Mars Science Laboratory Liftoff!

MSL is officially underway!  Curiosity -- a rover the size of an SUV, nuclear powered, carrying 10 science instruments including a Canadian-built APSX spectrometer -- will search for signs of past life in Gale Crater on Mars, hypothesized to be an ancient lakebed.  From an engineering perspective, the landing may be the most exciting part as JPL's new "sky crane" will be used to deposit the rover on the surface.  Read more about the mission in this CBC article.

Searching for Methane on Mars(Dome)

This past week we ran a field deployment in the MarsDome to search for a methane source using a rover.  The rover moved around mapping the terrain and gathering spectrometer readings in order to narrow down the location of the source.  It's a bit like playing Battleship, but with robots!  Next summer we'll be heading up to Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian High Arctic to simulate this mission with a real methane source at a site called Lost Hammer Spring.

Keith Passes FOE

Keith successfully defended his PhD thesis on Nov 17; Prof. Hong Zhang from the University of Alberta was the external examiner.  Congrats, Dr. Leung!

Computer and Robot Vision (CRV) 2012

Tim will be acting as the Co-Chair of CRV2012 along with Prof. Philippe Giguère from Université Laval.  The Call for Papers is now available on the conference website.  The conference will be in Toronto next year from May 27 to 30, held at York University, just a few minutes from UTIAS.

Dry Runs for Mars Analogue Mission

This week we are doing dry runs for a field deployment to be held at UTIAS Nov 21-24 for a Canadian Space Agency contract led by York University.  The purpose of the mission is to localize a methane spring using a spectrometer mounted on a small rover platform.  We'll be testing out our procedures and equipment this week at UTIAS to make sure that we are ready for the deployment this November.  If all goes well, we'll be heading up to Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian High Arctic next July to do the scenario for real at an actual methane spring called Lost Hammer.  The picture shows our rover platform with one of the spectrometers.

ASRL's New Tour Guide

Hang Dong has officially taken over from Keith Leung as the ASRL official lab tour guide.  Today he showed his enthusiasm for his new role by showing up in an astronaut jumpsuit that he's been saving for just such an occasion!  Pretty awesome.

Update:  check out the post-flight gallery

Road Trip

Chi is visiting NASA Ames and Google in a single day in the aftermath of IROS!

IROS 2011

Tim and Chi are attending IROS 2011 in San Francisco:  http://www.iros2011.org/

Leaving the Nest

Yesterday both Andrew Lambert and Colin McManus gave their Departmental Masters Seminars, completing their requirements for their MASc degrees.  Also, Dr. Paul Furgale passed his Final Oral Examination for his PhD degree on September 7 with Prof. David Wettergreen (CMU) serving as the external examiner.  Congrats and thanks to all!

Another Field Season Comes to an End...

...well, not quite.  Most of our team made it out of Mistastin today and are relaxing in Goose Bay.  The crazy die-hard members stayed behind to help long-line the robot back to an airstrip by helicopter tomorrow (the winds were too high today) and will hopefully come out by Twin Otter tomorrow afternoon.  Job well done by everyone, especially given the bugs, cold, rain, and high winds over the last few weeks.  'Till the next time...

Pushing the Limits

Week 2 of testing has been going well so far. The rover has gone on 1-2 traverses per day to explore various sites of interest identified by the science backroom. Lots of gigapans, lidar scans, and core samples have been taken. The science team has really been pushing the limits of the rover’s capabilities in order to get an in-depth look at several intriguing locations near the original landing site, which has been very exciting to watch. Based on the data collected by the astronauts last week, the rover is continuing to build a geologic understanding of the rim of Mistastin Impact Structure.

Robotic Operations Continue at Mistastin

Today the second week of robotic operations began at Mistastin.  The astronaut team has left the ridge camp for a second location, leaving behind the rover team to do followup tasks for the next five days.  Today the rover traversed back to an outcrop on top of a ridge using its lidar vision sensor in order to conduct further scientific investigations.  Hopefully the backroom science team will command the robot to some new locations in the coming days.

"Mistastin" Means High Winds

The robotic operations in our first week at Mistastin impact crater concluded well.  Today we were supposed to move camp and exchange some personnel.  But, in classic Mistastin form, the winds are very strong and our helicopter isn't able to fly.  We're in waiting mode until the weather clears.  Update:  the winds got up to 104 km/h.  Most of the camp evacuated to some nearby cabins, but our rover team bunkered down in the rover tent to make sure all the equipment was safe.   It was quite a fun night in the end.

ROC6 Joins Lunar Analogue Mission Operations

Today was the first day the ROC6 officially joined the Lunar Analogue Mission led by the University of Western Ontario here at Mistastin Lake.  The rover was manually piloted by an "astronaut" to a rock outcrop about one hundred metres from camp.  There it gathered some images and three-dimensional models of the rock and then autonomously returned home.  More extensive traverses will occur over the next few days.  Bugs were bad today.

ROC6 Summits on Nearby Ridge

Hurricane Irene did not end up being much of a storm in the end, mostly just a lot of rain.  Today is sunny but with low winds so the bugs are terrible again.  The good news is that we tested our appearance-based lidar visual navigation quite a bit today, with about 1 km of autonomous driving up and down some fairly extreme terrain including summiting on a nearby ridge overlooking camp and Mistastin Lake.  We'll join the larger lunar mission simulation beginning tomorrow.

Hurricane Irene on its way!

We've had a nice few days of testing here.  Things are going a little slowly but have had some successful traverses.  A couple minor software issues have cost us some time but we are pretty much on schedule for the mission ops.  The big event today is that Hurricane Irene is supposed to pass over Labrador late today and we'll feel the effects starting early tomorrow.  We've decided to stand our ground and we've reinforced the tents with extra straps and boulders for weight.  Not sure when we'll get to post again but wish us luck!

ROC6 Rolls Out

Last night we got the ROC6 out of the rover tent and out on a traverse.  We did a short Visual Teach & Repeat experiment in daylight that will form part of the larger Analogue Mission operations starting on Monday.  We also repeated the same route in both directions after dark without any problems.   Our friend the bear cub made an appearance yesterday as well.  Today the weather is perfect:  sunny and windy so no bugs.  People are beginning to brace for the impact of Hurricane Irene, but hopefully we'll just get some heavy winds and rain.

Arrived at Mistastin Lake

It's been a rough few days.  We deployed safely to Mistastin Lake shore via Twin Otter and the next day to our field site near the crater rim.  It was a long day of slinging gear under the helicoptor but we got it all here.  There's a cute bear cub living nearby, hopefully his mother isn't around.  There was a huge storm in the night and it ripped the roof off our rover tent.  Luckily we got it under control and nothing was damaged.  The ROC6 is in good shape and we've done some dark navigation experiments already.  We're all a little worried about Hurricane Irene as we may be in the track.  Starting navigation experiments tomorrow.

Arrived in Goose Bay

Our team and gear has made it to Goose Bay.  It's looking like we'll deploy to Mistastin Lake impact crater over the next two days; we were delayed today due to bad weather.  The ROC6 is alive and well, despite a mangled shipping crate.

Field Deployment to Mistastin Impact Crater

The ROC6 has been shipped to Northern Labrador and our team will depart on Aug 22 to Goose Bay.  We'll be meeting our collaborators from UWO and deploying by Twin Otter to the Crater. Watch this space for news and the Mistastin 2011 Web Album for images.