11/8/2023 0 Comments Earthtime mapsThat time on Earth is going to move by 39 minutes each day because of the difference in length of day and sol between Earth and Mars. The thing is, starting at 16:00 every Martian sol does not correspond to a consistent time on Earth for the operations team. The team spent the Martian evening and overnight assessing the data and making plans that will be ready to uplink at 0800. Let’s say for purposes of example that time is 08:00 Mars time, which means the operations team started around 16:00 the sol before (yestersol as we like to say) to receive the latest downlink data. As I mentioned, we must have those commands ready by a certain time each sol when Perseverance is awake and awaiting commands. Let’s revisit an important detail that makes working on Mars time so challenging for Earthlings. The Earth-based operations team will get back to work sometime in the Martian evening to start reviewing that data, what we call the downlink, and start the planning process all over again for the next sol. Perseverance will carry out those instructions and at scheduled times throughout the Martian afternoon and evening will relay data back to Earth through orbiting spacecraft. Once those commands have been sent, the operations team on Earth is done for the “day,” and can get some rest. You see, the rover already has instructions about when to wake up and listen for commands from Earth, and we have to be prepared to send those commands on time – on Mars. And there is a hard deadline for this process! This package of instructions (a set of commands and sequences) we create for each sol, what we call the uplink, must be ready for the scheduled communication window with Perseverance the following Martian morning. Is the rover where we expected it to be? Do we need to move to reach an interesting target? What images or measurements do we plan to take? Once we understand the current state of the rover and the intentions for the following sol, the operations team works the rest of the Martian night to generate the instructions for the following sol. It works like this: During the Martian night, the operations team on Earth uses the latest information from Perseverance (location, new images, health and safety information) to make plans for the following sol. So it follows that the team of scientists and engineers responsible for day to day operations of these spacecraft are delivering their commands on a cycle that is in sync with the Martian sol rather than the Earth day. Then, you must appreciate that the spacecraft we send to investigate the Martian surface mostly work during the Martian daytime so that we can image our surroundings and document our science. What does working on Mars time even mean? Well, to start you need to know that a Mars day, also known as a sol, is 24 hours and 39 minutes long, just longer than an Earth day. Currently, the entire operations team (a large group of engineers and scientists) are working on Mars time to provide instructions and review data to carry out the Mars 2020 mission goals. As Payload Science Lead, I am involved in the daily operations of Perseverance doing such tasks as evaluating and processing the image data we receive from the Mastcam-Z cameras, and helping to plan the details of upcoming observations for Mastcam-Z. Windows XP is supported up to v5.20.0 of the program.I work as a contractor for the USGS Astrogeology Science Center as a Payload Science Lead for the Mastcam-Z cameras on the Perseverance rover. Supported operating systems (32 and 64 bit):įor older operating systems (Windows 95, 98, ME, NT), please download version 1 of EarthTime here. Silent installation and uninstallation for mass deployment Weather data (temperature, humidity, wind, air pressure, METAR data, etc.) Locations of more than 140.000 Cities with local time and dateĬlouds (internet download of current satellite cloud data) Many options allow flexible customization. Alarms can be set on the local time of any city in the world. EarthTime shows a map of the earth with daylight and night shadows, local weather conditions and optionally a cloud layer with current satellite cloud data. It has a built-in database of thousands of cities worldwide but users can add any number of custom locations. EarthTime displays the local time and date of any place in the world.
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