Template talk:Age in sols

Creating talk Page - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 16:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Sols on Mars - Wikipedia notes *1-SOL LESS* than NASA?

Perhaps relevant discussion? - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Copied from the Talk:Curiosity_rover#Sols_on_Mars_-_Wikipedia_notes_.2A1-SOL_LESS.2A_than_NASA.3F:

Sols on Mars - Wikipedia notes *1-SOL LESS* than NASA?

Seems the Curiosity rover landing on Mars occurred officially on "August 6, 2012 05:17 UTC"< ref name ="Space-20120806">Wall, Mike (August 6, 2012). "Touchdown! Huge NASA Rover Lands on Mars". Space.com. Retrieved December 14, 2012.</ref> - using "August 6, 2012" in the Wikipedia template for "Sols on Mars" => { {age in sols|2012|08|06}} seems to give "4362 Sols", a number that is *1-SOL LESS* than that given on the official onsite NASA Counter - explanation(s) welcome of course - TIA - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 15:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

To quote the template documentation:

This template was created for use on Mars mission pages, NASA ones in particular, which identify mission milestones based on the mission sol which begins with sol 0 on the landing date for rover and landers and the orbital insertion date for orbiters. Examples include:

This template is useful for converting any span of Earth days into the appropriate number of sols with precision of ~ +/- 1 sol due because it rounds to the nearest sol.

I think that explains the discrepancy. We're currently at sol 130, but still closer to 129 than to 130 sols away from the the sol we had at noon of August 6, 2012. --Julian H. (talk) 16:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

@Julian H. - Thank you for your comment - yes, this helps - seems I should have considered the template description earlier - Thanks again - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I tried to get a precise result, but it's far away from the clock on the NASA site:User:Julian_Herzog/sandbox#Age in sols. I really don't know how they calculate this.--Julian H. (talk) 20:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for trying - perhaps the NASA Mars "sols" clock *could be* in error?- after all, I recently helped the NASA Staff correct several errors in a recent image description on the NASA WebSite (compare incorrect "Aug 10" with similar correct "Dec 10") - in any case - decided to link the word "sols" in the Curiosity rover info box with the http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ WebSite - might be easier to compare the two determinations for "sols" - ok to rv/mv/ce of course - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 04:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

FWIW - Seems the official NASA Mars Timekeeping Clocks, titled "MARS24", is available for download at => http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/ - the "NASA Mars Clocks" includes the "Curiosity Rover" Mission Timer and much more - also available is the mathematical basis for the "NASA Mars Clocks" (at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/help/algorithm.html) and to other related technical informations (at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/help/) - hope this helps in some ways - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 15:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

NOTE: Several relevant comments from a recent (12/19/2012) email correspondence with NASA are below:

• the NASA Mars Clock (at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/) and the"MARS24" program (at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/) are not "official" NASA Mars Clocks, may give similar times and may be "off by some odd amount" (by "1 or 2 seconds" at last look?) from the true official Mars Clock "kernel" - (the "official 'kernel' [is] maintained at JPL").
• the "Curiosity mission clock starts from mean local solar midnight immediately preceding touchdown, and for the midnight at the originally planned landing longitude and not the actual landing longitude. As MSL touched down mid afternoon local time, a clock started at the time of touchdown would lag between the mission clock by about 15 Mars hours." [use SpaceCraft Event Time (SCET) rather than Earth Received Time (ERT) which may be "off by about 14 minutes"].
• in summary, "if you plug the time and date UT 2012-08-05 13:50:00 into an MSL timekeeping calculation, you should obtain that it is mission time 00:00 on Sol 0. If you're off by a second or two, you're doing as well as Mars24. If you're off by about 7-8 seconds, you may be using the landing longitude in the calculation rather than the planned longitude. If you're off by about 14 minutes, then you probably have ERT rather than SCET."

Hope the above is helpful in some way - in any regards - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:57, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Perfect, that explains it. Thanks. I replaced the clock with a timer that is in compliance with NASA now.--Julian H. (talk) 19:34, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

@Julian H. - Thank you *very much* for your newly created template re the "Mars Curiosity Rover Mission Timer" - yes, the "Sols Count" now seems to be better - and more consistent with the NASA Mars Clock (as well as the NASA MARS24 Program) - Thanks again for your efforts - it's *very much* appreciated - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 23:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

New mismatch (Perseverance/Ingenuity sol count)

For Ingenuity date "November 21, 2021" returns 269

• 269

instead of actual 268 in NASA's catalog storage and official photo descriptions.

As an example, this image file

sol: 268,
attitude: "UNK",
image_files: {
  medium: "https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/00268/ids/edr/browse/heli/HNM_0268_0690732327_204ECM_N0160001HELI03672_0000A0J01_800.jpg",
  small: "https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/00268/ids/edr/browse/heli/HNM_0268_0690732327_204ECM_N0160001HELI03672_0000A0J01_320.jpg",
  full_res: "https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/00268/ids/edr/browse/heli/HNM_0268_0690732327_204ECM_N0160001HELI03672_0000A0J01.png",
  large: "https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020-raw-images/pub/ods/surface/sol/00268/ids/edr/browse/heli/HNM_0268_0690732327_204ECM_N0160001HELI03672_0000A0J01_1200.jpg"
 },

<...>

caption: "NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its navigation camera. This camera is mounted in the helicopter's fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. \n\nThis image was acquired on Nov. 21, 2021 (Sol 268 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 12:35:37.",
sample_type: "Full",
date_taken_mars: "Sol-00268M12:35:37.34122",
credit: "NASA/JPL-Caltech",
date_taken_utc: "2021-11-21T02:10:12.921604",
json_link: "https://mars.nasa.gov/rss/api/?feed=raw_images&category=ingenuity&feedtype=json&id=HNM_0268_0690732327_204ECM_N0160001HELI03672_0000A0J",
link: "https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/?id=HNM_0268_0690732327_204ECM_N0160001HELI03672_0000A0J",
drive: "1",
title: "Mars Helicopter Sol 268: Navigation Camera",
site: 16,
date_received: "2021-11-22T14:41:42Z",

<...>

Cherurbino (talk) 01:56, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

---

The reason of this mismatch lies in the formula you use for the final output. Let's check:

• There are 276 Earth days between 18.02.21 and 21.11.21, which equals (× 86400) =23846400 seconds.
• The Martian year day ("sol") lasts 88775.24409 seconds
• Dividing 23846400 : 88775.24409 we get 268.6154258931 sols.

Mathematically Round(268.6154258931) = 269. However this formula is not correct for the case of day counting. In our computers the date 27.11.21 equals 44527.0 at 00:00 and 44527.9999884259 at 23:59:59, however computer never rounds the day value up to 44578 in the midday when it is asked to show the current day.

Since I started discussing this template, let me propose you to write on its basis the new one.

Now your syntax looks like this

• {{age in sols|month1=2|day1=18|year1=2021|month2=11|day2=06|year2=2021}}

In its replacement I propose you another template where the count of arguments is decreaseed, thus avoiding user's mistakes in its filling. Let's call it mission sols

• {{mission sols|mission=<string argument>|month1=2|day1=18|year1=2021}}

For the sake of standartization I propose you to use the catalog names already in use at NASA's mars.nasa.gov. The relevant string constants shall be listed in the template description:

• msl for Curiosity
• mars 2020 for Percy/Ginnie, etc.

The inner switch procedure in your code shall convert this input in the long integer constants to be passed to the next step at which you calculate the seconds' interval between two Earth dates

…
Case "mars 2020"
  tBeg = 44245
…

Cherurbino (talk) 03:02, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@Cherurbino: (and others) - Thank you *very much* for your comments - and proposed solution to the template mismatch problem - comments for this and related concerns from other interested editors also welcome of course - thanks again for your own comments and all - they're *greatly* appreciated - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 03:18, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

The examination of the template in the thread above includes the statement: "The Martian year lasts 88775.24409 seconds." It should read: "The Martian day lasts...." DonFB (talk) 02:31, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the extremely important comment upon the issue of template misfunctioning. As you may see it was a mere misprint which has not influenced any further calculations. Typo corrected. — Cherurbino (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2021 (UTC)