Lately we’ve been working hard dealing with a LOT of extra data. Because Mars is getting closer to the Earth (you can visualize that in this view of the solar system), we are approaching the peak data rate for the entire primary mission. Not that we’re complaining! This just means the Targeting Specialists are planning many more images, and we’re making those images as big as we can.

Unfortunately, we can’t just make them all the largest size the instrument is capable of taking, because our camera will get too hot. If it overheats, the instrument will shut itself off in order to prevent any damage to the electronics. So we have to be careful, and only plan images that won’t overheat HiRISE. In order to predict those temperatures, we use a tool called HiTemp (of course!). Here’s what it looks like (click on the image to see a bigger version).

This program reads in our planning files, and then models the temperatures of two key spots on the focal plane of the camera. It’s our job to make sure we don’t go above the dotted red line – this gives us a comfortable buffer below the scary solid red line. That’s when HiRISE would shut off, or safe. We know from experience by now that this is a big pain in the neck – a lot of work is required to get us back up & running, and we miss observations while we’re turned off. So we watch our HiTemp plots!