It was fun to share some of the behind-the-scenes details with our followers! I thought it was pretty funny when Nick or I were too lazy to walk over to each others’ offices to ask a question, and asked each other over twitter instead. ha! I guess those questions probably give you a feel for the nitty-gritty of planning a cycle, anyway. I hope it was interesting! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.

If you missed it and want to read through the saga, I made an archive of tweets with the #hitwycle hashtag. (I didn’t start this until part-way through, though, so unfortunately the first few days of tweets are missing. Soon you can check the Library of Congress for them! ) You can see the whole archive here:

http://www.twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/hitwycle

Some of my favorites are below.

@nick_space Observation schedule passed to @laughingrid . Took her 5 minutes to find the first errors. Ho-hum. #hitwycle

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:46:45 +0000 – tweet id 10580054252 – #5

@laughingrid @nick_space That’s only because there’s an app for that. #hitwycle

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:02:44 +0000 – tweet id 10580649141 – #7

@nick_space Orbital mechanics guys do things precisely. Error in knowledge of where MRO is at start of cycle 89 =2 seconds along track. #hitwycle

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:51:56 +0000 – tweet id 10684333640 – #35

@laughingrid 9 public targets from #HiWish got scheduled! Some are even stereo! Your HiWish can come true, too! http://bit.ly/9Phhfb #hitwycle

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:15:46 +0000 – tweet id 10689737369 – #42

@laughingrid Fun fact: Our downlink rate from Mars->Earth is either 6 or 3 Mbps (megabits per sec), depending on the DSN station receiving. #hitwycle

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:09:48 +0000 – tweet id 10745661825 – #76

@nick_space Oh help!!! My HiTS has just walked out the door for the weekend. I’m on my own with this stuff. *shakes at knees* #hitwycle

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:39:43 +0000 – tweet id 10749117500 – #80

@nick_space Back to the grindstone. Going to go the whole HOGG today. #hitwycle

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:26:56 +0000 – tweet id 10788612411 – #86

@laughingrid @nick_space Bring home the bacon! #hitwycle

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:47:31 +0000 – tweet id 10789304081 – #87

@laughingrid Gold star to @nick_space for making my job easy! No major conflicts, good datavolume management, helpful notes, stuff makes sense. #hitwycle

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:44:46 +0000 – tweet id 10907883703 – #117

@nick_space .@laughingrid *smiles modestly and attempts to stop halo slipping over his eyes* #hitwycle

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:46:56 +0000 – tweet id 10907975462 – #118

@nick_space Check out where we have programmed new HiRISE images. Go to http://bit.ly/96icKS, Click: Search Suggested Targets, Click: Search #hitwycle

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:28:17 +0000 – tweet id 10922698369 – #120

@HiRISE (Hint for HiWishers!) @nick_space: @HiRISE doesn’t have enough targets in Hellas Basin. There’s some real cool stuff down there. #hitwycle

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:42:27 +0000 – tweet id 10940591066 – #133

@nick_space Hope the young student from the general public that asked for that image in Solis Planum has a big computer. Image will be 2 GB!! #hitwycle

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:14:12 +0000 – tweet id 10988935603 – #144

@laughingrid I said a HIPHOP the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, don’t stop, the rock it to the bang bang boogie up jumps the boogie #hitwycle

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:52:24 +0000 – tweet id 10992856514 – #146

@laughingrid So, natch: When the pimp’s in da club, drop it like it’s hot DROP IT LIKE IT’S HOT drop it like it’s hot #hitwycle or should I say hitwyzzle

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:19:58 +0000 – tweet id 11001410157 – #152

@nick_space Whoops! Software just exploded. Communication to the database wasn’t working. Oh well. Re-boot! #hitwycle

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:39:03 +0000 – tweet id 11045096803 – #161

@laughingrid Status: Commanding a spaceship! #hitwycle

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:57:17 +0000 – tweet id 11102052732 – #172

@nick_space Although I personally prefer spaceCRAFT. )) @laughingrid #hitwycle

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:46:48 +0000 – tweet id 11104178216 – #175

@laughingrid Person doing the safety check for me is the HiBUTS = HiRISE Backup Targeting Specialist. Don’t blame me for that one. #hitwycle

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:56:23 +0000 – tweet id 11104568119 – #178

@laughingrid 241 (!!!) observations’ command files sent to be radiated! They’ll go to Mars via the Deep Space Network. #hitwycle

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:14:53 +0000 – tweet id 11110152161 – #182

@HiRISE See next week’s planned images in Google Mars! http://bit.ly/cLDAVC Load this KML file in, will show footprints #hitwycle (via @laughingrid)

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:55:15 +0000 – tweet id 11111750083 – #184

@nick_space Looks like we have imaged a fresh impact site with HiRISE. Somewhere between Jan 05 and Feb. 10, a meteorite hit the surface. #hitwycle

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:12:10 +0000 – tweet id 11205809969 – #188

@nick_space Oh WOOOOWWWWW!!! First image from Hellas Basin region. THAT is going in a press release. Super choice by CTX team. #hitwycle

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:37:10 +0000 – tweet id 11206790843 – #190

@nick_space THAT @laughingrid IS DELETING MY OBSERVATIONS!!! RIOT! PROTEST! …… ok maybe not. That’s the way it is. Cos she’s the boss. #hitwycle

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:08:20 +0000 – tweet id 11275476112 – #199

@laughingrid To make @nick_space feel better… Also, this should totally be the theme song for Seasonal Change! #hitwycle ♫ http://blip.fm/~nsb5g

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:18:32 +0000 – tweet id 11275959488 – #200

@laughingrid LOL! a science team member’s justification for using bin1 (highest res): "High resolution RULES!" YEAH it does! +So does our team! #hitwycle

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:17:52 +0000 – tweet id 11287777550 – #201

@milkysa fundamental difference btwn science ops w/MRO, @CassiniSaturn: RT @laughingrid Oh well, it’s an orbiter – it’ll come around again! #hitwycle

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:43:56 +0000 – tweet id 11314236568 – #205

@elakdawalla Woo hoo! That’s #2 for me! RT @nick_space: Public suggestion from @elakdawalla is down [from Mars Recon Orbiter]. #hitwycle

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:51:11 +0000 – tweet id 11347490753 – #214

@nick_space Had a power outage here. The HiTS on cycle 90 has a deadline to make….. ooohhhhh getting tight. #hitwycle

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:44:30 +0000 – tweet id 11383455186 – #220

@laughingrid @nick_space Week 2 plan looked really boring, so I replaced all your images with night side calibrations. APRIL FOOLS #hitwycle

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:24:25 +0000 – tweet id 11426700682 – #224

@milkysa Time to make the final target file! (Sadly, no doughnuts) #hitwycle

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:15:09 +0000 – tweet id 11440267402 – #229

@HiRISE Load this KML file into Google Mars to see footprints of next week’s planned HiRISE observations: http://bit.ly/9C09m2 #hitwycle

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:23:14 +0000 – tweet id 11501136879 – #234

@nick_space .@laughingrid Yes. But it’s really worth it. Lovely image of fretted terrain in Protonilus Mensae just come down. #hitwycle

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:37:32 +0000 – tweet id 11709614663 – #244

@nick_space And there are no fretted guitars on Mars incidentally. #hitwycle

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:38:05 +0000 – tweet id 11709637963 – #245

@nick_space Cycle 89 has completed on MRO. The data is (ok "are") down on the ground and most has been processed. #hitwycle

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:17:46 +0000 – tweet id 12068892653 – #266

This blog entry describes it in much more detail, from when we tried to do this last fall. Unfortunately, that time the spacecraft went into safe mode, and we had to stop the experiment. Here’s hoping for better luck this time! :\

Cast of characters:

One difference is that this time the CIPP (@nick_space) is here in Tucson. So it’s pretty easy to walk over to his office and ask him a question. Despite that, we’ve actually had a few discussions over twitter instead. Talk about lazy!! The good side of that is that you get to follow the day-to-day planning and see what it’s really like to plan two weeks of HiRISE images!

Links:

ESP_013948_1410, the kind of data we can't wait to get more of!

We are now returning to our normal mode of operations after several long months of being in safe mode. The anomaly on August 26th was the last in a series of computer glitches on board the MRO spacecraft that caused a reboot. The engineering teams have been working incredibly hard to get the anomaly figured out and prevent a possible side-effect from causing really serious problems. While they may not understand the original problem, and there is a chance it may happen again, they’re confident that at least it will not threaten the mission, so they’ve given us the go-ahead to resume normal operations.

Safe mode is a way of running the spacecraft where all of the science instruments are turned off and quiet. We still receive engineering telemetry so we can monitor temperatures and voltages. There are also “survival” heaters that prevent HiRISE from getting too cold in this mode.

During this time, the uplink operations staff has gotten a little restless. Downlink has been working on reprocessing all of our old data using new calibration and other improvements. With no new images to plan, though, there’s not much for uplink to do! In the beginning we welcomed the chance to finish up a lot of little tasks that we don’t normally have time for. Once we ran out of those, we helped with various projects: some people validated reprocessed data, corrected some old image information, and improved documentation. I used the extra time to do some research. We have also been training a new Targeting Specialist, who started working here a few weeks ago.

So there’s been plenty to do, but we have missed our regular jobs – as busy and stressful as they are. I’m excited and happy to be getting back to normal operations. We were anxiously waiting for the first images to come down from cycle 81 all day yesterday. It was such a relief when they appeared to be fine. (Better than fine, gorgeous!) We can’t wait to get more new data!

We recently calculated the cost of building and running HiRISE since its inception, and it comes to ~70 million dollars over the last seven years. That sounds like a lot of money to me, but it works out to only 22 CENTS per American! What a bargain! I admit, I’m a little biased, but I think HiRISE’s amazing images, exciting science, and advances in exploration are well worth that investment. The return on that investment isn’t just a matter of the data we get back from Mars – that money goes toward employing engineers, scientists, students, and operations staffers like me. I counted almost 100 people on our team roster that are at least partially supported by HiRISE funds.

Ideally, we’d reach far more than 1,000 people – as “the people’s camera,” we’d love to give every person their 22 cents’ worth. Of course, not everyone uses Twitter, so we try to do other things, like this blog, our website, facebook, on-line learning & activities, and in-person tours and talks.

What else could we be doing? What kinds of things would you like to see us do more of? What’s worth 22 cents to you?

Ice excavated from the subsurface, by a crater 6m (20 feet) in diameter, sublimates away over the course of the martian summer. Each of these HiRISE images are 35m (115 feet) across and were taken in October 2008 and January 2009.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

An exciting new paper came out in yesterday’s issue of Science magazine, with HiRISE team member Shane Byrne as the lead author. Water ice has been discovered being exposed by fresh Martian craters!

This is exciting for several reasons: first, these are very tiny craters – only a few meters (yards) across. This means they’re not excavating very deep into the crust of Mars. So the ice has to be really shallow – less than a few feet below the surface! Secondly, the location of these craters is surprising – they’re between 40-55 degrees north latitude. This is far from the polar regions, where we’d expect to find ice (for example, where the Phoenix mission landed at 68 degrees north, ice was found by digging down into the dirt).

The third exciting aspect of this ice is its purity. We’d expect this ice to be mixed in with dirt and dust and rock. Instead, we found that it’s 99% pure ice! (Only 1% is dirt mixed in.) This can be measured because we watched the ice disappear over time. By taking repeated images of the same spot, HiRISE got a time sequence as the ice slowly faded. It faded so slowly that it has to be almost all ice – a dirtier mixture would have faded much faster as it sublimated (went directly from a solid to a gas) in Mars’s extremely dry atmosphere.

Speaking of dry atmospheres, this also has interesting implications about the history of the Martian climate – there had to have been more water vapor in the atmosphere in the recent past than we previously thought. We still have lots of questions about how this ice formed, how much of it there is, and how many more of these craters we’ll find. Luckily, we’ve got a long mission ahead of us to explore these issues!

This discovery is also a great example of how the instruments on MRO work together. CTX initially detected these new craters as “dark spots,” and HiRISE followed up to confirm that they’re really impact craters. Some of those HiRISE images revealed some very bright white material, and then CRISM confirmed that material really is water ice. The instruments worked together to accomplish the best combined science. Go team! ☺

Here are some more detailed stories, images, and multi-media:

• Really nice movie with Shane Byrne talking about the discovery and excellent animations showing the locations of the craters and the time-evolution of the ice disappearing: NASA multimedia – then go to “Video Gallery” on the right, and click on “Mars – Exposed”.

• NASA press release, and all of the images and materials from the press conference

• UA news story

We’ve seen many more news stories & blogs – thanks for the interest, everyone! It’s great that everyone thinks this is as exciting as we do! ☺

UA job posting website

If you live in Tucson, you might be interested to know that we’re looking for a new HiRISE Targeting Specialist (HiTS) here at HiROC!

Our faithful blog readers are probably already familiar with some of what the HiTS do, but for the rest of you, here are some past entries related to different aspects of the job:

• Welcome, Newbies! – Training other new HiTS
• ESP so far – In the extended mission, things are (supposedly!) easier…
• How big are our feet? – Planning software HiTS use, HiPlan
• High data rate and HiTemp – Some of the challenges of planning images
• Looking Back – Special sequence commanding

I’ve found it to be an exciting and rewarding job, but it’s not an easy one. You need to be the type of person who thrives under pressure; can deal with firm deadlines, but is also creative and self-motivated in between deadlines; pays attention to small details, but can also “see the big picture” (so to speak ). You need to be able to communicate with, and translate between, people with diverse backgrounds and experience, from researchers on the science team to NASA engineers. Ideally, you’d have some relevant scientific background (planetary science, astronomy, or geology, for example), be familiar with UNIX and some programming, and most importantly, be excited about exploring Mars!

To view the complete job description, requirements, and apply online, click this link to the University of Arizona job listing. If you have any questions about the job, please leave them in the comments below!

The park also has wonderful examples of glacial geology. HiRISE has taken images of many features thought to be related to glaciers, so it’s important to understand the terrestrial analogs that lead scientists to think these are evidence of flowing ice on Mars. For example, we hiked along a moraine composed of jumbled rocks the Grinnell Glacier left behind as it flowed downhill. In addition to the remains of the (rapidly disappearing) glacier itself, we also saw typical glacial erosional structures such as U-shaped valleys, hanging valleys, and cirques. For a HiRISE image of cirque-like features, see PSP_005730_1405.

On one of our field trips, we were accompanied by reporter Michael Jamison of The Missoulian. This story was on the front page of the paper the following day:

I thought the story was really good – a quirky (but so are we!) description of why we would want to stare at the rocks in such a magnificent setting, and their relevance to our mission to Mars. We all thought it was funny when he called Alfred McEwen, our Principle Investigator, a “Marsman”!

HiRISE Team in Glacier National Park, in front of a classic U-shaped valley carved by glacial erosion.

Artist's rendition of Mars Polar Lander in 3-D

The Unmanned Spaceflight forums have a long discussion on the previous search efforts. Many candidates were proposed, and the community’s discussion about them is quite enlightening.

Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society also started a coordinated search effort last year. I don’t know if that effort is still ongoing, but her page on how to use HiRISE images in the search is still a great resource. It includes examples of known hardware, cosmic ray hits and other artifacts, and more tips on searching.

In addition to the list of images on the previous blog entry, these new images have been released: (we’ll try to keep this list up to date as more are released)

• ESP_013368_1035
• ESP_013078_1030
• ESP_013223_1025
• ESP_013289_1035
• ESP_013566_1025
• ESP_013500_1035
• ESP_013711_1030
• ESP_013724_1030
• ESP_013935_1030
• ESP_013790_1035
• ESP_014001_1040
• ESP_014080_1040

Thanks for all your interest, and good luck searching!

9/2/09: ETA new images released in September PDS release.

It appears that a recent Java patch causes problems launching the IAS Viewer client and other Java-based software launched via Java Web Start. The update changed the location of the Java Web Start application so that the system opens the downloaded JNLP file as a text file, most likely with something called Dashcode. One of our system administrators found a solution on an Apple support discussion archive. You should only have to do this once to fix the problem:

1. Find any *.jnlp file in the Finder. These may be on your Desktop, or in a download folder, depending on how your web browser is configured.
2. Highlight the file by clicking on it, then select ‘Get Info’ from the File menu.
3. In the Open with: section, click on the popup menu and select ‘Other…’.
4. In the file chooser window that pops up, under Devices, pick the hard disk icon that corresponds to the name of your system hard disk (probably has the same name as your computer).
5. From there, select the System folder, then Library, then CoreServices, and scroll down to find the Java Web Start application, select it and click the ‘Add’ button. (Note, the location of Java Web Start application may differ on your system.)
6. Back in the Get Info window, click the button that says change all to apply this change to all of your JNLP files, then close the Get Info window.

When something tries to open a .jnlp file now, it should be properly handled by Java Web Start, launching the corresponding application.

Thanks to one of our twitter followers, @doug_ellison, for pointing out that many of you are having this problem!

Please note, we offer this for informative purposes, and you should make changes at your own discretion.