From: higgins@fnalo.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Subject: Plans to acquire Face images (was Re: Mars Observer and the "Face")
Date: 13 Oct 92 23:05:33 GMT
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
NNTP-Posting-Host: fnalo.fnal.gov

In article <1992Oct12.150056.9477@ryn.mro4.dec.com>, randolph@est.enet.dec.com (Tom Randolph) writes:
> Can someone at NASA post NASA's thoughts one way or another regarding the
> Mars Observer and the Martian "face"?  [...]
> Does NASA even have an opinion on this? Is any hi-res coverage planned? There
> are all kinds of rumors flying, including "the hi-res camera isn't easily
> pointable, so no hi-res coverage is planned"... how about clarification?

I passed on this request to a friend at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
and he provided this summary of what David D. Evans, Mars Observer
Project Manager at JPL, was saying to people who were writing to him
about Cydonia before the launch.  (JPL manages the spacecraft under
contract to NASA, so this is about as authoritative as you can
possibly get.)  I received permission to post this.

[begin quote from JPL]

The Mars Observer Project at JPL is certainly aware of the great
interest in the Cydonia region.  The project's staff intend to do
their best to be responsive to requests for high-resolution
photographic coverage of the region.

They unfortunately cannot absolutely guarantee, however, that they
will obtain the requested Cydonia region coverage, although they
are optimistic that they can do so.  The reasons have nothing to do
with politics, but rather with the nature of the Mars Observer
mission, of the camera, and of Mars itself.

The Mars Observer spacecraft will be in an orbit that will take it
over each part of the planet only once in each Martian year.  In
order to achieve the highest possible resolution, the Mars Observer
Camera was designed with a very small field of view (only about 3
km (1.8 mi) wide).  It physically cannot be pointed in any
direction except straight down.  Thus, we will have, at best, one
or maybe two opportunities to photograph any 3 km square piece of
Mars.  In addition, given the uncertainty in the position of each
orbit and the timing of the spacecraft within each orbit (resulting
from atmospheric drag because the spacecraft is so low), mission
controllers will not be able to predict precisely when Mars
Observer will fly over a specific location on Mars.  Finally, even
if they are able to predict when the appropriate images should be
taken, Mars may not cooperate -- clouds, fogs, hazes, and dust
storms frequently obscure the surface.

Thus, whereas the project team fully expects to acquire images of
the Cydonia region, they cannot be absolutely certain that they
will acquire high-resolution images of any particular small
feature.

There has also been some confusion about when these photos will be
released to the general public.  We expect to release two kinds of
photo products.  First of all, we will release selected prints of
interesting features on Mars to the news media, typically within a
week or two after acquisition.  Cydonia area photos fall into this
category.  Once the photos are released, they will be made
available for purchase by the general public through a local
contractor.

The second set of data, comprising an immense data set of all photo
products of Mars, will be released in digital form, in several
increments, on CD-ROM diskettes within about six months from the
time these products are acquired.  This is to allow sufficient time
for computer processing for time tagging, for orbital position
determination, etc., and for the project science team analysis and
correlation with data from other instruments.  This digital data
set, which will be available from the National Space Science Data
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, can be accessed by anyone with a
commercially available CD-ROM reader attached to their personal
computer.

[end quote from JPL; back to quoting Tom Randolph again]

> This is a hot topic of late over in
> alt.alien.visitors. It would probably be a good idea to head off the 
> government conspiracy theories early and avoid the rush.

Go ahead and re-post if you like, Tom.  No way am I gonna get
involved.  Besides, those characters don't believe anybody who posts
from a government laboratory anyway. (-:


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