The first Monday in June when they all started was krazy – lots of new people wandering around, office chaos and computer confusion…. By now they’re settling in and things are cooling down somewhat, although at least for the Targeting Specialists, we consider it about a 6-month process to get fully up to speed. In the first few weeks, their eyes are usually glazed over with information overload. At this point, they probably feel like they’ve been dropped in the hot oil of confusion (it’s also 106F in Tucson, which doesn’t help), then dipped in sticky, overly detailed procedures. Sweet procedures….

While we go through this training, the new kids are keeping us veterans on our toes – I keep finding places where the procedures we told them to follow are unclear, there’s a hole in the middle where steps are missing, outdated, or just plain wrong! So it’s really a shared learning experience. Besides, it’s always good to have some fresh, hot ideas and different perspectives to keep us from getting jaded. or dangerously skinny.

I’m excited for them – the sugary thrill when their first commands execute on the spacecraft, the pride when their first beautiful images come down, the feeling of fullness and mastery when they finally become fluent in the foreign language of acronyms…. Other firsts I’m sure they’re not looking forward to are their first mistake, their first late night, their first bad image…. So not everything is warm with honeyed nostalgia.

I’m sure they’ll all do a wonderful job, though, and be valuable additions to the team. In the meantime, though, I could really use some donuts…. Welcome, newbies!

Also, our team is really growing!

You’ll notice a lot of new faces compared to a few years ago!

We spent the first day updating the team on our operations here at HiROC. Then for two days, almost everyone on the science team presented new results from recent HiRISE data, and explained their plans for future observing and analysis. We saw some really great images! A lot of people are doing “quick & dirty” three-dimensional analgyphs with our stereo data (like these), so we got to wear our red/blue glasses a lot. (We don’t have things calibrated & automated to the point where we can do this “correctly” yet, so these are still mostly preliminary, hand-processed products.)

Today, most of the team is participating in software training. Since we only have a day, we’re just doing short demos of the planning tools (HiPlan – see previous HiBlog entry for a recent update) and some of the analysis tools (like ISIS and IDL/ENVI)

For operations, it’s been wonderful to see the fruits of our efforts — we go to a lot of trouble to acquire an image, but once it’s acquired, we tend to lose track of it, because we’re planning the next images! Seeing the science that comes out of the data not only helps us understand strategies and be more intelligent in our targeting and planning, it’s also just really cool! I think keeping the “big picture” in mind is important in keeping us motivated and excited about what we’re doing.

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.