Lander Zeroes in On Martian North Pole

I'm surprised how close all the elements landed to each other!

reply to post by IAttackPeople


Thanks for those great photos.

When I looked at the photo taken from the lander itself -- the one looking south toward what appeared to be the backshell -- I was wondering why I could't see the parachute. I speculated that the chute was behind and beyond the backshell...by looking at the iamges you posted, I guess I speculated correctly.

So that explains the object looking south...I wonder if that object in the view looking north (the vertical white streak) is a camera artifact or maybe some Ice on a rock -- however I think it is unlikely that it is ice, since it is facing south toward the Sun. My money is on "camera artifact".

I think it's incredible how much detail we can see from orbit...you can even make out the soil disturbed by the lander's engine thrusters (slightly darker soil surrounding the lander. The backshell with the parachute seemed to hit the ground pretty hard, considering the divot that it created.



[edit on 5/27/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by IAttackPeople
More sweet MRO/HiRISE pics of Phoenix...

Parachuting in in front of a crater ->

Phoenix, shield and 'chute/backplate on surface ->

Something does not make sense here.
In your first external image, it shows the parachute in a huge crater. However, in your second external image it shows the parachute and backshell but where is the huge crater? I don't see the huge crater from the first image in the second image.

EDIT: Are you saying the parachute is still airborne in the first image and has not landed yet? I guess that might explain my puzzlement.

[edit on 27-5-2008 by WhatTheory]

reply to post by WhatTheory


Yes! In the first photo it is still in the air (pretty cool, huh ). It is passing over that crater.

Here's an earlier image of the landing site. The spacecraft was moving from the upper left towards the lower right of this image. The crater in the upper left could be the one in the first image IAttackPeople posted 9but that's just my speculation):
www.nasa.gov...

[edit on 5/27/2008 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
Yes! In the first photo it is still in the air (pretty cool, huh

). It is passing over that crater.

Exactly. In the briefing today the HiRISE guy said that as it flew by, Phoenix passed 20 km from the crater seen in the picture.

Simply the coolest thing ever that we can get actual pictures of a probe making its landing on another world. It boggles the mind.

Has anyone noticed the weather?



Nice, sunny weather, but a little cold for my taste.

Wow! MRO has really turned out to be the unexpected Cherry on Top
of this mission, eh ?

Fantastic images !
And now we have the Mars Weather channel !


Also noticed the "Raw Images from Robotic Arm Camera" Section
has been opened with some test shots of the 'bucket'.



What great Adventure this is .

And the science has barely started.

Originally posted by IAttackPeople

Thanks for those images, so great they are; we are so lucky to have them.

This image, released on Memorial Day, May 26, 2008, shows the American flag and a mini-DVD on the Phoenix's deck, which is about 3 ft. above the Martian surface. The mini-DVD from the Planetary Society contains a message to future Martian explorers, science fiction stories and art inspired by the Red Planet, and the names of more than a quarter million earthlings.

Click here for Phoenix related images

These images of three Phoenix color targets were taken on sols 1 and 2 by the Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) on board the Phoenix lander. The bottom target was imaged in approximate color (SSI's red, green, and blue filters: 600, 530, and 480 nanometers), while the others were imaged with an infrared filter (750 nanometers). All of them will be imaged many times over the mission to monitor the color calibration of the camera. The two at the top show grains 2 to 3 millimeters in size that were likely lifted to the Phoenix deck during landing. Each of the large color chips on each target contains a strong magnet to protect the interior material from Mars' magnetic dust.

Source

Phoenix successfully completed the first day of a two-day process to deploy its robotic arm.

Phoenix will use its robotic arm to dig first in another area seen in the panorama, an area outside the preserved polygon.

Robotic arm manager Bob Bonitz of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., explained how the arm is to be unstowed today. "It's a series of seven moves, beginning with rotating the wrist to release the forearm from its launch restraint. Another series of moves releases the elbow from its launch restraints and moves the elbow from underneath the biobarrier."

The robotic arm is a critical part of the Phoenix Mars mission. It is needed to trench into the icy layers of northern polar Mars and deliver samples to instruments that will analyze what Mars is made of, what its water is like, and whether it is or has ever been a possible habitat for life.

"Phoenix is in perfect health," JPL's Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager, said Wednesday morning, May 28.

The robotic arm's first movement was delayed by one day when Tuesday's commands from Earth did not get all the way to the Phoenix lander on Mars. The commands went to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as planned, but the orbiter's Electra UHF radio system for relaying commands to Phoenix temporarily shut off. Without new commands, the lander instead carried out a set of activity commands sent Monday as a backup. Images and other information from those activities were successfully relayed back to Earth by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Tuesday evening.

Wednesday morning's uplink to Phoenix and evening downlink from Phoenix were planned with NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter as the relay. "We are using Odyssey as our primary link until we have a better understanding of what happened with Electra," Goldstein said.

Source

The first colour image of the landscape with a colour target (in fact, two colour targets) also visible is available here.

For those that say that NASA makes their photos too red, just use the colour target to try to adjust it.

I tried and was unable to get an image that could show all the colours as they should be, especially the lighter shades of grey, they always look too blue, meaning that the photo from the blue filter had a very different setting from the other photos, that is the problem with automatic adjustments.

reply to post by ArMaP


Hey, ArMaP. What do you mean by "colors as they should be"?

reply to post by IAttackPeople


He's suggesting that the photographs have been altered to hide what he believes to be a blue sky, like our own.

reply to post by IAttackPeople


The colour targets have three colours and three shades of grey, so, although the colours look good, the fact that the shades of grey are not neutral (they have a slight green tint, not blue, as I stated on my previous post, sorry) shows that the colours are not exactly correct.

The fact that the green tint is not the same in the three different shades of grey shows that the three photos used to create the colour image did not had the same settings, the lighter grey is the one with a bigger percentage of green, the middle grey has a smaller tint and the darker grey is almost neutral.

After some comparisons, I can say that the darker grey has more green and less blue than it should to be a neutral grey, the middle grey has around even more green but the red and blue are more balanced and the lighter grey has a little too much green but it has too little blue.

This shows one of the problems of creating a realistic colour reproduction, even if the colours look OK the whole image may have a slight tint (in this case green) that changes all other colours, and that tint may (and usually does) varies with the luminosity of the object on the scene.

reply to post by ppskylight


No, I am not saying that.

Read my post above this one to see what I really am saying.

reply to post by ArMaP


Thanks for your answer.

Due to the difference in the Martian atmosphere, I wonder if it is possible to get something that looks white or grey on Earth to have the same tone on Mars.

More pictures from Phoenix

Phoenix Site Panorama

This view is compiled of images from Phoenix's Stereo Surface Imager (SSI) camera that were taken on sols 1 and 3. The top portion has been stretched eight fold to show details of features in the background. Phoenix's parachute, backshell, heatshield, and impact site can also be seen.

Source

Phoenix Takes Another Look Around

North is up (the 12 o'clock position) in this seam-corrected 360 degree polar projection using images from sols, or Martian says, 1 and 3. Seam boundaries show different times of day.

NASA's Phoenix Lander Robotic Arm Camera Sees Possible Ice

TUCSON, Ariz.-- Scientists have discovered what may be ice that was exposed when soil was blown away as NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars last Sunday, May 25. The possible ice appears in an image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander, near a footpad.

"We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., co-investigator for the robotic arm. "We'll test the two ideas by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera. We think that if the hard features are ice, they will become brighter because atmospheric water vapor will collect as new frost on the ice.

Source

This contrast-enhanced image was acquired at the Phoenix landing site on Sol 4 by Phoenix's Robotic Arm Camera (RAC). As seen in the top center, the exhaust from the descent engine has blown soil off to reveal either rock or ice, which has not yet been determined.

Interesting and lets hope we will find some ice to start searching for life forms on Mars and hope they can rectify (if) any short circuits in the instruments.

Originally posted by IAttackPeople
reply to post by ArMaP

 

Thanks for your answer.

Due to the difference in the Martian atmosphere, I wonder if it is possible to get something that looks white or grey on Earth to have the same tone on Mars.

Did they publish any pictures of the lander that were taken here before it was sent to Mars? Then we could compare the 'Earth' photos and the 'Mars' photos of the lander itself, a sort of before and after?? ( or at least the 'color enhanced' could be made to match the 'Earth' photos as closely as possible?)

reply to post by Enceladus


That photo in your post shows the odd item mentioned in another thread...

www.abovetopsecret.com...&flagit=359626

More photos of it posted here
www.openfuelresource.com...

[edit on 1-6-2008 by frayed1]