Projects: Red Rover Goes to Mars
Student Astronaut Abigail Fraeman
Looking for Opportunity's Landing Site
What the heck did Opportunity land in? Planetary Society Executive
Director Louis Friedman joins Abigail, Wei Lin, MER Project Manager
Pete Thiesinger, and MER Landing Site Committee Chair Matt Golombek
in looking over geologist Tim Parker's shoulder as he tries to
figure out where Opportunity is. Credit: The Planetary Society |
Spirit Sol 7
Saturday, January 10, 2004
Today, it has been the first day on duty for Susini and me, the second
group of Student Astronauts. My day started at 11a.m, when I went to The
Planetary Society and met Rafael and Courtney, the Student Astronauts from
the first group, and several people from The Planetary Society who were
very helpful, telling us what we were going to do and giving us useful
advice. We had lunch at The Planetary Society, and after that we went to
JPL to see the places we are going to be in during our shifts. It was great
to see the Red Rover Goes To Mars cubicle at last after seeing so many
pictures of it through the Internet. Susini and I have already put something
typical from each of our countries in the cubicle: a metal Elephant and
a typical Spanish fan. It was also very exciting to see the rooms used
for meetings during mission time, where we will spend much of our time.
After this small tour, which ended at about 4 p.m. we went back to have a
rest at our hotel, as we would need to have our eyes wide open for tonight's
shift. The shift started at midnight, and Rafael and Courtney were very helpful
by telling Susini and me how things work inside mission operations, what meetings
are all about and what to pay special attention to, amongst other things.
It is now 1:47 a.m. pacific time and I think it's about 4:00 p.m. at Gusev
crater, Spirit's landing site. We have attended one meeting in which scientists
were discussing where the rover was and which places would be interesting
to visit in the long term. This meant that they were using many satellite
images of the landing site, instead of images from the rover cameras, which
can cover a much smaller area. Most of the images were from the THEMIS instrument
on Mars Odyssey, so they showed how hot or cold the surface was during the
moment the image was taken. In this particular case the image that was used
was taken during the Martian night, at about 4 a.m. It is useful to know the
temperature of an area on Mars at night because rocks can keep heat for a
longer time than sand, so these images will tell you what areas have a high
rock abundance, and so are interesting places for the rover to explore. We
had the opportunity to see some cool 3D images of some hills or high land
taken from an orbiting satellite, while the scientists discussed if the rover
would get there or if the place was interesting enough for the rover to travel
such a large distance (we still don't know exactly where the rover is, but
the scientists were talking about a few hundreds of meters away from these
hills.)
It's now 4:20 a.m. and we've now been to another meeting. At 2:00 a.m. we
(all of the student astronauts here: Courtney, Rafael, Susini and I) attended
the Science Assessment meeting for sol 7. In this meeting each Science Theme
Group (e.g. mineralogy, geology, etc.) tells the rest of the scientists what
the data we have has told them and what they want to do, or what their objectives
are for the coming Sols. I found this meeting very interesting, because it
gave me a more general view of the mission, and also you see things from many
different perspectives. On the other hand, I found some of the things that
were being explained too difficult, so I didn't understand one or two things
fully.
It has been a great day today (but very tiring too) I've learned loads and
I've had fun too!
Spirit Sol 8
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Today it has been my second day at JPL, now I'm here with Susini, since Rafael
and Courtney are gone now. Our shift today started at 12:45 a.m. and lasted
until 5:30 in the morning. These strange working hours are affecting us a
little bit, because it is difficult to catch up with your sleep during the
day, but we know that this is a unique opportunity and if we sacrifice some
hours of sleep now, we'll have time to catch up back at home.
Some things have changed now at mission operations. Today we have attended
the first Science Operations Work Group (SOWG) meeting. At this meeting, the
science theme groups (mineralogy, geology, atmosphere...) already know what
they want to do next sol, and what happened in the previous sol. But they
have to get together in one room to decide what the rover is really going
to do next sol. This is necessary because there is a limited amount of time
to do activities and a limited amount of data that can be returned to Earth
or that the rover can save safely, so scientists can't do all the activities
they want to. Each activity that a group wants to do is given a priority,
because the most common thing that happens is that there is too much time
consumed by the activities and too much data that has to be returned to Earth,
so activities with the lowest priority usually get modified to meet the conditions
or cancelled. It was very interesting to see how the scientists have hot debates
and have many disagreements, but finally come to a result that more or less
satisfies everyone.
At JPL, everyone seems very happy and cheerful about how the mission is going
at the moment. Susini and I are getting excellent images from the Marsdial
which you will be able to check out on this website. We are closer every day
to knowing precisely where the rover is.
As of now, the rover is expected to egress on sol 10 or maybe 11, so Susini
and I will have an excellent opportunity to know how egress happens. This
will be an exciting part of the mission, because we will then be able to analyze
our targets from close by, and use some very powerful instruments that are
located on the rover's robotic arm: APXS, Moessbauer and the microscopic imager.
We had a great time today too, and I hope to do a good job as a Student Astronaut,
and keep up the high standard that Rafael and Courtney have left behind.
Spirit Sol 9
Monday, January 12, 2004
Our shift today started at 1:15 in the morning. It is now 5:54 a.m. and it's
been a very tiring day today for Susini and me. We went to sleep yesterday
at about 6:30 in the morning, and in the evening we went to Universal Studios,
where we had lots of fun. After that we had dinner at the Studios and finally
we went back home at about 9 p.m. to get a little sleep before our shift at
JPL.
Today we have attended another Science Operations Work Group meeting (SOWG
meeting). Scientists are at the moment planning what they will do after the
rover comes off the lander, for the first 2 or 3 sols (1sol=1martian day=24hrs.
39min.). They now have much more time to plan what the rover will do than
what they have normally, because they are planning things 2 or 3 days before
they happen. On the other hand, when the rover has been off the lander for
3 or 4 days, planning must be done on a daily basis. Therefore, the mission
scientists have a great chance to plan the activities which will be done just
after egress with a lot of detail.
One of the things the scientists are planning very carefully is where to
use the rover's 'arm' Instrument Deployment Device (IDD) for the first time.
This is important because the IDD carries some of the rover's more powerful
instruments, such as the Moessbauer or the APXS spectrometers. It was also
important to choose an interesting target because the rover will be standing
still at its location for more some days, and since the Moessbauer and APXS
tests take a long time to be done, this is a great opportunity to get the
most out of these instruments. The scientists were discussing if it was better
to deploy it on soil, in a trench dug in the soil, on a rock... It was very
interesting to listen to this conversation because you could learn many of
the properties of the Martian rocks and soil.
Today has been an excellent (and tiring) day, I have learned and had lots
of fun as usual. I hope to do a good job as a Student Astronaut and to have
fun in the remaining days.
Spirit Sol 10
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Today there has been little activity for us during the time that we, the
student astronauts have been at JPL. The scientists are wrapping up the planning
for the days after egress.
Today, we have passed the point at which there were exactly 12 hours of time
difference with Mars, so we worked for exactly the opposite to normal hours.
The time difference issue is very important throughout the mission, because
scientists must be awake to make decisions and plan activities, but it is
difficult to sleep at unusual hours. I understand this now more than ever,
because I am working on a time schedule which is similar to the scientists'.
It is not only the sleep, but you also get mixed up with meal times. This
happens because if you get home at 10 a.m. after working 6 hours or more,
the only thing you want to do is sleep, so you skip breakfast, have late lunch
whenever you wake up (2 or 3 p.m.) and then you have to have dinner early
in order to go to sleep to get energy for your next shift.
Although we didn't do much here at JPL today, the rover has had an important
day on Mars. It has made a turn to be able to get off the lander in a direction
which is free from obstacles, such as an airbag which didn't deflate completely.
It has also cut the last cable that was holding it to the lander; it is now
an independent rover. These are the last events that will occur before the
rover gets off the lander. This process is called egress, and it is planned
to happen tomorrow, unless there are weather obstacles or other difficulties.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the first data from the rover on the
Martian surface. Until now the rover has seen just a tiny bit off the surface--it
was on top of the lander.
Today we have had a radio interview for a program called voice of America.
I think I did fine, the interview was short and quite simple, so I didn't
get very nervous. After I finish writing this journal, at 9:30 a.m. we are
having an interview for a local newspaper from Pasadena, and I hope I'll do
O.K. there too.
Stay tuned for information about egress, it will be an exciting event to
follow!
Spirit Sol 11
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Today we have already seen and learnt more than any other day at JPL, and
it is only about 2 and a half hours since we started our shift today. It is
now 2:15 a.m.
The first thing we did today when we arrived was go to the Science Assessment
room, where we looked around and saw new images of the landing site and scientists
working with the data. We looked around until the Science Context Meeting
started. In this meeting the scientists review what happened in the previous
sol, and some scientists present their ideas to the others, so they can help
to develop hypotheses to test with the rover. Also, they discussed important
issues, like where to set the IDD (instrument deployment device=the rover's
arm) for the first time. Some people give their opinion and their reasons
to support this opinion. This helps the scientists have a balanced point of
view when they have to make the final decision.
Some very interesting hypotheses were presented, regarding the positions
of small pebbles, which seem not to be random, but to follow some pattern.
There are many reasons that could have created this pattern, and some are
very interesting to think about, like impact craters, ice or maybe even water
flows, lava and volcanism. But this is only a hypothesis and has to be tested,
using the rover's capability to move around and make new measurements.
After this meeting we stayed in the room and some scientists explained to
us what they were doing. The scientists are always happy to explain things
to you and tell you what they are doing. One scientist told us that he was
using one of the rover's panoramas to look at the shapes of rocks and if they
were eroded or had straight sides. This would tell us in which direction the
wind has been blowing in this site. He was beginning to use different colours
for each direction that the rock's side was facing. Eventually, we'll all
be able to stand back and see the 360 degree panorama to see in which direction
the rocks had been eroded all around the lander. This can then be compared
to the sand dunes which can be seen in the photograph and you can get many
conclusions about the wind.
We were also invited to see the Mission Control room by Dave Lavery, from
NASA's Mars Exploration Program office. In this room, engineers monitor the
health of the rover and data transmission, among other things. It was really
interesting to see this place, which is very important for the rover to keep
itself at the appropriate temperature and to be safe. It is also very important
for data to get uploaded and downloaded to and from Mars. We were shown the
different sections that there are, and what each is responsible for, for example
the place where the health of each instrument is kept track of. We saw the
place where the images are first seen, and the Pancam office, where the images
are put together and colour calibrated so that they look like what the human
eye would see.
I'm looking forward to see egress tomorrow, it will be a really exciting
event!
Spirit Sol 12
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Today has been a very exciting day at JPL, as the rover has successfully
completed the egress process. It has come off the lander, and has now got
all 6 wheels on the dirt. This is in some way the final part of landing, as
until now the rover was still about 40 cm. from the surface of Mars! (40 cm.
is the height of the lander)
These moments have been very exciting for everyone, but at the same time
it made everyone quite nervous. Everything seemed to look good for egress,
but there was a part of the lander that was worrying some engineers. They
thought that a wheel might be caught up with this part, although they thought
that this was very improbable to happen. But just in case, they hurried off
to the test field and used the test rover to simulate what could happen. The
rover performed flawlessly! First, the engineers tried driving away in many
directions, and the rover did not get caught. Then, just in case, they drove
it so that one wheel got caught with the part of the lander, and tried driving
away. In this case the part of the lander just got bent and was released again,
and the rover continued in the correct direction. But, since the engineers
really wanted to try every possible situation, they put the rover in a more
extreme condition. They put the rover on the lander and they really pushed
this piece into the wheel as far as it would go. But the rover has so much
torque, that when the engineers told it to go forward, the rover just tore
the piece off the lander, without changing direction at all!
As you can see from this example, egress was really well planned, so it went
perfectly. The signal that told the rover to get off the lander was sent at
1 a.m. and this signal takes 10 minutes to get to the rover, which starts
egress when it receives the signal. Then it was off the lander in just a few
minutes, but it took some time to take some photographs and send the data
it had recorded during egress back to Earth. So it was past 2 a.m. when we
got final confirmation that the rover was off the lander and we started getting
the first images from the rover. Everyone was very happy when we knew that
the rover was on the ground. Everyone was clapping and cheering; it reminded
me of EDL (entry descent and landing) when there was a similar atmosphere
at JPL. The first images are very interesting, with a hazcam image showing
the tracks the rover left on the dirt and a navcam panorama among other images.
Another very interesting thing that the engineers at JPL did was to use the
data that the rover sent about how much its wheels rotated, how much it was
tilted, etc. to create a simulation of what really happened. So you can see
a computer generated 3D rover following the same path and having the same
reactions as the real rover had on Mars.
After the initial excitement and euphoria of egress faded away, we went to
the press conference where some mission scientists and some JPL staff were
telling the press what had happened and how it all happened. They also told
everyone how they had been preparing for this event for years, with great
dreams, and they got quite emotional about all the work and all the people
that have made this possible.
So now the science team is saying where we are going and what we are going
to do from now on. I am going to attend a Science Assessment meeting, so I
will be present while they continue making choices of which targets to analyze
for optimum science return.
I hope every day goes as well as today for Spirit and for Opportunity, which
is going to land in just a few days!
Spirit Sol 13
Friday, January 16, 2004
Today has been a great day for the Student Astronauts. Now there are 4 of
us, as Abby and Shih-Han have arrived at Pasadena. We have been in a TV show
for kids in Los Angeles. Shih-Han couldn't go there because he had not arrived
yet, but he'll have fun in the Passport to Knowledge show, in which we are
all going to participate in on Saturday. So Susini, Abby and me were there
for the TV show, called Homework Hotline. It was lots of fun, we had to talk
about Geology on Earth and Mars, and we also got to speak about the Mars Exploration
Rover mission and the history of other missions to Mars. We also explained
what the Red Rover Goes To Mars and The Planetary Society are, and what the
Student Astronaut Program is. I had to speak in a live show with Susini, and
I started off being quite nervous, about after 1 or 2 minutes everything went
O.K.
Susini and me are at the moment in mission operations, Shih-Han and Abby
will start to work here tomorrow. Today we started work at 1 in the morning,
and we went to a meeting that started shortly after we arrived and lasted
for nearly 2 hours. It was the sol 13 science context meeting.
All the Scientists were very happy because we had just received an image
from the rover's front Hazcams which showed the IDD (instrument deployment
device) stretched out and ready to be laid on an interesting patch of soil.
You could even see the image in 3D! The scientists were speaking about what
to do in the following days.
Today, many of them used spectra to begin showing the characteristics of
rock in the landing site. If you use a spectrum (1 spectrum, 2 spectra) to
identify a rock, you normally have a graph of the rock's reflectivity in many
different wavelengths of light. Since every mineral that can be in rocks has
its own shape, you can see the rock as a mixture of different shapes of mineral
graphs, and scientists try to say which minerals are present in the rock.
Another scientist showed the rest a panoramic image in which he had coloured
in rocks depending on how they were weathered, how they were shaped, how they
were settled on the soil. They were looking at possible patterns. Many scientists
were interested in this image, but they didn't draw any conclusions in this
meeting. The scientists in the meeting were talking about interesting rock
targets for the following sols, and they were also discussing if the RAT would
be useful on any of these rocks, or if it could be used in rocks with a certain
shape or size.
It was quite an exciting meeting, but I was nearly falling asleep in my chair
at some points. This is because it is getting really difficult to get enough
sleep so that we are awake during our late-night shifts. But everyone in the
mission is having this problem, I can always see scientists with coffee or
something with caffeine to keep them awake. But the meetings and everything
else that is going on a JPL is so exciting I'm sure I will stay alert until
the last day here, then I'll go home and get some long sleep.
I hope to really enjoy my last couple of days here and I'm really looking
forward to working with Abby and Shih-Han tomorrow, and you should be looking
forward to reading their journals!
Spirit Sol 14
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Today it is the last day at JPL for Susini and me, and I am really enjoying
it. Abby and Shih-Han came today for the first time, so we've been showing
them what we've learned, what to do in each place, what things we enjoyed
the most, etc. I'm sure they will have lots of fun and do a great job as the
3rd team of Student Astronauts.
Today we went to a really interesting Science Assessment meeting. Scientists
are pretty sure what they want to do for the following sols: where they want
to drive to, what to do there, etc. They really want to analyze a rock which
they call Adirondack, so I'm looking forward to seeing data from that rock
coming back soon. But there is still some discussion going on about what to
do after 4 sols from here more or less. The group which is planning for that
time is called the LTP (long term planning) group. They use sol "trees" to
show what we might do in the following days. A sol tree shows the multiple
things we might do, and what sols should follow depending on what decision
is taken. So if there was no choice of what to do, the sol tree would look
like a straight line going down, which described what would be done generally
on each sol. When a decision must be taken the line divides into two, with
the two possible things to do on that sol and what kind of sol would follow
(driving, approach, remote sensing...).
Everyone is really happy about what has been happening in the last few days.
First, egress went perfectly, then the IDD was safely deployed on the soil,
after that the Microscopic Imager and the other instruments on the arm continued
to work perfectly. This sounds like it is normal, but in fact the most common
thing that happens in planetary mission is that things get delayed, there
are some small glitches here and there... But this mission is going better
than anyone dared to dream! The Microscopic Imager data that came back are
the greatest resolution images ever taken on another planet, even greater
than the Pancam images which were taken previously, so this mission is beating
all the records! The Moessbauer data which just came back is also great. The
Moessbauer instrument, which was having problems during flight, is now working
perfectly, it's now been working just like when it was on Earth before launch.
We are also going to go to a TV show called Passport to Knowledge, which
I think is shown online. It's going to be a great show, with Bill Nye and
many other scientists participating. The Student Astronauts are going to have
a small part in the show, and I hope we all do OK and have lots of fun.
As this is my last day at JPL, and, subsequently, my last journal entry,
I would like to thank may people. I really have to thank The Planetary Society
and LEGO Company, who started this project and gave me this great opportunity,
which is really unique. Especially all the people from The Planetary Society
who organized our journey, our stay here, our training during the months before
we came here... Also, all our mentors who were with us all the time at JPL,
Emily Lakdawalla, KJ Walsh, Joe Oliver and Jennifer Vaughn. I also want to
say thank you to the Astrobiology Center in Madrid, Spain, because they were
the national center for the Student Astronaut contest in Spain and they helped
me lots after I knew I was one of the 16 winners. And finally, my family and
friends who supported me all the time, just like all the teachers in my school,
the International School of Madrid.
I hope you enjoyed reading my journals for the last week or so and I'm sure
you will like Abby's and Shih-Han's.
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