The Web Interface for Telescience (WITS)

Abstract

The Web Interface for Telescience (WITS) has been developed to enable scientists to participate in planetary rover missions from their home institutions, rather than having to travel to JPL as has been required in the past. A scientist accesses WITS via a commercial web browser. WITS provides various views of the scene including a descent image view which allows the user to see where the rover has been and currently is in a global perspective, a panoramic view which is an overhead view of the area immediately around the rover, and a wedge view which is an image from a rover-mounted camera. Scientists can select science targets in a wedge image and science subtasks to perform at those targets. A mission planner can select rover waypoints to traverse between science targets, and waypoint subtasks to perform at those locations. A public version allows the general public to view the same information and plan their own simulated missions. 1. Introduction Scientists currently have to trave..