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Posted by: ngunn Nov 12 2008, 05:07 PM

Exciting stuff (and thanks for the 'looking ahead' that really is!)
http://ciclops.org/view/5380/Rev_93

Posted by: volcanopele Nov 12 2008, 05:41 PM

I wouldn't call it a "significant" chance, but it is a possibility given the state of our knowledge of Titan's spin rate and pole position. I should also point out that my understanding of this comes from several months back, so these issues may have been resolved since then.

Posted by: Juramike Nov 12 2008, 06:06 PM

Even if they "miss", the VIMS noodle should go through similar type terrain.

It should be pretty straightforward to relate VIMS hi-res to RADAR and then extrapolate back to Huygens DISR.

'Course, I can only hope that the VIMS image products are quickly made available, otherwise it'll be a while before we find out....

Posted by: ngunn Nov 13 2008, 01:48 PM

Huygens mosaic with VIMS pixel to scale:

Posted by: Jason W Barnes Nov 15 2008, 12:16 AM

I would call it a significant chance. It makes me nervous! There's just too much uncertainty with pointing, S/C trajectory, map coordinates, pole position, spin rate, and who all knows what else. I helped to target the VIMS Pacman Bay observation from T20 (see Icarus article by Ralf Jaumann: http://www.barnesos.net/publications/papers/2008.10.Jaumann.Fluvial.Erosion.on.Titan.pdf ), and I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when the data came back and we found out that I didnt screw the whole thing up. This observation is about a factor of 4 to 10 harder based on the higher resolution, smaller swath width, and single-point target. The planner (Christophe Sotin) did a heroic job to try to nail the landing site, but even with that, it might just not hit. We'll see!

- VIMS Jason

Posted by: ngunn Nov 22 2008, 06:49 PM

The quote below seems to indicate success. I would take it to mean at least that there is a good overlap between VIMS and Huygens DISR images. Was the actual spot covered? Can't be sure from this statement. Does it matter? Probably not that much - but I can't help being curious!

From the Cassini website:

T-47: Huygens Landing Site on Titan Revisited
Cassini completed its latest flyby of Titan on Nov. 19, passing the moon at an altitude of 1,023 kilometers (636 miles). During the close pass, the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer was able to image the region around the Huygens landing site at a resolution of less than a kilometer per pixel.

Posted by: ugordan Nov 22 2008, 06:53 PM

That sounds like a rather generic statement on a successful flyby. For sure there was high resolution VIMS imagery obtained, but I don't think it implies they nailed it. Note the wording - "around the Huygens landing site".