Well, it’s been a while since we’ve been posting a lot, so I thought I’d just give you guys some kind of an idea as to what we’re doing these days.

The uplink team is constantly looking where to point the camera next. There is a program which is in beta testing now called HiWeb which allows scientists and other people to input suggestions. The Uplink team reviews the suggestions in the database, assigns a priority to each of these suggestions, and then finds when we can point the camera at the part. They also make sure a certain percentage of the upcoming pictures are assigned to look for a Phoenix landing spot, as this is a high priority item at the moment. They are still learning exactly how to best command the camera, and are constantly sharpening their skills.

The downlink team is making sure operations run smoothly at HiROC. They are verifying that the processing has taken place, make sure that the images have been calibrated correctly, that there are no image processing artifacts on the images we are about to release. If there is any artifacts created from processing the image, the source of the problem is identified and fixed, and then the image is reprocessed. While previously we have sent images to the public that had some small processing artifacts during the post-MOI and Transition imaging, we currently are waiting until the images have been completely validated. The downlink team is also taking a quick look at each image that comes down, and making sure there isn’t something unexpected, for example, haze at Mars, lots of saturated pixels, etc. If any such problems are found, they notify the uplink team, to ensure that we don’t have continuing problems. These problems are very rare, but on occasion happen, due to the changing nature of Mars.

During and after the validation process, the images are reviewed by several of the science team members of HiRISE. Things of special nature are noted, and these images receive captions. The others are slated for a more general release. Due to the large size of the HiRISE images, it is almost impossible to search every square inch of the pictures by any one or even a small group of people. I’m sure many of you have noticed this with just the images which have been released, there are many more which are still being validated which have yet to be released.

The Systems team is responsible for making sure that the HiROC computers are all working in top shape. They are quick to find problems when they arise and fix them so that it does not affect the flow of data here. They are preparing servers for two upcoming services that HiROC will provide, HiWeb, which was mentioned previously, and a JPIP server, which will allow for the effective distribution of JPEG 2000 images.

The software team is writing software that will make people’s lives easier. Some are working with the HiPlan suite of tools, which is used to plan upcoming images, to make it even easier to use for the uplink team. Some are working on HiVali, the validation software, which is used to make it easier to verify that an image is ready to release to the public, quickly finding problems with the image. Some are working on HiView, a program which will allow distribution of images over the JPIP protocol to the general public. Still others are working on getting HiWeb ready for public release.

Let me also talk a bit about a few upcoming products mentioned in this entry. HiView will allow you to download only the parts of a HiRISE image that you find most interesting. It will work great, even for those who have slow internet connections. I personally have tested this with a connection rate of 1kBytes/sec, and it works reasonably well even at that slow speed. It will allow the user to save the parts of the image they find the most interesting to their hard drive for future study (HiView will require a constant internet connection to download the image)

Another upcoming product is HiWeb. HiWeb will allow any user (Yes, that’s you!) to suggest future targets to image with the HiRISE camera. Preference is given to targets of scientific interest. The suggestions are given a priority, and placed in a database to be targeted depending on the orbit of MRO and the allocated bandwidth.

So, that’s what’s happening at HiROC these days. In short, we are all very busy, but very much enjoying our work. I personally can’t remember a time that I’ve had as much fun working as these last few months have been. And surely the best is yet to come!