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Projects: Red Rover Goes to MarsStudent Astronaut Janice deBerg
Spirit Sol 27 / Opportunity Sol 7Saturday, January 31, 2004 Wow! Today was Maciej and my first day in mission operations. We started
work at 12:15 this morning. Yesterday we went to the Planetary Society and
met Bruce Betts, Jennifer Vaughn, Wei-Lin, and Vignan. We learned the history
of The Planetary Society Building. It did not look like what I expected. It
used to be a house, so it resembles something very much like a house. It is
very exciting because the house has secret panels and cupboards. We got to
meet a lot of The Planetary Society staff. They are all very nice people. We then went to the JPL gift shop, which was really cool. Wei-Lin and Vignan went back to the Fuller Guest House, but Maciej and I stayed for orientation. We got a really good idea of what it is going to be like in mission operations. The EDL team invited us to see their new animation of Spirit's landing. This was exciting for all of us. Once we finished we got our stuff from the cubical and Bruce and Jennifer took us back to Fuller. When Maciej and I arrived we had to go through the entrance process since this is our first time at JPL during late hours. Once we got inside Jennifer told us the great news. Opportunity's egress got moved up to this morning. This news made all of us very happy. Egress wasn't scheduled to happen for another couple of hours. We went back to the Science Assessment Room to see when everything was going to happen tonight. Once we finished there we headed back to our cubicle. Once we got to our cubical Wei-Lin and Vignan started to "show us the ropes" on the computer. They were very patient with us. A news reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle interrupted our work for about forty-five minutes to interview us. Once he was finished we went back to learning how to process the MarsDial images. Wei-Lin and Vignan are very nice. They were very good at explaining everything to us. I tried to do some images on my own to make sure I got it, and surprising, with a little help from Wei-Lin, I did! It was about time for the Science Assessment meeting, so we heading down to the meeting. When we got there the room was pretty much empty, but one of the scientists told us that the meeting was postponed because of egress. We then headed over to the Von Karman Building (this is the building were the press conferences take place). On the screen NASA TV was showing what's going on in Mission Control. We all sat there anxiously hoping for good news. It came! "2 for 2", "encore", and "easy egress" were some of the happy terminology used. People were hugging and holding two fingers in the air. The announcer also informed everyone that the Astrobot had survived the journey. When the images came back and showed the lander and Opportunity's tracks, everyone was cheering! It was very thrilling and exhilarating seeing Opportunity's images come back. Once everything calmed down we headed back to our cubicle to write our journal entries. Once we are finished here we will head to the press conference and the Science Assessment meeting until our shift is up at 5:45. Hey! What a first day! I can't wait to come back tomorrow. I love getting to know the other student astronauts, and I look forward to our work together. Spirit Sol 28 / Opportunity Sol 8Sunday, February 1, 2004 Hey! Today was Maciejs and my second day at JPL. Yesterday after we finished the Journals we went to the science assessment meeting. They discussed the location of Opportunity, and they have decided that they are now certain where it is. After the meeting we went around and talked to some of the scientists. While we talked to them, we learned a lot of new things. We saw an image of the crater in which Opportunity is, and we also looked closer at the image of Opportunitys tracks away from the lander. The scientists were very nice and easy to talk to. I was surprised that they were so pleased to talk to us. We arrived at JPL today at 12:45am. We went to our cubicle first to drop our stuff off. We then went to the Science Assessment Room to see what the schedule is for today. We decided that we wouldnt need to attend the Science Assessment meeting until 4:00, so we went back to our cubicle to work on the MarsDial images. I had to have Wei-Lin explain how to use the software again, so now I know how to use it. Wei-Lin finished the rest of sol 14s images, so we are totally caught up and ready for Opportunity. Maciej and I will hopefully be switching to Spirit time on Monday if everything goes as planned. After we worked on the MarsDial images we went out and took pictures in honor of Wei-Lin and Vignan. Today is their last day. I will miss them both very much. Once we finished pictures we came back to the Science Assessment Room for the meeting. We were about 15 minutes early however so we decided to chat with some of the scientists. We talked to Donald Banfield about Mini-TES. The meeting started on time at 4:15. The different instrument groups all had their chance to tell the group how their particular instrument is doing. The rover is in very good health and the instruments are working as they are supposed to. The soil group now has the job of figuring out where they are going to put down the IDD. Then they looked at the flow chart, which has now become a rope chart (that is what they are calling it) because it is at this time one column. After the meeting was all over we talked to the scientists for a little longer. We continued our discussion with Mr. Banfield before leaving. Wei-Lin and Vignan wanted to say good-bye to Jim Bell, so we went to the Pancam room after a quick stop by the free ice cream cooler. I didnt have any though because I was too cold. Once we got to the Pancam room it was pretty empty. Jim Bell was there though along with Mark Lemmon. They were working on something really exciting. They invited us to stay there while Mars Odyssey passed overhead and sent back new images. The images were even better than the already amazing pictures of the outcrop. Once we finished there we headed back to our cubicle to write journal entries. Even though this was an exciting day its kind of sad also. I will really miss Wei-Lin and Vignan. I wish I could have got to know them a little better. Maciej and I have 7 more sols, and I cant wait to see what they have in store for us! Spirit Sol 30 / Opportunity Sol 9Monday, February 2, 2004 Today was a very interesting day. We got here at 12:30 pm. Today Emily is our mentor. I know this is a switch from my last two days. Today Maciej and I switched to Spirit schedule. Spirit has been given a clean bill of health! Right when we arrived we went to the Science Context Meeting. I thought that this meeting was very interesting. The meeting started before we arrived, so we snuck in and pulled up a chair. They discussed many things at this meeting. Now that Spirit is going to be workable again there are a lot of things to consider. They discussed the schedule for the next six days. It is not set in stone, but it gives them an idea of the things they are planning to accomplish. To prove that the scientists don't live at JPL, they also discussed the Super Bowl and scores. I thought it was quite funny because there was a slide of the score, but it had the wrong teams listed. Some of the scientists noticed, and everybody had a good laugh. The next part of the meeting was open for discussion. A scientist from the atmosphere group gave the first presentation. They shared some graphs and findings that they have gotten so far, but they said that they would need more information to prove their hypotheses. Morton Madsen, a member of the magnet team, gave the next presentation. He showed us where the different magnets on the rover were located. One of these locations was the Astrobot. He told the group about the magnet team's wish for future observations. The last presentation was about the rock White Boat, and what information they had on the rock so far. After the meeting, we headed back up to our cubicle. We discussed with Emily the things we have accomplished the last two days. While we were talking, a Polish TV crew called Emily. They arrived shortly after. They taped us for a bit inside the cubicle. We then proceeded down to the Science Assessment Room, so they could get footage of us talking with the scientists. We than went for individual interviews in the Von Karman Building. Once the interviews were over we had to go straight back to work. We worked on making true and false color images of the rock Adirondack. The true color images were made by loaded three Pancam images in a certain order, then stacking them together to make a color image. The false color images were made from images taken through filters of different colors than human eyes see. With false color images a rock would end up blue, or a background could be purple. Although the images were false color they can still show some very interesting things. For example, if the image is purple and yellow it may still be valuable because there could be a spot on the soil that appears extremely yellow, or there could be a place on the rock that appears a very different shade of purple you could make certain hypotheses about how those places are different than the others. We also made our own 3D image of Adirondack. One of the images was from the right camera, and one image was from the left camera. Once we finished our images we went down to the Downlink Assessment Meeting. During this meeting they got an update on the conditions of the instruments from their respective groups, and they also discussed what they plan to do in the next sol, sol 31. Because the flash memory needs to be reformatted, there is not very much room for other activities. There is still some data that they have not down linked from the rover, so some thought that retrieving that data would be a positive step considering today's constraints. Others thought that they should try to obtain new data. Many interesting and important points were discussed, but nothing will be decided on for sure until the SOWG (Science Operations Working Group) Meeting. This was another exciting day at JPL. I thought it was really fun being interviewed by Polish TV. I also really enjoyed the meetings and working with photos from Adirondack. I can't wait to see what the next sol brings! Spirit Sol 31 / Opportunity Sol 10Tuesday, February 3, 2004 Today Emily was our mentor. Once we arrived at 1:00pm we headed down to the Science Context Meeting. We were quite surprised when we walked in however because there wasn’t much going on, especially not a meeting. We asked one of the scientists and he said that the Science Context Meeting and the Downlink Meeting would be combined into one meeting, but wouldn’t take place until this afternoon. Instead of leaving we stayed because there was an interesting conversation going on between some of the scientists.
During this conversation many important things were brought up. Since Spirit is coming back into a working state again, many things need to be considered. During the period that Spirit was down nothing got accomplished. When it is workable again what kind of things is Spirit going to do? How far is it going to travel? What experiments is it going to perform along the way? The engineers are planning to dig a trench to better understand Spirit’s capabilities. Where are they going to dig this trench? How much time will the scientists have left after the traveling time and trench time? There are many different discussions like this going on. There are also many different sides to these discussions. Now that Spirit is back online they have to decide the kind of things that they want to accomplish. One thing I found very good to know which I didn’t know before was that the scientists planned on 1 in every 3 sols not being normal. This means that just because Spirit was unworkable for a little while, the scientists are still within their planned sols. After this colorful discussion ended everyone went back to his or her computer, including us. Of course we made a short stop at the free ice cream first. This time I was not too cold to eat any. Hey, what kind of day would it be without ice cream? Maciej and I worked on the atmospheric dust project and made graphs. Once we made these graphs we noticed a few calculations that needed to be redone because these points were out of the general area of the rest of the points. I redid some of the images that looked out of place. Once I worked on some of those I started calibrating Opportunity’s MarsDial images. I only got through a few from sol 3, but it took me a long time. Next, we headed down for the Science Assessment/Downlink Meeting. Sol 31 was spent prepping for the reformat of the flash memory, so they needed to discuss plans for after sol 31. They discussed when they are planning for the reformat and when they hope for a full science day. One of their goals is to reach the rim of Bonneville crater. They looked at the possible routes that have been sketched out to reach the crater. A lot of their future plans were discussed, and everyone was given the chance to speak if they wanted to say something. The meeting was ended with the idea that each theme group needs to figure out what these goals might imply for their own specific groups. Hey, what a great day. Even though there wasn’t a lot of meetings, the conversations and discussions were just as rewarding. I wonder what will happen tomorrow. Spirit Sol 32 / Opportunity Sol 11Wednesday, February 4, 2004 Today was really eventful! KJ Walsh was our mentor for the day. We got here at 1:45 pm. The first thing we did was go to the Science Context Meeting. There wasnt too much to talk about in this meeting that hasnt already been brought up. The important thing was that The Flash reformatting is currently underway and going well. This is really good news. After they discussed the current news Long Term Planning brought up the sol tree (this is a chart that shows the plans for the coming sols). Once they finished that the meeting was over. Next, we went to work on the MarsDial images. I finished calibrating the ones that I didnt get finished yesterday. Another Polish TV crew was filming Maciej, so he didn't get as much time to work. There is another group of young people working in JPL, and they are called the Athena Group. They shadow scientists. One of them told us how he had helped to build an artificial Mars slope for the test rover to trench on. The test rover was going to test digging a trench. They have had tests on digging a trench before, but that was on flat ground. It was to take place around 4:00 pm. We were very interested, and we decided that at 4:00 we would go and check it out. We met Polish scientist Witold Sokolowski. He was very nice. Because we dont know where everything is here, we asked him if he would show us where the outdoor Mars Yard was located. We were a little surprised when we got there because there was nothing special going on. We looked at the yard, and we went out and walked on it. It was very cool. Because there was nothing going on there we made our way back. Mr. Sokolowski had a meeting that he needed to attend, so we thanked him for his help. We then proceeded to the indoor Mars Yard to see if anything was happening there. Nothing was happening inside, but it was really neat anyway because I havent seen the indoor Mars Yard yet. Once we were done inside we made our way outside the building. We finally found it. We found the artificial Mars slope. Nothing was happening yet. The scientists were preparing for something, so we decided that we would stay and see what was going on. The test rover was in a really neat spot. On the cement wall in front of the rover was a basketball hoop. If you were to look at it from the right angle it would look as if it were playing basketball. We were not the only the only ones who thought so. A few of the people around us were commenting on how they thought the rover probably shot hoops in its free time. We took some pictures, and we planned to stay for the test. There was however a slight problem. The battery in KJs camera went dead. The test wasnt going to take place for a little while, so we went to go get a new battery. When we got back nothing had happened yet. After a little while they started to move the rover up the slope. One thing that was really interesting was that this test rover ran on cables connected to it instead of solar panels. The cables were hooked directly from the computer to the rover, so one of the scientists had to carry the cables. When they got the rover in the desired place they started trenching. To trench the rover moved its left front wheel back and forth. Watching it trench was very exciting because what was happening right in front of me will happen on Mars! We had to leave the trench test early because we had to come back and write our journals. This was a very eventful day, and it went really fast. Hey! This was a great way to end the day! Spirit Sol 33 / Opportunity Sol 12Thursday, February 5, 2004 Today we started work at 2:15 pm. Our mentor today was Joe Oliver. The first thing we went to was the Science Context Meeting. We had thought that we missed it, but it had just begun. We had to hurry down stairs to get to it. Today they are going to receive the downlink from the brushing for the RAT test. This is really exciting! The rest of the meeting wasn't very eventful. They discussed future plans and talked a little bit about driving. This meeting wasn't very long at all because there isn't much happening with Spirit at the present time besides the brushing. After the meeting we went back to do more MarsDial work. I continued to calibrate more images. Then Joe let us take a break and we went to the JPL gift shop. JPL has a really cool gift shop with lots of neat stuff on more than just the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. Once we finished at the gift shop, we headed back out into the sunshine and walked back to our building. When we got back Joe showed me a really cool site off of the JPL website. It was called M2K4. The web address is http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov. Once you get there, you click on the logo that says M2K4. Both Maciej and I checked our knowledge about Mars and Space. He beat me by a long shot. Once we answered all of the questions correctly a screen came up that told us about the rovers. This was very interesting. Even though I didn't bet Maciej in the trivia questions I learned a lot of new things about Mars related topics. Looking through the website was a lot of fun, but it was time to get back to work. I worked through a whole other sol of MarsDial images. Once we finished our MarsDial work we went down to the Science Downlink Assessment Meeting. We were 45 minutes early however, so we talked to the scientists for a while before the meeting. We went around to figure out what new things were going on. We definitely found out. As I mentioned before, the RAT brushing was supposed to happen this sol, and it did. What we saw however, was a hole in Adirondack! This was quite a discussion topic! Everyone was discussing what this might mean. This is a very interesting discovery! We had to leave the meeting early. Before we left all the groups updated us, the Microscopic Imaging team gave a presentation, and the Rock Abrasion Tool scientist, Steve Gorevan, talked to the group. What a cool bit of information. I'm so glad I got to be here to see the scientists' reactions to this discovery! Spirit Sol 34 / Opportunity Sol 13Friday, February 6, 2004 Today was very fun! We started the shift early today because David and Saatvik started their work at JPL. We started by visiting the JPL gift shop. We only got a little bit of time there because we had to hurry to the Science Context Meeting. When we arrived in the Science Assessment Room we were a little surprised, for hardly anyone was there. We asked the scientists if we had missed the meeting. We actually were lucky and we hadn’t missed it. It was actually moved back a couple of hours. We were really relieved, and now we had time to show David and Saatvik the JPL grounds. We went over to the indoor test bed first. To our surprise they were moving the indoor rover! I hadn’t seen that particular rover move before. You would think that since they had that one going the scientists would all watch it, but instead they had the outdoor rover moving also. We went outdoors to see what was going on. They had the same rover out in the place that Maciej, KJ, and I had watched the test two days ago. We asked one of the scientists what was going on. The scientists are running the test again, so they can prove that they can trench on a slope without posing a threat to the rover’s health. Once we looked around a bit longer we headed back to our building. David and Saatvik added to our country display in our cubicle with the things they had brought to represent their countries (Hungary and India). The meeting was to start soon, so we decided that we better go down there. On our way down we stopped on floor 5. What’s on floor 5? I’m glad you asked. What kind of tour guides would we be if we didn’t show them where the free ice cream is located? We got our ice cream and went to the meeting. We were a little early, so we mingled until the meeting began. The first thing that they discussed at the meeting was the status of the RAT. Steve Gorevan, the head of the RAT team, gave everyone the update. The order had been given for a “Go” with the RAT tool, so as the meeting continued the RAT was grinding on Mars. Once the RAT update was finished we viewed the sol tree. Nothing had changed on it, so we moved on quickly. During the meeting something really funny happened. I was actually sitting next to a scientist who kept on falling asleep! I watched him for a little bit, and he kept on nodding off. After a while Steve Squyres came in to wish him luck. Before he could do so, he had to wake him up. It was really funny. They both laughed too. You see, everyone is a little worn out. The meeting ended a little early because it was decided that most presentations would be held off until the Downlink Meeting. After the meeting the Student Astronauts talked with Geoffrey Landis about what he is currently working on. He is part of the atmosphere theme group. It’s actually funny because he is also on the soil physical properties theme group. He is working on understanding the dust in the atmosphere by using the solar arrays. It was very interesting talking to him, and hearing how he measures things. He seems very smart. I couldn’t understand a lot of what he said. The boys asked a lot of questions, and once they asked questions I understood a little better. Once we finished talking to Geoffrey we went back to our cubicle to show David and Saatvik how to process the MarsDial images. This took quite a long time because there was a lot to go over. Once we got through teaching them we started working on journals. The Downlink meeting started not long after we got going on our journals. The Downlink meeting was actually really long today. Since they are planning to drive tomorrow there was lots to discuss. All the instrument teams gave their reports on the instruments’ status. All the instruments are healthy. There were lots of presentations today. Scott Maxwell gave the first presentation. It was about driving to White Boat. APXS gave us an update about the comparison of soil, pre-brushing, and post-brushing. They informed the group that they can see a little bit of crust on the brushed area, but they can still see the difference between the brushed area and the non-brushed area. Mini-TES, Mössbauer, and the Geology theme group also gave presentations about hopeful future plans. The last thing they discussed was what needs to get done before the SOWG Meeting. Today was very busy for us at JPL. David and Saatvik are very nice, and I learned a lot about them. I can’t wait to get to know them better! Spirit Sol 35 / Opportunity Sol 14Saturday , February 7, 2004 This will be my last journal. That’s right, today is Maciej and my last day at JPL. It’s actually really sad, but it has come nonetheless. David and Saatvik were here today also of course, and from now on they will be taking over. Today we started right with working on the MarsDial images. We got a lot done too because we had four people working on them at once. We worked on both calibrating images and measuring the dust. While we worked on the images we all talked to each other. It was fun. We then went down to the Science Context Meeting. The meeting began with an engineer talking about driving time and power. They discussed many different ideas about driving, and then they had an opportunity to ask questions. That didn’t take very long. Then everybody started splitting up. We didn’t know what was going on because the meeting had about a half an hour left. We finally figured out that the scientists had split into groups to discuss what future plans they were hoping for. We listened to them for a little bit. They discussed what waypoints they were planning to use during their travel. This discussion didn’t last too long either. At the very end good news came. They can plan for a longer traveling distance than what they thought they had. This is very good news. As you can tell not too much happened today. Not every day at JPL is full of activities and excitement. JPL, just like everywhere else, has its good and bad days. Today was just one of those “not much new” days. It’s been really fun here. I’m going to miss JPL. As a last note I want to thank the Planetary Society for giving the Student Astronauts this opportunity. I want to thank the Jet Propulsion Lab for letting us into their facility and their meetings. I also want to thank everyone in Dike, family, and friends for their support because I know they are reading this. Thanks for reading! |
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