🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi all,

The following is a status update on the Pele Rover Mission. The Pele
lunar rover mission concept is a proposal developed by a joint team of
the University of Hawaii, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Johnson
Space Center, McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, the Lavochkin Association,
and Brown University. The mission concept proposes to explore issues
in lunar science and planetary volcanism that were left unanswered by
Apollo. The Pele team is currently conducting field trials with a
Marsokhod rover in the Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. A major focus of these
tests is to evaluate the use of advanced teleoperations methods (e.g.,
virtual environment based control, high-fidelity stereo video based
telepresence) for operating the rover from geographically distributed
remote control stations.

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		      Pele Mission Status Report
	    Hawaii Volcano Observatory -- Kilauea, Hawaii
			     17-Feb-1995

   Today marked completion of the fifth consecutive day of successful
   testing for the Kilauea science and field teams. Science operations
   for this day were shortened both to allow the field team some well
   deserved rest, and to provide the science team at Ames time to
   evaluate data from the previous day. At the start of operations, the
   field team encountered initial problems involving TCA messaging on the
   local Sun workstation used for data trafficking between the control
   room at NASA Ames and the rover. Once this problem was solved, the
   team performed operations which included three major accomplishments.
   
   First, rover mobility was demonstrated over the most severe terrain
   yet attempted during this round of Marsokhod testing. The day's
   traverse included operations at two major rifts, allowing the science
   team located to evaluate local layering and other features through the
   rover's imaging systems (including the Kodak DCS 420 digital camera).
   At both rifts, imaging requirements made it necessary to position the
   rover on extremely rough terrain. Operations included traversing cross
   slopes of up to 45 degrees, and descending and climbing down slopes in
   excess of 30 degrees unassisted.
   
   Second, scientists at NASA JSC were able to participate in real-time
   data analysis and decision making with the team located at NASA Ames.
   The JSC team was able down both the live satellite video feed and high
   resolution science imagery from the rover using Mosaic to access the
   science data archive established at NASA Ames. The JSC team was linked
   to the control center at Ames via telecon. In the words of Kent
   Joosten from JSC, testing "validated the operations concept proposed
   by this team for NASA's Discovery Program". Such real-time distributed
   science operations is a significant aspect of our team's Discovery
   proposal, and will reduce costs, increase speed, and broaden the
   participation in the analysis of mission science data.
   
   Third, PIN site software for the JASON portion of the expedition was
   successfully demonstrated through control of the rover simultaneously
   from Utah State University, McDonnell Douglas Huntington Beach, and
   the local control station at Kilauea. Gary Glover and Karl Pfitzer of
   MDA successfully ported the PIN software to Utah State and monitored
   operations while they controlled the rover for over 1/2 hour via
   internet during the team's regular end-of-the-day public demo. The
   rover was also operated locally during this time by a half dozen eager
   local middle school kids.
   
   Science operations conclude tomorrow with the final day of lunar mode
   testing. Objectives include examination of the interface region
   between two flows and a layer of ash deposit, and characterization of
   the boulders strewn about an ejecta field. Additionally, PIN software
   flexibility will be further validated through operations from Gary and
   Karl's homes in Huntington Beach. Both will dial in simultaneously via
   slip line, perform control and receive telemetry from the rover.
   Following the conclusion of operations at HVO, the team will
   transition the hardware to the JASON site at the base of the currently
   active lava flow. A site visit this morning revealed that recently
   emerging flows have consumed the site originally planned for JASON
   operations. Needless to say, the situation promises to keep the field
   team on their toes!
   
   Test footage may be seen by folks with access to NASA Television.
   Overall statistics and milestones for the mission will be available in
   future status reports.

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For additional information on Marsokhod and JASON activities check the
following WWW pages:

NASA Ames Intelligent Mechanisms Group
  http://maas-neotek.arc.nasa.gov/
  http://maas-neotek.arc.nasa.gov/marsokhod

McDonnell Douglas
  http://pat.mdc.com/HB/new/Planetary/planetary.html

JASON Foundation
  http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/JASON.html
-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
 "San Francisco has only one                        Terry Fong <terry@cmu.edu>
  drawback - it's hard to leave..."        Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon
                -- Rudyard Kipling         Pittsburgh, PA 15213   412-268-1416