Projects: Red Rover Goes to Mars
Student Astronaut Vignan Pattamatta
Spirit's Anomaly Explained
This was Sol 19, and Spirit had just suffered a serious anomaly and was not talking to Earth. University of Arizona geologist Ron Greeley helped put the event into perspective for Shih-Han, Vignan, Abby, and Wei Lin. The four students had an unusual viewpoint on the mission and got to see how the scientists coped with the temporary loss of the spacecraft. Created: 22 January 2004.
Credit: The Planetary Society
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Spirit Sol 19
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Happy New Year to all Chinese Mars-lovers!
Today being my first day at JPL, I couldn't sleep at all the previous day
(for which I regretted later). At about 4:30 a.m. PST, I started off to the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory along with my co-Student Astronaut Wei Lin Tan from
Singapore and our escort Emily Lakdawalla who is the Science and Technology
Coordinator in The Planetary Society. The third group of Student Astronauts,
Abigail Fraeman, from the USA, and Shih-Han Chen had joined us at Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.
At the JPL campus, we saw a full-scale model of the Mars Exploration Rover,
which was really marvelous. You can only assess the size of the rover after
seeing this model. I was also amused to find some deer, which were apparently
tame, running loose at JPL. Looks great! We went straight to the Red Rover
Goes to Mars Office Cubicle, then, in Building 264. I was already told that
unlike the other Student Astronaut teams, we would directly jump into our
duties as a Student Astronaut and this made the day even more exciting.
As soon as we got into our office, we had to go the 'Science Context Meeting',
which was at 05:17 a.m. PST. I was so very interested to observe the teamwork
and duty-mindedness of the scientists in the meeting that I forgot to take
down notes of what was being discussed in the meeting. Though all the scientists
were very informal, there was an air of discipline in the atmosphere. This
is another aspect, which I really liked here- all the scientists believe in
one thing that 'Comfort is the key to hard work'.
After the 'Science Context Meeting', we went to a press conference conducted
by Pete Theisinger, the Project Manager of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission
and Richard Cook, the Deputy Project Manager at about 9:00 a.m. (local Pasadena
time). In this conference, they said that they were having communication problems
with the Mars Exploration Rover 'Spirit' and that they last heard from it
on 1:30 p.m. (local Pasadena time) yesterday. Though this was disappointing,
I was later convinced that such happenings are a part of every mission--even
every successful inter-planetary mission. In the press meet, I could understand
that the scientists were not shaken by this news but in fact, they took it
as an additional challenge, which added up to the excitement of the mission.
After the Press Meet, all of us returned to our office and the other two
Student Astronauts gave Wei Lin and me a briefing about what they had been
doing and what we should do. The software, which calibrates the hour markings
on the Sundial, was really cool! We worked on some Sundial images and again
got away from our office (Emily told me that most of the time, we would be
in meetings or conferences and not in our office cubicle)!
Later, at 9:55 a.m., we went to the Science Assessment Meeting where Mark
Adler assured all the scientists "The rover is still alive and it's still
with us". He didn't have to say that of course, because everyone was
confident about overcoming the communication problems. In the Science Assessment
meeting, all the Instrument Teams had a chance to discuss anything new that
they had come across. Overall, the meeting was exciting and celebrating the
birthday of a scientist Raymond Arvidson, added to the fun.
After coming back from the Science Assessment Meeting, this is where I am,
writing my journal. Another exciting (and rather amusing) thing is that on
account of Chinese New Year, today's end-of-the-Sol meeting would be held
in Chinatown this evening! Great to know that the scientists here even celebrate
festivals together while they simultaneously work. I hope the coming days
have lots of excitement and fun in store not only for me but also to all Mars-lovers
throughout the world. Once again, my best wishes for a Happy Chinese New Year.
Spirit Sol 20
Friday, January 23, 2004
Yesterday we had a wonderful dinner at a local Chinatown restaurant with
the JPL scientists (to celebrate Chinese New Year). Today was also a very
exciting day, one of the reasons being that we hadn't gotten up as early as
yesterday. The excitement of Opportunity's landing has finally sunk into everyone's
mind here at JPL.
Today, we had attended the Science Context Meeting as usual, at 06:00 a.m.
PST. I learned good news from this meeting that Spirit had finally communicated
with the Earth and that the signal was detected by NASA's Deep Space Network
Antenna complex at Madrid, Spain at 04:34 PST. This was really an encouragement
for all the scientists and of course, the Student Astronauts. At the meeting,
we saw the images of Opportunity's landing site, Meridiani Planum, which they
were simply superb.
After we came back to our office from the Science Context Meeting, Abby Fraeman,
one of the other Student Astronauts from USA, and I had taken up the duty
of creating a movie of the MarsDial images taken by the rover. We wanted to
project through this movie, how shadows are cast on the MarsDial. It was a
very tiring yet interesting job.
At 9:00 a.m. PST, we attended a press conference conducted by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, in which the status of Opportunity was discussed. Dr. Joy Crisp,
Project Scientist of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission said that the landing
site of Opportunity was chosen keeping in mind the safety and productivity
of the rover. She showed a cool hematite rock, which she said was found on
Earth where water made its impact. She also said that the scientists believed
that Opportunity's landing site had deposits of this Hematite rock. "The
instrument suites onboard the Mars Exploration Rovers would help the scientists
determine the conditions under which the hematite rock (if found) was formed" Dr.
Joy said.
This press conference was immediately followed by another in which the safety
of Spirit was communicated to the public. Pete Theisinger, Project Manager
of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission said "Chances that the rover will
get perfect are low... Similarly, chances that we will lose the rover are
also very low..." it was great to listen to that.
Believe me, today and tomorrow will also be sleepless nights in anticipation
of the landing of Opportunity. So I'm off to grab a little rest and get ready
for the massive event tomorrow at 8:54 p.m. PST.
Spirit Sol 21 / Opportunity Sol 1
Saturday, January 24, 2004
"Opportunity lifts our Spirits"
Today is the first ever time that we have two rovers at once on any other
planet! Opportunity has safely landed on Mars today and this has really lifted
the Spirits of all the scientists who were slightly upset with Spirit being
stubborn and not going to sleep. Another good news is that Pete Theisinger,
Project Manager of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission, said that Spirit is
on its path to recovery. So today was really an exciting day which was also
full of relief.
This is how it all went. We went to the Science Assessment room in which
the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) team was present, to watch the landing.
We went very early, so we were going around and asking scientists about their
beliefs of Opportunity's successful landing. One of the engineers, Sam (I
don't know his last name) told us really cool facts about the rover's communication
systems. The time before the landing seemed to go very slow, but once the
sequence had begun, it was all over in a few minutes. The parachute was deployed
at 9:03 p.m. PST and then it had all begun. Wayne Lee, Chief Engineer of the
EDL team was giving commentary about Opportunity's status (I always knew he
could make a great Soccer commentator).
There were huge rounds of applause for every signal received by the spacecraft.
The Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzneggzer was there to witness the landing
(unfortunately, I couldn't meet him) along with former Vice-President of the
United States Al-Gore. Scientists were celebrating all over as they had signals
of the rover successfully stop rolling. The only small problem (it isn't much
of a problem actually) is that the lander didn't settle base-petal down, so
it would be slightly delayed for it to begin retraction.
After joining everyone in applauding the efforts of the Opportunity team,
we left for the JPL Cafeteria. Guess whom we met here? (Drum roll) Bill Nye--The
Science Guy! We just went and shook hands with him and he began telling how
he caught his obsession to sundials. He said that when he was small, he used
to look at his shadows by the seashore and was fascinated by how they changed
their sizes. He then imagined that if he were out in space, he could see his
shadow fall tall on the Earth and he thought this idea was really cool. Bill
Nye is the brains behind the Marsdials which are onboard the Mars Exploration
Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
We all took Bill's autograph and came back to our office building, where
I took an ice cream (which was complimentary on account of the MERs' safe
landings) and headed straight to the Red Rover Goes to Mars Student Astronaut
Cubicle. I began writing my journal and I couldn't complete it as we had to
attend the Strategic Science Assessment Meeting of Opportunity for its first
Sol.
We went to the Science Assessment Room on the fourth floor and waited for
quite a while for Opportunity to return its first images at 01:15 a.m. (PST).
And once the first image had appeared on the screen, images were coming and
coming and coming. All the scientists present in the room applauded as the
cameras on board Opportunity were working fine too! The images were really
cool and interesting! And guess what? The very first image was of the mars
dial onboard the rover! This was then followed by pictures, which partially
showed the lander and partially showed Martian surface.
Mars in these images looked new and sort of weird and right in front of our
eyes, there was a mosaic of the landing site, which was almost complete! Some
of the scientists were also working on creating a birds-eye view of the landing
site and this was really exciting. I particularly find flyby views fascinating
and therefore I was glued to the screen, which showed the flyby mode under
construction. I wondered how fast the scientists were working on the new images.
I could already see scientists forming small groups and discussing hypotheses
about the images!
It's already 2:30 in the morning! We will be leaving JPL shortly, so before
I go, I congratulate the mission crew of Opportunity for the achievement which
they deserved and I also wish that Opportunity's future Sols are safe and
useful!
Spirit Sol 22 / Opportunity Sol 2
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Have you checked out the new images sent by Opportunity? They look great!
As I went back to my guesthouse yesterday, I was still thinking about them.
Yestersol, it was about 3:00 a.m. (PST) when we could grab some rest. We slept
long hours and we had come to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena at 7:00
p.m. today. As far as at the entry gate, I could catch the scent of excitement
and sure enough, when we got inside, all the scientists were excited about
the fascinating new data.
The four of us and our teacher Joe Oliver explored all the meeting rooms
(I say "all" because science team members are now on two floors
- one for Spirit and one for Opportunity) and there was not a single scientist
or engineer in the seats.
We wondered why and went to our office cubicle to complete the Mars dial
movie, which Abby (the student astronaut from USA) and I had taken up. We
selected sundial images that were taken at different times of the day and
we arranged them in sequence. This looked somewhat like a movie, through which
we can see how the post on the mars dial creates shadows. Once the movie was
completed, it was really marvelous!
After we had completed the movie, we again went to check out if any meetings
are in progress but all the rooms were deserted. Then we went to mission operations
room, where the scientists and engineers have their own personal working cubicles,
and to my surprise it was completely full. Then I understood that the scientists
were so very intrigued by the new pictures, that they were doing their own
research.
We walked all around the room, only to find that all were glued to their
computers. Dr. Jim Bell, head of the Pancam team, noticed that we were longing
to check out the new data and he called us all to the Pancam room, where he
showed us the new data. We checked out the new postcard that was sent from
Opportunity and found them really appealing.
We then returned to our office cubicle and took up the project of making
the mars dial movies of pictures taken through various filters. It was really
exciting to arrange the pictures in sequence, overlap them and finally animate
them. We were doing this work up to 1:00 a.m.
(It's already 26th Jan) when we got ready to go to the Strategic Science
Assessment Meeting of Opportunity rover for its Sol 2. When we were busy finding
chairs, I believe the rover sent some new pictures back to earth but we hardly
had any time to check them out as the meeting had almost begun.
Leads of various instruments and theme groups were present in the meeting
to present their hypotheses about the rover's landing site as well as to update
the other scientists with the rover's status. It was really exciting to see
how the scientists had different proposals on just one observation. One thing
they were debating upon was that the airbags were clean (they knew this from
the images), which is very odd to be so.
All in all, today was an exciting day and I really got into the real part
of it. The other Student Astronaut team Abby and Shih-Han leave tomorrow.
Abby has been telling me that its difficult to leave because all the while
she was feeling that she was a part of the mission operations. I've got long
to think about how I feel upon leaving anyway. Looking forward for a great
tomorrow full of work and fun!
Spirit Sol 23 / Opportunity Sol 3
Monday, January 26, 2004
As everyday, today was a great and exciting one too! But unfortunately, I
was beginning to understand how difficult it is to live on Mars time, unless
you are a Martian. But then I wondered how all the scientists keep looking
at the new data so enthusiastically even after they are deprived of lots of
sleep.
Today was the last day of the training for Abby and Shih-Han and Abby kept
saying “Oh! Don’t say that this is our last day in Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, we surely are going to meet 15-20 years from now.” I made
her work easy by telling her to search for me in either the Geology or Image
Processing groups (because there are so many theme groups in NASA) when we
meet after 15 years. We spent an hour (9 to 10 p.m. PST), exchanging autographs
and taking photographs.
Well it doesn’t feel like we are getting closer to the end of our training
but rather I feel like its getting closer day-by-day for that Mars Exploration
Mission on which I would be working on! At 10:00 p.m., we went again to the
mission operations to watch a meeting and I saw much more than I expected
when Mr. David Lavery, one of the engineers here, showed us around the room.
He showed us that the rover itself is like a self-sufficient spacecraft and
the only additional thing it can do is of course to rove around the Red Planet.
There were two seats for each operation, like Thermal A and Thermal B, one
each for the two rovers.
Later, we came back to our office cubicle where I took up the images of the
MarsDial taken on Sol 11. The rover sends the images as raw data and it is
the responsibility of us Student Astronauts to properly calibrate these raw
sundial images. It was really great to calibrate the raw images because it
gives me the feeling “Hey! I’m a part of the Mars Exploration
Rover Mission too!”.
After we were done with calibration, we went over to a Hypotheses Meeting
where all the scientists have an opportunity to present their hypotheses about
the landing site of the rover. Dr. Ray Arvidson, one of the scientists, had
presented a very crisp and clear overview about what the landing site looks
like. He showed really cool pictures that were taken by various instruments
onboard the Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey spacecraft.
Phil Christensen had a long and interesting presentation about what he thinks
about the landing site. The presentation was mainly centered around the presence
of Hematite rock in Meridiani Planum. As you might already know, Opportunity’s
landing site was selected as Meridiani Planum because orbiting spacecraft
had strong evidence of it being rich in Grey Hematite rock. This rock on Earth
is found on sea beds or locations where water had its impact.
It was already late when Phil finished his presentation, therefore the other
scientists were asked to present their hypotheses tomorrow. There was then
a voting to see when the scientists would prefer the Science Assessment meeting
to be because Odyssey spacecraft would be flying-by Opportunity at about 02:30
a.m. PST, and we would get new and surely interesting data. Most of the scientists
said that they would prefer it after the fly-by so sleep is definitely not
a factor for them.
We were also very excited about the new data that was to be coming in, so
we decided to extend our shift from 03:00 a.m. PST to 4:30 a.m. we have decided
to write our journals and then attend the meeting, as there wouldn’t
be much time left after the meeting. You will be able to read about the new
data tomorrow, when I will make it a point to update this journal.
I’m off to the Science Assessment meeting, anticipating new data (and
maybe new MarsDial images)!
Spirit Sol 24 / Opportunity Sol 4
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Today was the first day on which I saw our Red Rover Goes to Mars Office
look sort of empty. Abby Fraeman and Shih-Han Chen had competed their training
period and it was only Wei Lin and I today at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Our
shift began at 10:00 p.m. PST and it ran through 3:30 a.m. I feel I am slowly
getting used to living on Mars time but I would not fully get used to until
February 1st. Unfortunately my training period gets completed by then.
Yesterday, I had the chance to calibrate the Marsdial images sent by Opportunity
on Sol 1 and today I continued with calibrating the images of Sol 2. What
we do to the images is this: All the images come in the raw form. Brief information
about the image (height, width, local solar time at which the picture was
taken etc.) is stored in a 'header'. When this raw image is converted into
an actual image, the 'header' is also forced to be converted into an image.
Since the header can't get converted into a picture, a certain part of the
picture gets dizzy (this is the place where the header occupies in the image).
We get the chance to do some interesting calculations and remove the header
from the image!
At 00:30 PST (it's already the 28th of January!), we went to the Hypotheses
meeting, which is a continuation of the meeting started yesterday. We were
given a brief introduction about the formation of iron and its characteristics.
In the meeting, they proposed many options, some of them being; all the surfaces
will display oxidation, or there is no hematite in the crater in which we
have landed and we won't get to see hematite unless we are out of the crater.
All the presentations had impressive pictures and the scientists had worked
really very hard to get their hypotheses heard. The meeting ended up like
yesterday, with some presentations still pending.
I was yawning a lot by this time because I went to Universal Studios (Sorry
I didn't tell you that before) and here I am in the night, working again.
Excepting the factor of sleep deprivation, I really had a great time both
at Universal Studios and at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Sorry if my journal
is short, but I really need to get some rest fast. I assure you that I will
write a long and informative journal in the next couple of days.
Spirit Sol 25 / Opportunity Sol 5
Thursday, January 28, 2004
Today was a tiring day and I could learn a lot from it. We came to the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory as early as 10:45 p.m. and we went straight to our office
cubicle on the 8th floor. We took our laptops and came down to the Science
Assessment Room of Opportunity on the fifth floor.
The Science Hypotheses Meeting III was at 1:15 a.m., so we had plenty of
time to work on the Marsdial images. There were new images from Sol 4, so
there was plenty of work to be done. I started with Sol 2's images, which
I began calibrating yesterday, and left it incomplete. Similarly, I finished
calibrating images of Sol 3 and slowly, many scientists were turning in for
the Science Hypotheses Meeting. To know what this 'calibration' stuff is,
read my previous journal.
Sometimes the Science Hypotheses meetings get too technical and I couldn't
understand most of them. But today's meeting had lots of images, so we could
understand most of it. The scientists presented their hypotheses about the
weird outcrop seen in Meridiani Planum. They suggest that this area is cross-bedded,
to have that in simple words, layered. This is advantageous because, according
to me, the rover will get to examine various layers of rock at just one place
and this saves a lot of time.
One of the scientists showed blown-up images of Meridiani Planum as well
as Gusev Crater. He proposed that the apparent granules were similar, whatever
they were! at both Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum. I found this hypothesis
really amusing.
At the end, the scientists who had presented their hypotheses suggested that
the outcrops be closely examined and also be photographed in 3D. I think the
same too. This way, we would get to study the very first bedrock spotted on
Mars. Dr. Ray Arvidson, one of the scientists here at JPL, said at the end
of the Hypotheses meeting that the Science Assessment Meeting would commence
in an hour.
Meanwhile, I tried to put hour markings on the Marsdial in the new images
of Opportunity. Click here to see what these hour markings are all about.
Unfortunately, the software want working with Opportunity's images, so I had
to write a problem report to be submitted to the software-makers. Because
the two rovers are different, we expected that the software would have to
be updated to work with Opportunity.
By the time I finished writing this problem report at 3:15 a.m., the Strategic
Science Assessment meeting had begun. It began with Ray Arvidson, who was
coordinating the meeting, saying, "This had been a great Sol in the aspect
of data acquisition". Great! From the presentations in this meeting,
I observed that the scientists were all beginning to get excited about Opportunity's
egress (or rolling-off from its ramp), which could happen on Sol 8 or Sol
9.
Also, the scientists had figured out from the images and the reconstruction
of the Entry-Descent and Landing, where the rover (in its air balloons of
course) bounced first. It was exciting and intriguing to know how much they
could understand by looking at all the pictures. At the end of this meeting,
one of the scientists Tim Parker told the meeting that he had a location where
he thinks the rover actually landed.
I knew he had to research that a lot before saying that, because he was opposing
a whole lot of scientists who think they had already located where the rover
landed. Tim showed us some really cool pictures that the rover took during
its EDL phase. The site, which he thinks we have landed, is not the same crater,
which we had previously thought we were in.
After the meeting, I sat down to write my journal and after I've finished
it that is right now, its 05:17 a.m. here. I hope you have seen the new image
that Spirit has returned, indicating its recovery. Really hope the two rovers,
the engineering marvels, have lots of scientific stuff to return from the
Red Planet. Signing off.
Spirit Sol 26 / Opportunity Sol 6
Friday, January 30, 2004
Today, we did a very interesting thing- we visited the test bed of the Mars
Exploration Rover. We came to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at 11:30 p.m.
and then went straight away to our office cubicle on the eighth floor. We
worked on most of the MarsDial images. It was fun to understand the time the
image was taken, by marking a grid on the MarsDial image.
At about 01:40 a.m. January 30th, we went down to the fifth floor, where
most of Opportunity's meetings take place, to take a quick look of what's
happening. Amazingly, we found the entire room deserted except for one person
and he informed us that everyone was there at Building 317, seeing a model
of the Mars Exploration Rover undergo egress. Egress is nothing but the process
where the rover slowly rolls from the lander and begins to rove on the surface
of Mars. We hurried too, to the Mars test bed and found a magnificent full-scale
model of Opportunity slowly coming off from it is lander like a newborn chick
from its egg. Right in front of our eyes, the rover successfully rolled off
and all the scientists cheered for the rover and hoped that Opportunity has
a flawless egress. When everyone was dispersing, I heard one of the engineers
say, "The test egress was frighteningly simple".
We came back straight to the fifth floor and settled in at a table in the
Geology corner. We had our laptops with us, so that we could do our work when
the meeting was not going on. The Science Assessment meeting began at 4:00
and I dare to say that this was the most exciting Science Assessment Meeting
that I have ever attended. The meeting began with one of the scientists from
the navigation team announcing that the rover had been turned away from the
Sun because there was excess power in store.
Then, a representative from the Pancam team said that the Pancam pair is
healthy and the temperature at Meridiani is just adequate for good measurements.
This is really good news because out of all the measurements, I feel that
Pancam data is the most productive. Then came the part, which I was waiting
for, the Mini-TES. Mini-TES is an instrument on board the Mars Exploration
Rovers which studies the amount of heat reflected by different elements, which
is unique for each mineral. This can be used to determine the elemental abundance
of the target rock or soil.
In the meeting, they showed a really interesting (believe me, it was very
interesting) presentation where the spectra of the rock at Meridiani Planum
and laboratory hematite were compared. I don't know about the other scientists,
but for me, both of these spectra looked very similar. I am now typing my
journal as well as listening to the meeting, but I need to concentrate on
the stuff about spectrometers that is being discussed. So, I'll wind up this
journal here and I will for sure tell you in tomorrow's journals, what I've
understood in the latter part of the meeting. Bye.
Spirit Sol 27 / Opportunity Sol 7
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Today was a far more exciting day compared to the others, one reason being
that we had two new Student Astronauts joining the bandwagon, Maciej from
Poland and Janice from USA. At noon, we were at The Planetary Society's office,
waiting to meet the 'rookies'. It just seemed like yesterday when I was listening
to pieces of advice from Abby and Shih-Han and here I am, already advising
the two new ones!
After a quick lunch at The Planetary Society, Wei-Lin and I joined Maciej,
Janice and our escort for the day, Jennifer to Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Maciej and Janice were having a short orientation and Wei-Lin and I wanted
to check out the JPL store where we could buy Mars Exploration Rover merchandise.
We shopped for about half-an-hour and got ourselves lots of T-Shirts and stuff.
It was already 3:00 p.m. PST by the time we left the store. We went straight
back to our guesthouse, where we could grab some rest. I woke up again at
10:00 p.m. and got ready to go to JPL at midnight. By now, I have become completely
used to the nocturnal life that we were living. Even today, our shift was
from 12:15 a.m. to 5:45 a.m. PST.
At JPL, I gave a short 1 and a half hour briefing to Maciej about the MarsDial
software and showed him the images that we have already worked upon. I really
wish I would stay here for longer. Tomorrow would be the end of my training
(or whatever you call it) at JPL and I can't believe it!
One thing, which had really cheered me up is that we would have the chance
to witness Opportunity's egress and that tooŠ today! That would be
great! We hurried to the auditorium where most of JPL's press conferences
are conducted, to watch NASA TV. We were lucky, because just as we came into
the auditorium, the egress was being aired on NASA TV. It just seemed like
it was so very easy. The first pictures after the egress were returned earlier
than expected.
In the first picture, we could see the rover at a little distance from the
lander and also we saw unusually strong track marks. The picture was really
cool to watch! Another good news is that Sandy Moondust survived the egress
and is looking perfectly alright! I would love to listen to how he is enjoying
there on Mars!
After the press conference, we came back to our cubicle to write our journals
and after we have finished, we are planning to go to a press conference regarding
Opportunity's egress and then we can also manage to see a little bit of the
Science Assessment meeting! I will post the details of these in tomorrow's
journal. Keep reading!
Spirit Sol 28 / Opportunity Sol 8
Sunday, February 1, 2004
I must now say that today would be my last day of work inside Mars Exploration
Rover Mission Operations as a Student Astronaut! I really wanted to call up
The Planetary Society from our office cubicle and ask them, Could we just
stay for longer because in today’s Science Assessment Meeting, they
were talking about using the Microscopic imager and Id love to see cool microscopic
images! But I know that after the microscopic imager, it would be something
else and then something else. So I gave up this idea.
Instead, I just spent my time enjoying the last few hours of my presence
in this superb mission! I was shouting in the hallways saying bye to everyone,
which I wasnt supposed to, but the scientists were all cheerfully waving back
to me saying Meet you soon.
Our day began at 12:45 a.m. (even after so many Sols, this phrase sounds
really odd) and we had the chance to write advice letters to our future Student
Astronauts and take the autographs of all our co-Student Astronauts. I also
took up the project of answering some questions, which were put by the public
to NASA. This was really hard, as I was also a rookie in Space Science. I
had to go through many websites and finally, I managed to complete answering
all the four questions.
We then went over to take some photographs in front of the model rovers and
in front of some buildings of JPL. After we had some good pictures taken,
we climbed up to the Science Assessment Meeting Room on the fifth floor as
there was the Science Assessment Meeting starting in a while.
In the meantime, I went around the room saying bye to scientists and engineers
who were all very wonderful. Donald Banfield, one of the scientists in the
atmosphere group, told us really interesting inferences from the Mini-TES
data that was recently returned from Opportunity. Then came the meeting, which
was also very exciting. All the scientists were excited about discussing where
to release the Instrument Deployment Device, also called the IDD. There are
two spectrometers, one Rock Abrasion Tool and one Microscopic Imager on the
Instrument Deployment Device and we cant use all these instruments unless
we deploy the IDD.
The meeting was over very soon, or maybe I felt that it was. After we were
out of the meeting room, we went to the Pancam teams office cubicle and disturbed
all of them. Just when we stepped inside, there was new data coming in from
the rover, as the Odyssey orbiter was flying-by. It looked as though Odyssey
was waiting for us to come and see the new images and only when we were in
that it began to send images.
We then wished all the Pancam team good luck and came back to our cubicle
to write our journal. I would like to take this opportunity to thank The Planetary
Society for giving all of us such a wonderful opportunity to play an active
role inside mission operations. I am sure that not only me, but all the other
Student Astronauts had/will have a great time here at Pasadena! I personally
thank our wonderful escorts Emily Lakdawalla, KJ Walsh, Joe Oliver, Jennifer
Waughn and Bruce Betts, for being very friendly and taking good care of us!
Thanks to everyone back in India, who have given me unending support for
my participation in this mission, including my teachers and friends at school!
I really hope I can be back here and Im pretty sure I will, as a scientist.
Keep reading the other Student Astronauts journals and I encourage you to
be in touch with future programs of The Planetary Society! This is Vignan,
signing off!
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