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.