@tom30519
I may have turned into a pessimist, but judging by telltales and gut feelings, this might be a result of budgetary cuts. If NASA apply the governing US policy for space privatization, a.k.a. $โ"space economy", it only follows that science missions will see dramatic changes. We may be seeing that already.
But to balance it, we may see more of:
"Here is superhero Musk crash-landing a Starship on Mars!
What a great success for space economy!
Humanity, rejoice!"
๐
@JoseAC
Thanks. Other missions do tell what their plans are; here it's come to a point where we can only guess by watching telltales and reading tea leaves. It's been more than a month since the last update.
Picking interesting targets is what the Aegis software does for Perseverance; it's not random but I don't know details on how it works. Maybe @tom30519 could shine a light here.
Here is my rough location estimate for your SUPERCAM image (look for the green dot). The dark(er) zone is SUPERCAM's direction (approx)
@sharponlooker@tom30519
The image is a crop from this 96ยฐ HFOV NAVCAM mosaic, from the same RMC (there is a reason I'm using RMC and NOT Sols; they tell location and attitude unambiguously):
Processed NAVCAM_RIGHT
looking WNW (300ยฐ) from RMC 52.2540
Sol 1148, LMST: 13:00:01
#Perseverance drove 10m on Sol 1150, to RMC 52.2638. As mentioned earlier, this appears to be the most difficult part of the descent to the ancient riverbed of Neretva Vallis, on the way to Bright Angel, a rock formation of geological interest.
The maps were drawn with @QGIS, using data from #NASA's #MMGIS, imagery from #HiRISE and DTMs from #USGS
@stim3on
Yes, I saw that earlier. Wrote a short alien story too, but didn't post it ๐ ๐
Looks like normal focusing to me, since the size of the target doesn't seem to change, despite the blur.
@stim3on@AkaSci@Landru79
Yes, that's interesting. The result may depend on how the focusing mechanism works. This is not a common camera, it has a "co-boresighted Deep Ultraviolet laser and a special autofocusing/scanning optical system". The mechanism has to satisfy different requirements. But the jitter seems unusual.
Can't recall seeing another similar focusing exercise.
New location for #Perseverance on Sol 1148, RMC 52.2540
The rover is now approaching the most difficult part of the descent, but apparently it has no problem negotiating the steep slope at a slower pace.
The maps show the estimated new location along with the guessed drive path and a number of predictions for its coming drives. It seems it will reach Bright Angel sometime between Sol 1156 and 1160, assuming no pauses.
And here is a possible path to the next stop, a point where the two alternatives, one through the nearby ripples and the other along the rocky riverbank, will start to be more visible.
Processed, undistorted, leveled, cropped NAVCAM_RIGHT quick mosaic
looking WNW (300ยฐ) from RMC 52.2540
Sol 1148, LMST: 13:00:01