The first few cycles of the extended science phase (ESP) have been very similar to the previous primary science phase (PSP). The main difference has been that the Observation IDs start with ESP instead of PSP! (like ESP_011268_2485) We’re also adding some warm-up observations on the night side of the planet now, which is adding some extra work in the planning. Luckily (?), Mars is at its farthest distance from the Earth right now, so the data rate is very low. This means fewer images to plan, so we have some extra time to do special things like this.

The next cycle, however, will mark some changes in the way we do the planning process. This is cycle 58 (can you believe it’s been that many cycles since we started??). For most of that time, we’ve been doing things in much the same way. We’ve gotten so good at it that everyone decided they wanted to change everything & mess it all up. haha, just kidding. We’re actually trying to simplify things. Even though we’ve gotten pretty good at this, it’s still an incredibly complex process. We would like to continue doing it for a long time and still remain sane. Also, we expect that our funding will be cut in the future, and we want to make sure we can still do everything even if we have fewer people. Plus, things just wouldn’t feel right if we weren’t constantly changing something!

If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty details, here are some of the things we’re changing:

• We’re combining some deliveries – instead of choosing our “must-haves” (these are our top five highest-priority images each cycle) separately, we’re just putting them at the top of the big list we submit for the whole cycle. This means fewer files to create, check, and deliver, and – best of all – one less meeting (and it was a doozy of a meeting!).
• We’re giving up some autonomy by allowing the Cycle Coordinator (this is the person at JPL that combines all the teams’ input) to resolve conflicts between observations. This means we don’t have a chance to fix every problem ourselves, but we just have to trust them to do it right! This is going to save us an extra iteration of our target list – another thing we won’t have to create, tweak, check, re-check, and deliver every week.
• We’re simplifying the way we add “ride-along” observations (this is when we take an image at the same place & time as another instrument on MRO). Previously we did this by going back & forth between the operations person & the science team member (”CIPP”) – now we’re going to just go ahead & add a “placeholder” observation to go with every one of the other teams’ observations. Then when we hand everything over to the CIPP for planning detailed image parameters, they only plan the ones they want to keep. This should save a few steps of back-and-forth, and also allows the CIPP more time to consider all the possible ride-alongs.

We’re hoping all the changes go well!