Gaskell has continued his work on small bodies with further work on Eros with DDAP funding and in support of other researchers studying Itokawa. He is gearing up to work on the satellites of Saturn under his soon-to-be-funded CDAP award. He is also collaborating on four other DDAP projects studying Eros.
Gaskell has been extending his horizons to some not-so-small bodies as well. As a member of the MESSENGER science team, he has been processing data from the first Mercury flyby too produce global topography to successively higher resolution. He has also been using his network of control points to refine the MDIS camera parameters.
Gaskell developed the procedures and software being used for Mercury by beginning an ambitious project to map the Moon. This is a proof-of-concept study for several pending proposals. He has greatly improved on his previous software, making such a large undertaking possible. He has also written software that will allow multiple users to work on the same body. External users simply run an EXPORT script that automatically collects and tars all relevant files. Upon receiving such a tar file by e-mail, Gaskell will then run an IMPORT script that will seamlessly add the new maps to the global data set. This same software may soon be in use for MESSENGER processing, allowing Gaskell to work on multiple machines.
Gaskell is also contributing his experience with small body operations to an effort at JPL to further develop his OBIRON autonomous navigation concept. A part of this effort will be to develop a standalone version which, once christened OBIRON, can become the focus of any licensing disputes, leaving his other software free from such frivolities. A great wise man once said (or maybe more than once), "To ask is to seek denial." Gaskell intends to spend his time working and collaborating, with appropriate distribution of "computational tools", rather than messing around with those who must not be mentioned.
Gaskell is also doing pro bono work in assisting preparations for Dawn navigation at Vesta. He does this through Nick Mastrodemos at JPL and not because he has suddenly been included in the loop as an (alleged) member of the Dawn science team.
During the past year, Gaskell has added to and greatly improved his software suite, including a nifty new gravity program. Every morning he wakes up and queries his subconscious looking for any new ideas for estimating multiple scattering of IR on complex surfaces, but no new software springs to mind. Perhaps Gaskell needs to switch to scotch.
Scheeres, D.J., M. Abe, M. Yoshikawa, R. Nakamura, R.W. Gaskell and P.A. Abell, (2007). The effect of YORP on Itokawa. Icarus 188, 425-429.
Miyamoto, H., H. Yano, D.J. Scheeres, S. Abe, O. Barnouin-Jha, A.F. Cheng, H. Demura, R.W. Gaskell, N. Hirata, M. Ishiguro, T. Michikami, A.M. Nakamura, R. Nakamura, J. Saito, S. Sasaki, (2007). Regolith Migration and Sorting on Asteroid Itokawa. Science 316, 1011Ð1014.
Demura, H., R. Gaskell, N. Hirata, H. Miyamoto, S. Sasaki, D. Scheeres, J. Saito, and geomorphology group of Hayabusa (2007). Global Shape and General Geology of Itokawa. Abstract 2309, Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII.
Scheeres, D.J., R.W. Gaskell, M. Abe, R. Nakamura, M. Yoshikawa, P.A. Abell, (2007). Itokawa, YORP and Seismic Shaking. Abstract 1599, Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII.
Hirata, N., C. Honda, R. Nakamura, H. Miyamoto, S. Sasaki, H. Demura, A.M. Nakamura, T. Michikami, O.S. Barnouin-Jha, R.W. Gaskell and Jun Saito, (2007). Survey of Craters and Impact Structures on the Asteroid Itokawa. Abstract 1572, Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII.
Gaskell, R.W., O.S. Barnoiun-Jha and D.J. Scheeres, (2007). Modeling Eros with Stereophotoclinometry. Abstract 1333, Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII.
Gaskell, R.W. (2007). Mapping Small Bodies with Stereophotoclinometry. ISPRS WG4, Houston TX, March 2007.