Projects: Red Rover Goes to Mars
Student Astronaut Wei Lin Tan
Celebrating Opportunity's First Images
Wei Lin, Abby, Shih-Han, and Vignan celebrate as the stunning images from Opportunity show up, one after another. Created: 25 January 2004.
Credit: The Planetary Society
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Spirit Sol 19
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Today's the first day Vignan and I are at JPL and the place is cool! Abby
and Shih-Han, who have been here for about 6 days now spent the day "showing
us the ropes" and they are really friendly.
We started off the day with a Science Context Meeting, but due to the communication
glitch in the rover yesterday (yester-sol), there wasn't much to report and
the meeting was over pretty quickly. I hope the glitch isn't too serious,
after all, the rover is believed to be beeping back, but no actual data is
being received...
After the Context Meeting, we spent about an hour in the Red Rover Goes to
Mars office cubicle to do image processing. I find the decorations so cozy!
Since it's our first day here, Vignan and I both brought the items representing
our countries. I brought a Merlion (Head of a lion, tail of a fish) to represent
Singapore, and Vignan brought a Veena, which is a musical instrument of Indian
origin.
After the tedious but fun image processing, we attended a press conference
where the latest and most accurate news of the mission is relayed to the media.
Immediately after, we attended the Science Downlink Assessment Meeting (SDAM
for short).
SDAM was definitely the most interesting meeting of the day. After the initial
briefing of the status of communications with the rovers, there was a hilarious "roll-call" of
the status of the rover's instruments. Considering the communications are
temporarily down, "Anything new with the instruments?" sounds like
a pretty funny thing to ask! Of course, everyone said no.
This was followed by a short reminder that mobility and other aspects of
the rover had to be kept in mind when attempting to do scientifically interesting
things. It seems like the science guys were "chastised" for putting
Science onto the list of Critical things for the rover to do! Hey, being scientists,
the science is obviously the most Critical thing for each Sol right?
There were then some presentations on the progress of the science aspect
(meaning what the scientists have studied from the old and new data so far),
and we had two very interesting discussions of the Mini-TES (Mini Thermal
Emission Spectrometer) measurements and the seemingly crusty soil.
SDAM ended with a bang as everyone celebrated Ray Arvidson's (Deputy Principal
Investigator) birthday! (With cake for everyone too!)
That's what we've done up till this time. At 3.30pm we'll be having a Science
meeting cum lunch/dinner at Chinatown to celebrate Chinese New Year!!
We had a great day today, Xin Nian Kuai Le, Gong Xi Fa Cai to everyone! (that
means Happy New Year and Good Fortune in Chinese)
Spirit Sol 20
Friday, January 23, 2004
We started off with the Science Context Meeting again today, and we were
really glad to hear that the rover was communicating! It sent a 10 minute
signal 90 minutes after Spirit "woke up", with a little bit of telemetry
data that is helping everyone determine the problem with the rover. It still
isn't perfect though... It sure seems like Vignan and I came at a really tense
time!
I think today's Context Meeting was much more interesting because some newly-printed
images of the landing site came in and all the scientists were poring over
them, pointing out unusual formations, the bright white spots (which were
the parachute and the lander), and tracing out dust-devil tracks. It was really
amazing seeing such detail on the large poster that you can never find in
books!
The atmosphere is somewhat tense here, with everyone discussing what's wrong
with Spirit and hoping that it will come out all right. We were a little disappointed
that all the data in the Rover's flash memory appears to be gone, meaning
no APXS, no Moessbauer, and no Marsdial images!!! Yet we still have lots to
work on from previous Sols and hopefully will have lots more to work on when
the rover is fixed.
Mixed with the anxiety of Spirit is the excitement of Opportunity's landing
tomorrow. There were two press conferences today, one on Spirit's problem
and one on Opportunity's landing. It sure seems like the media is interested
in bad news! Opportunity's landing was also discussed during the press conference,
about how the scientists and engineers take information from Spirit's landing
and make minor changes to Opportunity.
That was about all we did today, the most interesting of course, being the
fine new images of the landing site and the good news of bits of data from
Spirit. I really hope Spirit pulls through, and that Opportunity has a successful
landing!
Spirit Sol 21 / Opportunity Sol 1
Saturday, January 24, 2004
"TWO FOR TWO!!!"
Opportunity has successfully landed on Mars! Everything that's happened tonight
is just so amazing that there are NO words for it.
We were all at the Science Assessment room (nicknamed EDL War Room) to watch
the landing and the atmosphere was really tense, everyone was having their
own conversations, and we were being given a "briefing" on what
happens when during entry, descent and landing. Over an hour before landing
everyone was already quieting down and anxiously waiting for "tones" from
Opportunity that told its status.
The actual entry, descent and landing were so awesome! After every section
that went well (parachute deployment, airbag inflation, cutting the bridle,
bouncing, stopping) there was uproarious applause, and the biggest one was
when it was confirmed that Opportunity was safely on the ground and no longer
bouncing. The cheering was just so amazing! Almost like at sporting events
but way better!
We could watch Mission Operations from inside the EDL War Room and those
guys were so in-control. Wayne Lee (Chief Engineer of the EDL team) was giving
a sort of commentary of the whole sequence, and cracked everyone up with his
imitation of an aircraft pilot! When Opportunity finally stopped rolling,
the celebrations were stupendous! Al Gore and Governor Schwarznegger were
there too to congratulate all the engineers.
We stayed in the EDL War Room for a little while more, our hands were RED
with clapping, and then we went downstairs to meet Bill Nye the Science Guy!!
Today was just getting better and better. He talked to us about the Marsdial
and how it came about, and explaining the various parts of a sundial. It's
so cool to actually be up-close and personal with Bill Nye - he even speaks
the same way as he does on TV!
Time really flew tonight and before we knew it the press conference had started
and everyone was ecstatic. It was really a historic moment, to have two working
rovers on Mars at the same time. To think that we were actually there to witness
the making of history! Unfortunately the press room was completely packed
and since we came in late, we were asked to wait outside. Just as we were
getting out, the team from EDL "exercised their creativity" and
paraded into the press room screaming "TWO FOR TWO!" We were inches
away from the HEROES man! These people - everyone who made the Mars Exploration
Rovers a success - are really heroes in my eyes.
Actually being here during the landing of a Mars rover mission is simply
amazing, and although we didn't actually help with the mission, being an absolute
Mars maniac, experiencing first-hand Opportunity's landing felt like winning
a prize. It just swelled up each time all the people started clapping and
cheering at each stage of EDL, and it's really something I will never forget.
It is also something I can never describe in words - you just have to be here
to know it.
Continuation at 2 am:
The first images of Meridiani Planum have just been returned and it is SO
exciting! The first image to come back was the Planetary Society's own Marsdial!
Then there were Navcam and Hazcam shots of the surrounding. The stuff at Meridiani
is completely different from any other landing site - it's almost completely
flat, and appears to have bedrock on the surface, although that's not confirmed
yet. Opportunity seems to have landed inside a crater at Meridiani, thus the
hypothesis that bedrock was brought up to the surface by an impact. The soil
is also really strange, there seems to be coarse sand as the top layer and
fine particles below it.
Matt Golombek, who was the Principal Investigator for Pathfinder, was so
pleased by this site - it was just so different! All the images that came
back were so queer; I think a lot of people were stumped. The lack of rocks
was also quite unnerving, considering all the other landing sites (Viking
1, Viking 2, Pathfinder and Spirit) were considerably rocky.
All in all today was a really fruitful day, and everything went so smoothly!
NASA has been so successful, with 5 successful landings out of 6 attempts,
it's astounding!
Once again, "TWO FOR TWO!!!" Three cheers for all those people
who made this possible!
Spirit Sol 22 / Opportunity Sol 2
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Things are pretty quiet at mission operations today despite it being the
day after the landing. We've re-started image calibration and collecting sun/shadow
measurements of the Marsdial again.
We made a short trip down to the Pancam room and got to see Opportunity's
Panorama Postcard before it was released. It was really cool to see how different
the site is compared to Gusev Crater, which is lighter and much rockier. We
were also told by Jim Bell that the chances of Opportunity landing inside
a crater were close to zero!
We spent another long and productive period doing more Marsdial calibrations
and Abby and Vignan did the Marsdial Movies (which are so cool!).
At about 1:00am PST, we went down for Opportunity's first Science Assessment
meeting, and this was effectively the first REAL science assessment meeting
that Vignan and I attended. Steve Squyres said that this would probably be
the coolest Science Assessment Meeting of the mission so far given the unusual
nature of Opportunity's landing site. He was pretty enthusiastic about getting
the status of the Moessbauer because it seemed to have a little bit of a problem
during the flight. It's great that it's now working perfectly on the surface!
There was then a really interesting discussion of the soil at Meridiani.
There were about three theories thrown up about what the soil was made of,
including the possibility of two different layers to create the two colors
of the soil seen in the pictures, of just one type of soil that reflects differently
when "squished".
After this lively discussion, we were warned about the difficulty of getting
out of a crater by Dr. Lutz Richter, who had known of a similar problem with
the Russian Lunokhod mission. It's now 2:00am and we have to leave. It's been
a really interesting day today, and I can't wait for all the new data that
will come in tomorrow!
Spirit Sol 23 / Opportunity Sol 3
Monday, January 26, 2004
We started off the “day” attending the “lunch lecture” that
is given to the engineers of the Mars Exploration Rovers mission today. These
lectures are given by one of the scientists to make sure that the engineers
know about all the cool new science that’s going on from the efforts
of their engineering! We missed the first bit of it but managed to catch the
interesting bit where they showed images from the Ka’u desert of Hawaii
and images from Spirit Sol 20 and they looked so similar it was just mind-boggling.
Mr. David Lavery gave us a ‘tour’ of mission operations (the
place where the engineers work) and it was really interesting to see how the
place functioned. For those of you wondering how the rover is driven, it isn’t
by a big joystick or steering wheel! There is a Mobility section in mission
operations that controls the rover and the IDD. We were also shown how each
task for the rovers has two computers, one for Spirit and one for Opportunity.
This was because they had not arranged for the landing sites to be almost
12 hours apart – it was completely coincidental – so the place
was designed to handle rovers operating simultaneously! After these few new
interesting facts, we visited the *drum roll* free ice-cream machine! Why?
Today’s the last day Abby and Shih-Han will be with us (everyone’s
so sad about this that “Last day” is being referred to as the “L” word!),
so we all spent an hour in the Red Rover Goes to Mars cubicle savoring some
of the free ice-cream together and just chatting. Our two pairs overlapped
about 4 days unlike the usual one-two day overlap of the other pairs, so it’ll
be so sad to see them leave! After that hour of chatting we rushed off to
attend the ITE science hypotheses discussion where all the scientists share
hypotheses about the landing site. This was definitely one of the coolest
meetings ever.
Due to the high level of attendance, we ended up sitting on the floor, and
Dr. Ray Arvidson and Dr. Phil Christensen showed their PowerPoint slides of
the general geology of the landing site, talking about possible ways the hematite
formed and lots of other cool stuff. Sitting there cross-legged on the floor
taking notes it almost felt like a classroom!
One of the more interesting hypotheses was one where Phil Christensen did
a topographic map of the hematite area and the areas with hematite appeared
to have slightly lower elevation, suggesting a possible basin. Another discussion
that was thrown around was the possible stratification and cross-bedding of
the bedrock found at the landing site. If this can be confirmed, it’s
would really suggest water, but since we don’t have high-resolution
images of it yet, everything is just “wishful thinking”.
Finally we went downstairs to take pictures before Abby and Shih-Han leave;
we tried taking pictures in front of the JPL sign but due to the under-lighting,
everyone looks kind of freaky…
We’ll be attending the Science Assessment Meeting later on after the
Mars Odyssey passes over the rover and sends back data, but that will be about
2:30am PST, so we’ll be writing all about that tomorrow!
Spirit Sol 24 / Opportunity Sol 4
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Yestersol's science assessment meeting was scheduled to be after the Mars
Odyssey pass in hopes of obtaining newer and higher resolution images. Sadly,
only new Navcam images were obtained. Yet, it was a pretty interesting meeting,
with updates on the instruments' health, and Mini-TES of Opportunity is ready
to start its measurements! (All the Mini-TES scientists were really glad to
hear this!)
One of the highlights of the meeting was trying to think of a name for that
famous outcrop at Meridiani. The geology group has come up with a list of
things to look out for in that outcrop and the implications of finding these
- bedding, stratification, sharp or gradational contacts of layers etc. and
it was interesting to see how they were all believing that they saw layers
in the outcrops and embedded rocks. As everyone was discussing which bit of
the outcrop the rover should head for first, some were discussing it in terms
of Friday or Saturday, and Steve Squyres was like, "Wait, which Sol is
that? I don't do days of the week anymore." I just love the way everyone
is so immersed in this mission and I really admire them!
Today we spent our first hour or so in the cubicle doing image calibration/processing
and I think it was pretty productive - If we get enough done, the images should
be up on the newly designed Marsdial page in no time!
The Impact To Egress Science Hypotheses discussion today was just as interesting
as yesterday's, and it really felt like a geology class. About 4 scientists
went up to talk about the possible source of hematite on Mars by comparing
with the various processes of hematite deposition on Earth. Being a 14-year-old
student it was admittedly difficult to follow the details of the discussion
with the goethite and the pyrite and the oxides, carbonates, silicates and
sulfides all tied in together but it was most definitely educational! As our
mentor today, Joe Oliver, said, "After this, you guys are never going
to look at rocks the same way again."
Spirit Sol 25 / Opportunity Sol 5
Thursday, January 28, 2004
During the Science Assessment meeting yesterday we learned that Egress (driving
the rover off the lander) may occur by Sol 8 or 9! The scientists seemed to
be pretty impatient to get off and start studying everything, but the engineers
are being really careful to avoid any glitches, so the atmosphere in the Science
Assessment room was a little tense. Someone told me that this usually happens
on space missions. Especially impatient are the Mini-TES guys who are "Still
anxiously waiting for data".
Today, we spent almost our entire time here in the Science Assessment Room.
The Hypotheses Meeting was as interesting as it was yesterday, but was even
more incomprehensible! The main topics were Basaltic Tuffs and Cross-bedding,
and it seems that quite a lot of people are convinced that they see cross-bedding
at Meridiani.
We managed to catch the entire Science Assessment Meeting today because there
was no delay, and it's strange how everyone can be so tense despite the great
site they've landed at. The scientists really want to avoid having the same
problems with Opportunity that they had with Spirit. At least there was a
new image from Spirit to look at today!
Mini-TES was the focus of a lot of discussion today.. These guys really wanted
to see Meridiani in its "Full Glory" from the ground since it was
really TES data that led to the selection of the site in the first place.
One of the interesting bits of news was Tim Parker announcing that he thinks
that Opportunity landed in a different crater from what everyone originally
thought it did.
I think the most amazing thing today was the 3D images. To think that by
sitting in the middle of this crater and looking around, scientists can actually
create 3D images is really cool.
All in all, the scientists seem really anxious to get more data and I'm really
anxious to see what they'll name the famous outcrop and who they will dedicate
the Opportunity landing site to.
Spirit Sol 26 / Opportunity Sol 6
Friday, January 30, 2004
Today was really exciting because we managed to see for the first time, the
egress done on the test bed! For the past few sols, we have been attending
the Impact to Egress Science Hypotheses Discussion, but these have been stopped
as of today. When we went to the Science Assessment room, we were pretty amazed
to see the place completely empty save one person. He told us that the rover
was egressing in the test bed and promptly brought us there.
All the scientists gathered around the test bed were clearly excited, all
talking amongst themselves. Due to the large number of people clustered around
the rover, Vignan, Joe and I had to literally stand behind a glass wall overlooking
the test bed. Apparently we weren't able to hear all the exciting clanks and
noises of the egress. This is the first time I have ever seen what the rover
looks like in real life and it was really cool.
I found it pretty amusing that the power and communications of this test
rover came from a cable instead of sunlight and radio! Actually seeing the
rover driving off the lander was amazing yet perplexing. It merely drove off
like you'd drive a remote control car off a platform. Yet this would be done
millions of kilometers away on Mars! After the successful egress of the test
rover, some scientists were commenting, "that was almost too easy!"
We had a small amount of free time so we spent a bit of time working on image
processing of the MarsDial, and these can be seen on the Marsdial page. We're
currently anxiously waiting for the Science Assessment Meeting to start because
Mini-TES data may be coming in. Sadly, we'll be walking out on it after half
an hour, but we'll write as much as we can about it tomorrow!
Spirit Sol 27 / Opportunity Sol 7
Saturday, January 31, 2004
The new Student Astronauts have arrived! Janice De Berg from Iowa and Maciej
Hermanowicz from Poland arrived just in time to see Opportunity egress! We
spent most of the start of our day here giving them an orientation of our
cozy little cubicle and all the programs that we use. The more the merrier
and having four Student Astronauts at one time is always more fun. The little
shelf we have for the souvenirs brought by all the student astronauts is already
almost full with a beautiful poster from Janice and two adorable Polish dolls
from Maciej. It seemed like just yesterday we were taking advice from Abby
and Shih-Han, and now we're showing two new people around.
I should first report a very exciting Science Assessment Meeting yestersol.
It was such a relief to hear that Spirit was sending back science data again,
and that the mossbauer data was not lost. I found it surprising that moessbauer
found olivine in Adirondack, since olivine degrades quickly in water. I look
forward to seeing new data from Spirit that could tell us more about the amazing
Gusev site!
The very first Mini-TES data of Opportunity came back and it was really cool!!!
Steve Squyres injected a bit of humor into the meeting by ironically saying "We
had a pretty slow day for Mini-TES, Phil do you have anything at all?" Then
came this whole rush of Mini-TES information from Phil... First of all, it
confirmed that the layer of coarse-looking gravel contains hematite. It also
confirmed that the gray layer is made of different stuff from the reddish
layer below it. This reddish layer is also different from the reddish stuff
at Gusev so now we know just how diverse Mars can be!
Today, we have just had another successful egress. A couple of historic quotes
used: "Two for Two!" and "12 wheels on the dirt," and "it
appears that the astrobot survived its journey." Excellent. All this
action was actually happening in mission control, but it was completely packed,
so we watched it in the press conference room. Everyone was ecstatic when
the first image came back - a rear Hazcam image of the lander, and the cheering
in mission control was almost as great as that of the landing! Both rovers
have now officially landed on Martian dirt.
We're currently waiting for the press conference to start and subsequently
the Science Assessment Meeting. These are not to be missed immediately after
egress and we will most certainly have lots to write about tomorrow!
Spirit Sol 28 / Opportunity Sol 8
Sunday, February 1, 2004
Today is the last day at JPL for Vignan and I, and I feel really fortunate
to have been here at such an incredible time. We came at a time when Spirit
was having problems, and during our time here, we have seen how the MER (Mars
Exploration Rover) team has gone about solving this problem. We also got to
see the landing of Opportunity, which was the most exciting time of my life.
Now we have just seen its egress, and experienced the pride that the MER team
has managed to successfully get all twelve wheels in the dirt.
Yesterdays Science Assessment Meeting was pretty short; mainly they were
discussing the new location for the landing site. They are continuing to confirm
the exact location with information from the EDL team and by mapping craters
in the background. Some new information from the egress was the properties
of the soil. Lutz Richter talked about how they were analyzing the rover tracks
to determine the "sinkage" of the rover's wheels. These studies
help determine how large of a slope Opportunity can climb on its way out of
the crater. Good news! The team believes the rover can safely climb out of
the crater.
Even more new soil data came in today during the Science Assessment Meeting,
comparing the position of the wheels before and after a slight maneuver. We
were also given a bit of Mini-TES basics by Donald Banfield who showed us
how the Mini-TES was used on the martian atmosphere. Its so cool how the martian
atmosphere is opaque at 15 microns so they can determine temperature of different
altitudes by adjusting the frequency.
Another bit of new news was the naming of the outcrop. No decision has been
made yet...stay tuned!
We dropped by for a short visit to the Pancam room during the Odyssey pass
(this was pure coincidence) and we saw Jim Bell and Mark Lemmon getting all
excited over the new images. Seeing such enthusiasm from all the scientists
during these past few days here just makes me so happy and want more than
ever to become a scientist maybe even come back here in 15 years time.
These 11 days that I spent here at JPL have been such an amazing learning
experience for me, and there are so many people I would like to thank for
making this possible.
Most importantly, The Planetary Society for organizing the Red Rover Goes
to Mars program and the Student Astronaut program, giving us students this
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and Lego for sponsoring it. Emily Lakdawalla
for coordinating this program and being an excellent mentor and preparing
all the assignments to get us ready for the program. KJ Walsh, Joe Oliver,
and Jennifer Vaughn for being great mentors and guiding us around JPL. Bruce
Betts, Louis Friedman, Glenn Cunningham, Vilia Zmuidzinas and Susan Lendroth,
who played big parts in making the Student Astronaut Program a success. All
the people at JPL who have been really kind and friendly toward us and spent
lots of time explaining lots of cool stuff about Mars to us. Abby and Shih-Han
for showing us the ropes and being great friends during our 5-day overlap.
Vignan, for being a great partner. Janice and Maciej, who are really friendly
and who we can be assured will continue to do their best for the program,
good luck guys!
To all these amazing people who have made my time here the most enjoyable
and educational time of my life, to all the Student Astronauts, and to the
entire team of Spirit and Opportunity, thank you so much and may the Force
be with you!
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