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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!

Governor Janet Napolitano visits the HiROC lobby in February 2006

My favorite part is when people have questions for us – even when I don’t know the answers. Because, honestly, that’s what science is – we don’t always have the answers, but that’s what makes it exciting! It’s also fun to find out which aspects of the mission inspire other people, and I get a different perspective on what they think is interesting (versus just what I think is interesting!). Some of the questions are really good, too! We were talking with some middle-school students from El Paso, Texas, and their questions were so astute. One girl asked, “Does Mars have plate tectonics?” Another good question was, “How do we know about the interior of Mars?” These are great questions, and HiRISE is helping scientists to answer these and other questions, along with data from many other instruments studying Mars.

In case you were curious about these particular questions, like these kids were, here are some short answers and references for more information:

• Does Mars have plate tectonics?

  It doesn’t now, but it might have in the past. The crust of Mars is thicker and stronger than that of Earth, so it’s more difficult to break it apart into plates and start subducting them below one another. However, there is some evidence that Mars may have had active plate tectonics early in its history. Maybe the presence of water in the crust weakened the rock enough to allow plate tectonics. HiRISE is investigating evidence of water in the Martian past, which may help illuminate this issue.

  For more reading:

  1. “Plate Tectonics . . . on Mars” Science News Magazine Volume 155, Number 18 (May 1, 1999) (article)
  2. Sleep, N.H. 1994. Martian plate tectonics. Journal of Geophysical Research 99, 5639. (scientific paper)
  3. Nimmo, F., Stevenson, D.J. 2000. Influence of early plate tectonics on the thermal evolution and magnetic field of Mars. Journal of Geophysical Research 105, 11969-11980. (scientific paper)
• How do we know about the interior of Mars?

  HiRISE and other cameras can only take pictures of the surface of Mars. So how do we know so much about what’s inside the planet? For example, we know that Mars has an upper crust, a mantle, and a dense core, like the Earth.

  One way to see beneath the surface is to use impact craters – they punch holes through the crust and expose deeper rocks. HiRISE has imaged a lot of craters! There is also an instrument on the MRO spacecraft with HiRISE called SHARAD, which uses radar to see buried layers of rock and ice. We know about the deeper interior of the planet from spacecraft that have been orbiting Mars for decades and measuring how gravity, heat flow, and the magnetic field vary over different areas. We can also measure the elevation of different features, and that tells us something about what’s underneath. For example, a tall mountain may have very deep roots that extend into the mantle. Scientists also make theoretical models of the planet based on what we know about the physics and chemistry of how it formed and has evolved. There is still a lot of work to be done in this area, and scientists hope future missions will tell us more about the Martian interior. For example, a seismic

  For more reading:

  1. “Martian Interior” (2007) European Space Agency. (article)
  2. Zuber, M.T. 2001. The crust and mantle of Mars. Nature 412, 220-227. (scientific paper)
  3. Planetary Interiors by W. Hubbard (book, general to all planets)

What do the people at the HiRISE Operations Center (HiROC) do when the MRO spacecraft safes?

When the spacecraft safes, the automatic reset sequence also turns off all the scientific instruments on board. So we were shut down early last week. We knew from preliminary investigations that HiRISE wasn’t involved with the cause of the event (whew!), so we couldn’t really help analyze the cause. This was different from some situations in the past where HiRISE caused itself to safe; in those cases, we were responsible for figuring out why. This time we just had to wait while the spacecraft engineers figured out the problem.

Once the engineers determined we could go back to normal operations, we worked with them on our instrument safe mode recovery. This involves radiating a set of pre-written commands and files to the spacecraft, verifying that the setup commands executed correctly on the instrument, and watching the instrument telemetry to make sure we power up correctly. We have a series of checks built in to this sequence. They work like a checksum, and send that information back down to Earth in the telemetry. We check those values against what we expect them to be, and that’s how we know the correct values were written to memory. Without this confirmation, we couldn’t be sure that HiRISE’s memory was uncorrupted.

Every step in the lengthy procedure executed successfully, and all of the checks matched what we expected, so we were able to confirm that HiRISE was ready to return to normal imaging. The next day, they restarted the sequence on board that calls our imaging commands, and we were back in business!

• Related HiBlog post: On the Safe Side

Our HiPlan developer, the HiCommander, had a little surprise for us in our planning software, like last year. I was forced to click “Authorize” in order to use HiPlan, and now I owe HiRISE $620. Hopefully that’s a tax-deductible business expense.

On another topic, a number of us have signed up for Google’s new Mars expedition. It seems like the next logical career move after MRO’s mission is complete. In fact, we’re scouting potential sites for Virgle City right now. That’s assuming their references to the first “manned journey to Mars” are not to be taken literally, and that women will be considered as potential colonists. (ahem.)

One by one, we’re introducing new uplink personnel to the complex system of uplink planning. In fact, each cycle so far has been planned by a new Targeting Specialist, so we’re still in the midst of a lot of training. Once we each get through one cycle, I think we’ll notice a big improvement in efficiency. Starting with cycle 007, new CIPPs (Co-Investigators of the Pay Period — the science team members who help plan observations for a given cycle) will also be visiting HiROC for a few weeks while they learn about the planning process. So the “cycle” of training continues, with Targeting Specialists training each other, and then passing that knowledge on to new CIPPs. We expect this to persist through PSP, since there are ten Co-Investigators, plus their post-doctoral researchers and students who may get involved.

Special activities like off-planet observations provide a little variety, a change from the cycle of planning and the constant cascade of downlinked data. Some of these approaching activities include:

• Stellar calibration — 11 January
• Updating the LUTs (Look-Up Tables) we use to convert from 16-bit to 8-bit data on board the spacecraft — mid-January
• Deimos calibration — late January

We’re currently developing and testing the command sequences for these events.

You should know by now the route our data takes: from the HiRISE camera on MRO to storage to spacecraft radiation to the Deep Space Network radio telescopes here on Earth to the ground data system network to JPL in Pasadena, CA to the University of Arizona campus network to our servers in the HiRISE Operations Center. Our Watchdog software, well, watches the JPL servers for new HiRISE raw image data. When it sees a new raw channel file (2 channels per CCD, up to 14 CCDs per observation), Watchdog flags that file as ready to be downloaded by HiDog.

HiDog is the first automated pipeline. It wakes up every few minutes to see if the Watchdog has flagged any new files (basically, it is checking a sources table in our database). If there is nothing new in the sources table, then it goes back to sleep. If there is something new, HiDog wags its tail, rapidly downloads the file, checks to see if there are any gaps in the data, and then tells the next pipeline that a new image channel has arrived in Tucson, ready for further processing. Then, it checks to see if there are any more files ready for downloading, and goes back to sleep if there are not. Sweet dreams, little doggy.

Over and over again, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the Dogs are ready and waiting for the latest HiRISE data from Mars.

Next time…the EDRgen pipeline.

First look at the pictures!

We are hoping to release these pictures to the general public sometime today, stay tuned!