14 September 2011
Gale Crater Traverse Video
Posted by Ryan Anderson
Hi folks! My apologies for the lack of posts lately. It turns out that trying to finish up a PhD is time consuming! Anyway, I expect I’ll continue to be scarce here, but I am working on lining up some guest posts to keep you entertained. In the mean time, check out this video that I made of a possible traverse up the mound at Gale crater! I used the Mars Exploration Engine program, which reader Adam Hollidge is developing. He was kind enough to give me a trial version, and I’m really impressed. It’s an awesome tool for visualizing HiRISE topography and images, and I put this video together for a talk I gave about the Gale landing site on Monday. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hmD5l_4YjM
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So watching this made me wonder how you keep track of the rover(s) once they’re on mars. Is it done with a sort of GPS? Triangulating with things seen in orbital images? Directly taking pictures of the rover with orbital cameras (can they resolve it?) Dead reckoning?
A related question: How precise is the course laid out for the rover? Do you know pretty much absolutely that you’re going to to between these boulders then over here then over there or is there periodic reevaluation based on what was found that day/week?
I downloaded the program and I’m very impressed. Very cool