITS training will NOT take place on 2/16, but will instead

be postponed to a later date; The Mars Yard test for LAPIS 3 will be on

April 11.

3. In response to a question about what happens if the rover flips over,

Terry told the group that the rover will not flip over because there are a

series of checks and balances built into it. If it gets a command that it

determines will put it in a dangerous place, it won't follow the command.

In response to a question about how they know which direction is which on

the rover, Ray explained that there is a sun sensor on the rover that

inventories the azimuth and elevation of the sun and that is used, along

with time of day, to determine where the rover is facing.

4. REMINDERS: Important notes and action items--

a. Each team will need to have a PC with these minimum requirements: a

Pentium III with 128 MB of RAM and 1 GB of free disk space. If you do not

have access to such a computer, please contact Cassie immediately and we

will work something out.

b. Cassie needs the participating students names, grade levels, and email

addresses ASAP. Please also send information about Spring Break dates,

finals or other testing dates, and potential conflicts with the LAPIS 3

schedule. We do our best to try to accommodate everyone's needs.

c. Please contact Cassie with any questions or concerns throughout the LAPIS

3 experience. Call 650-340-8350 or send an email to cdbowman@stanford.edu.

This is going to be great!!

Cassie