Talk: MER-A
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Adirondack section
Somebody already made a reference to the Mars rock in Adirondack disambiguation page. So I went ahead and created the Adirondack (Mars) page taking content from the Adirondack section of MER-A (with slight modification). Obviously, now there's redundancy. Can I remove the Adirondack section from the MER-A page? - Kums 19:58, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Ok. I removed the section. The reason for this is 1)The MER-A Page is getting lengthy. 2) Adirondack has its own page. -- Kums 04:27, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
UTC for Time and dates
Should we not use UTC for times and dates? Seems more appropriate as Mars is not exactly on PST :-) SmilingBoy 01:27, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Yes and no. All the Mars reports come out of NASA JPL, which is located in California and definitely not UTC. - UtherSRG 02:57, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- As another note, if you're going to use days of the week (Monday etc) in the text, then you should include them in the dates of the timeline (Not simply "March 4" but "Thursday. March 4")DavidA 20:19 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I think we should use a changing "Current plan" section if people want to record expected activities day by day. I introduced that recently, but it just went away. I think the timeline should include brief notes on what has what actually happened (the facts), and it should be expressed in the past tense like most such sections of wikipedia. This requires changes in the early part of the timeline. NealMcB 22:26, 2004 Jan 14 (UTC)
- In a couple of months both of these rovers will be dead, and I expect there will be a big overhaul of these articles with "past tense" in mind. :) Currently there's a heck of a lot of minute-by-minute minutiae included in here, and once the mission is finished we'll be able to go through it all with a more historical perspective, trimming down on some of the stuff that turned out to be irrelevant after all. I'm thinking specifically of the speculation and status of Spirit's flash crisis, but I'm sure there will be other things. Bryan 20:36, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The quotes from today's breifeings are quite messy and have some dictation errors. If you see any typos, feel free to correct them. Sennheiser 18:37, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Rover's OS
What OS does the rover's computer use and what did it use to manage flash memory? - Logotu 22:29, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- VxWorks from Wind River Systems. -- rbs, 2004-02-09 22:46 (UTC)
- Yes, and you could have found this out at the Mars Exploration Rover Mission article. --Sennheiser! 22:45, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Logotu hangs head in shame for having missed it
green rocks
Wow! I didn't know that there were green rocks on mars! NASA 22:24, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
explaining dates, PST, UTC and sols
Nice first image at the top there Rbs!
Watch out with [nasa.gov]'s updates, they sometimes get the date wrong:
- sol 55, Feb 29, 2004
- Spirit used its rock abrasion tool for brushing the dust off three patches of a rock called "Humphrey," during its 55th sol on Mars, ending at 5:53 p.m. Saturday,
Anyone suggest a better table of contents layout? I've added an initial section ==Introduction== to trigger the TOC there, but I don't feel that's the best location... moved further down maybe?
I've posted a question on an enhanced TOC at Wikipedia talk:Section#unnumbered TOC possible? Wikibob 20:19, 2004 Mar 1 (UTC)
- The apparent error in date on the MarsRovers site is almost certainly because of an inconsistency in time zones. Sol 55 for MER-A did end at 5:53:34 p.m. on Feb 28 if you're using PST for your local clock. But in UTC was 01:53:34 on Feb 29. I have been sorely tempted to go through the entire article and change all "Earth timestamps" to UTC.
- I figured the only quick way to fill the space alongside the TOC would be a tall, medium-width photo. The page could use a few more photos anyway. - Rbs 00:44, 2004 Mar 2 (UTC)
Spirit Archive copy
NASA's Report archive only goes back to sol 33, Feb 05, 2004, so I copied what's there to subpage Talk:MER-A/reports in case we need to fill in some MER-A timeline gaps from early February. Wikibob 20:08, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)
image for this page
I've just uploaded this what lies ahead map from NASA for MER-A:
Mars MER-A what lies ahead sol 59
This map shows the path the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit will travel toward its future target, the large crater dubbed "Bonneville." The red line indicates Spirit's travels up to the 59th martian day, or sol, of its journey, and the blue line, the route it will follow. Engineers pinpointed the rover's exact location by comparing images taken by the panoramic camera on the rover (inset panels) to those acquired during descent by the descent image motion estimation system camera (underlying map).
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Ohio State University
Wikibob 00:28, 2004 Mar 8 (UTC)
Ring shaped object. Interesting enough for this page?
Can anyone explain what this ring shaped object is? uploaded from Nasa, Sol 65, MER-A, Microscopic and Pan Cam images.
It's obviously a space ship. How else would the Martians be able to abduct people? They tried to hide it under the sand but didn't do a very good job, did they. :=) pir 14:26, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The grey part in the middle is where they sit. (They're v. small) Washington Irving | Talk 14:28, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- LOL. I first thought the Rover was losing pieces, but other images show it is the raised central mark left by the grinding tool, before the dust is brushed away. The rock was particularly smooth and left a smooth disc-like impression, unlike the earlier samples which were porous and granular.-Wikibob 13:58, 2004 Mar 15 (UTC)
You're right it is an artifact of the rover's investigations. But I think what we're actually seeing is compressed sand rather than ground rock (prompted by your comment I went back to look at other images and I found some similar but less ambiguous pictures. The semi-circular footprint is left by an instrument that looks at soil chemistry (I forget the name), then imaged so that the physical properties of the soil/sand can be inferred from the way it is pressed down... Thanks for helping to clear this up! Washington Irving | Talk 14:22, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The timelines are getting very long and I'd soon like to split them into months, mainly to help readers, as there's no problem with editing yet. I'm happy to keep pasting in NASA's daily reports, even though these will probably be edited down in the future, but please say if anyone has any other ideas. -Wikibob | Talk 22:18, 2004 Apr 1 (UTC)
more images uploaded for page
These images were uploaded and added to MER-A timeline
