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. (more…)

There might not be any new HiRISE images to release (yet) but that does not mean we have been idle here at the HiRISE Operations Center. In fact, we have been very busy improving our existing images with new calibration and a different color stretch, making sure our entire data set is consistent, and preparing new product types!

For starters, our Extended Science Phase (ESP) images are now consistent, making use of all the latest and greatest fixes and improvements to our processing pipelines. These updated products are out now. The older Primary Science Phase (PSP) observations are still reprocessing; we should have them ready for an upcoming monthly release.

Next up, we have a fantastic new product called a Digital Elevation Model. Learn more about these products in an upcoming blog post!

Finally, several of our observations have been improved with updated descriptions.  For example, an image might have been taken of a crater that did not have an official name at that time. After the crater receives an official name, we try to go back and update the description for observations of that crater. Recently we had time to do that for a lot of observations. Unfortunately, the software used to update the EDR and RDR labels inadvertently corrupted the first few image data lines. Our attentive Targeting Specialists and Student Validators spotted the minor differences between reprocessed images and older versions. We have corrected the description update tools and reprocessed the EDRs from the 745 observations affected by this problem. Anyone who has downloaded HiRISE EDRs prior to the December 2009 release should check the list below to ensure any EDRs being worked with are not on this list. If the EDRs you have are from the observations on the list, you can check the “creation date” in their label. If the creation date is before November 4, 2009 then you should download the latest version. If the creation date is after November 4, 2009 then the EDR is good. The latest version of all of the EDRs for the following observations are now available on the PDS and on our website.
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I just realized our Twitter account has almost 1,000 followers! It’s crazy to think that our words and pictures are going out to that many people every day. Considering how many taxpayers fund this mission, though, a thousand people is only a tiny percentage.

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?

We have now released all HiRISE images taken prior to August’s spacecraft safe mode event! Here are some statistics about our October 2009 release, which includes the images the HiRISE camera took of the Martian surface between Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) orbits 14,200 to 14,499 (August 6, 2009 – August 26, 2009):

• 446 RDRs, 0.18 TB
• 6238 EDRs, 0.18 TB
• 5126 RDR Extras, 0.28 TB
• 12,464 EDR Extras 2.5 GB
• 16 Anaglyphs 0.001 TB

Totals for this release: 24,274 images, 0.62 TB

This brings our total released product numbers and data volume to:

• 23,122 RDRs, 12.2 TB
• 323,358 EDRs, 10.6 TB
• 196,058 RDR Extras, 15.6 TB
• 625,233, EDR Extras, 0.1 TB
• 1,192 Anaglyphs 0.5 TB

Total: 1,167,771 images, 37.7 TB

Just because we are not currently taking images does not mean we are slacking off. The Downlink team is busy reprocessing and validating all ESP observations. After reprocessing, these observations will all benefit from the same improvements we have made to our processing pipelines over the past several months. I also recently started reprocessing PSP observations, which is a much larger data set that will sync improvement to our processing pipelines made over the past few years! We are keeping busy and we are even getting help from the Uplink team while they wait for the go ahead to start taking new images of the Martian surface. Of course we all want that to happen as quickly as possible!

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! ☺

You might remember that we were planning on releasing HiRISE images to the public on a monthly basis. That plan was delayed by issues with our processing software, hardware and other events. A productive summer working on these issues culminated last week with one of our larger releases of Mars images!  Here are some statistics about our September 2009 release, which includes the images the HiRISE camera took of the Martian surface between Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) orbits 12,600 to 14,199, or roughly April 4 through August 6, 2009:

• 2,996 RDRs, 1 TB
• 42,370 EDRs, 1 TB
• 34,481 RDR Extras, 1.6 TB
• 83,784 EDR Extras, 0.02 TB
• 636 Anaglyphs, 0.01 TB

Totals for this release: 163,631 image products, 3.6 TB

This brings our total released product numbers and data volume to:

• 22,676 RDRs, 12 TB
• 317,120 EDRs, 10.4 TB
• 192,270 RDR Extras, 15.3 TB
• 612,769 EDR Extras, 0.1 TB
• 2,892 Anaglyphs, 0.5 TB

Total: 1,148,363 images, 37.5 TB

In summary, we released nearly 1500 observations, most of those with both black & white and color RDR products. Several newer observations matched up with older observations from a slightly different angle of the same location on the surface, resulting in 636 awesome new anaglyphs. The RDRs are the fully processed, geometrically projected products best for scientific inquiry. If you really want to, though, anyone can download and process HiRISE data from scratch. You can do this using ISIS software, which is publicly available for free download. See the ISIS Web site for download information, processing instructions, and tutorials.

Starting this week, I will be looking over the observations taken August 6 through August 26 before MRO went into safe mode and make sure they are ready for release. We plan to release these images in early October. We are also in the process of reprocessing those Extended Science Phase mission images prior to all the latest processing pipeline fixes and updates.  Once we are satisfied with that data set, we will release them to the public and then start reprocessing the images from the Primary Science Phase…a major project that should keep me and the rest of Downlink busy for several months!

Originally posted at Spaced Out (Again):

We are going to try to Twitter a planning cycle for the HiRISE (http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu) experiment. The idea is to give people a feeling of all the work we have to do to get images from Mars out of a very special piece of equipment. Here are a couple of things you need to know to follow what is going on.

The scientist in charge of the scientific support for the cycle is called the CIPP. For cycle 75, that is @nick_space. Nick will be assisted by his Post-Doc., Anya, who is @mozhetbyt

The targeting specialist ensures that the plan produced can be implemented and keeps the CIPP from doing anything stupid. The targeting specialist is called the HiTS and for cycle 75 that is @laughingrid.

The HiRISE project has its own Twitter account (@HiRISE) which can also be followed.
We will try to use #hitwycle as a search hashtag for tweets.

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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!

The HiRISE team met up this summer in Whitefish, Montana. In between meetings, we were also able to take several geologic field trips and hikes. Glacier National Park has many cool (haha) glacial features, of course, and we also learned about some interesting sedimentology that occurred in the ancient geologic past. The patterns we saw in the sedimentary rocks are similar to those discovered by the Mars Opportunity Rover – cross-bedding and festooned ripples that form when sand is laid down under a body of water. The shape and direction of the ripples can tell you how much water was present, how fast it was flowing, and whether it was a river, a lake, or an ocean. These are important questions we’d like to answer about the history of water on Mars.

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:

“Martians invade Glacier – Mars scientists visit park to study, compare rocks.”

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.

We were pleased to welcome Linda Ronstadt (!!!) to the HiRISE Operations Center last week. We gave her and a few of her friends & family a presentation about the HiRISE mission, and we showed them some of our images in false color, 3-D and on the HiWall. Linda was incredibly nice and enthusiastic, and she had lots of great questions for us. Turns out rock stars love HiRISE! At least, we hope she enjoyed it as much as we did!