HiBlog: HiRISE Team Blog » Tucson

The Phoenix Has Landed

GuyMac — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:43:15 +0000

An overflow crowd of thousands were in rapt attention here on the University of Arizona campus, as they watched the NASA Television coverage of the successful Phoenix Landing. It has been really amazing to see so many people gathered in support of their mission. It was literally standing room only here at the Charles P. Sonett space sciences building that hosts HiROC. There was actually a line to get into the Kuiper space sciences building, and another one for the Flandrau planetarium, while another crowd gathered out on the university Mall, and possibly another group down at the campus bookstore. People began watching attentively at all of these locations starting around an hour before touchdown. Tucson really showed its support for Phoenix today. People actually took down (carefully!) a large hanging mural so they could watch the display from outside the glass window of our building. I could tell that things were going well by the occasional outbursts of applause.

When Peter Smith gave enthusiastic shout outs to the UofA community and to Arizona, the crowd erupted in responsive applause. Congratulations to the Phoenix team and especially to those working on EDL at JPL in Pasadena and Lockheed in Denver.

Meeting the Team

Ingrid Daubar — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:46:54 +0000

We’re just finishing up four days of having the whole HiRISE team visiting us here in Tucson. It’s been a great team meeting! We had updates on operations, and heard a lot about science results from HiRISE images. Some CRISM and THEMIS team members participated, too, so we got to see what other teams are doing and talk about collaborating and using multiple data sets. People are doing really exciting things with HiRISE data!

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.

Kite’s First Cycle

Ingrid Daubar — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 23:23:37 +0000

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the third two-week cycle in the primary mission. However, it’s only my first cycle! One Targeting Specialist is assigned to each cycle, and I’m on for cycle 3. Because we spend almost four weeks planning before the cycle even starts, there are three Targeting Specialists overlapping at any one time, in various stages of the planning process. Plus there’s a backup — HiBUTS, which stands for HiRISE BackUp Targeting Specialist. (I can’t take credit for that — that’s one of HiKu’s!)

Since before PSP started, we’ve all been working long hours. We haven’t had much time to blog, but right now I’m just waiting nervously for my commands to be radiated, so I thought I’d share this recipe. For all you faithful blog readers out there (all 2 of you? ), here’s my secret to surviving long workdays and cold nights:

Kite’s Red Planet Soup

1 gallon-size jar roasted red peppers in water, pureed
a bunch of carrots, steamed in a small amount of water until soft, and then pureed
4 cups pumpkin puree, frozen, from your uncarved Halloween pumpkin
a pile of brown rice, cooked
a few cans of soybeans
vegetable bouillon — keep adding until it tastes good
a few shakes of cayenne pepper
salt

Make a whole bunch in a giant pot, simmer for a while, then freeze in individual portions, and you’ll have a delicious and healthy homemade lunch every day! It’s extra good with bread or some cheese grated on top. Perfect for this chilly winter weather we’re having! (Yes, it really does get cold in Tucson!)

Fortified by my daily dose of red goodness, this afternoon I built the commands for the first four days of images in cycle 3. They will be radiated some time this evening. I’m pretty nervous, but I’ve triple- and quadruple-checked every detail of every observation, so there’s not much more I can do but wait…. I only hope these images are as sexybeautiful as HiKu’s and HiPilot’s!