http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0511/14stereo/
The first spacecraft designed to capture 3-D "stereo" views of the sun and solar wind have been shipped from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Md., for their next round of pre-launch tests.
http://www.stereo.jhuapl.edu/
And the launch has now been postponed to May 26.
I supported the STEREO mission for a while. One of my coworkers had the full-time job of working out how to get the spacecraft in the desired orbits based on each of the various possible launch dates.
I hope they will allow public access to the images in the way the LASCO images are available from SOHO.
I've seen some simulations of the data expected from STEREO and the 3D images/movies of prominences etc. are going to be awsome!
Really looking forward to this mission!
James
Looks like launch of STEREO has been pushed back again, now July 22.
NASA STEREO Arrives in Florida to Begin Launch Preparations
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=19765
"NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft arrived
today at Astrotech, a payload processing facility near Kennedy Space Center
in Florida, to begin preparations and final testing for launch.
Liftoff will occur aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket from Launch Complex 17 on
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the summer."
05.12.06
Katherine Trinidad
Headquarters, Washington
(202) 358-3749
George H. Diller
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
(321) 867-2468
STATUS REPORT: ELV-051206
EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE STATUS REPORT
Mission: Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)
Launch Site: 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Launch Vehicle: Boeing Delta II
Launch Date: July 22, 2006
Launch Time: 3:11 - 3:13 p.m. and 4:19 - 4:34 p.m. EDT
Technicians completed state-of-health testing of the two STEREO
spacecraft this week, following their May 3 arrival in Florida.
Individual system checkout is under way.
The STEREO flight batteries are scheduled to be installed next week.
The build-up of the Delta II rocket at Pad 17-B is scheduled to begin
during the last week of May.
For previous status reports, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/status/2006
STEREO will use "3D" vision to build a global picture of the sun and
its influences. For more information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/stereo
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home
05.19.06
Katherine Trinidad
Headquarters, Washington
(202) 358-3749
George H. Diller
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
(321) 867-2468
STATUS REPORT: ELV-051906
EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE STATUS REPORT
Mission: Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)
Launch Site: 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Launch Vehicle: Boeing Delta II
Launch Date: July 22, 2006
Launch Times: 3:11 - 3:13 p.m. and 4:19 - 4:34 p.m. EDT
Technicians are testing individual STEREO systems on both the "A" and
"B" spacecraft. The flight battery for spacecraft A was installed
this week. Technicians are expected to install the battery for
spacecraft B next week. In addition to testing, upcoming work planned
over the next few weeks includes solar array installation and
integration of the high-gain communications antenna.
The build-up of the Delta II rocket at Pad 17-B is currently scheduled
to begin on June 1 with the first stage. Pad workers will start to
erect the nine solid rocket boosters on June 2. The second stage will
be hoisted into position and mated to the first stage on June 20. The
crew will raise the 10-foot fairing into the pad clean room on June
21.
For previous status reports, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/status/2006
STEREO will use "3D" vision to build a global picture of the sun and
the heliosphere and study the sun's influence on Earth. For more
information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/stereo
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home
06.09.06
George H. Diller
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
(321) 867-2468
STATUS REPORT: ELV-060906
EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE STATUS REPORT
Mission: STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory)
Launch Pad: 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Launch Vehicle: Boeing Delta II
Launch Date: July 22, 2006
Launch Times: 3:11 - 3:13 p.m. and 4:19 - 4:34 p.m. EDT
Testing and prelaunch processing of STEREO continue on schedule. Deep
Space Network spacecraft compatibility testing is under way. Launch
and mission simulation exercises are also being performed. Upcoming
next week is further thermal blanket installation and preparations
for attaching the solar arrays. STEREO is scheduled to be transported
to Launch Complex 17 on July 11 to be mated to the Boeing Delta II
rocket.
The first stage of the Delta II rocket at Pad 17-B was erected on June
2. The first of three sets of three solid rocket boosters were
attached on June 5. At this time, the Delta II second stage is
scheduled to be hoisted into position and mated to the first stage on
June 20. The crew will raise the 10-foot fairing into the pad clean
room on June 21.
For information about the STEREO mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/stereo
Previous status reports are available on the Web at:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launchingrockets/status/2006
STEREO footage via the KSC Video Feeds...
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/video/video45lh.html
True - but you still get 'something', even if it's not the full mission objectives - one could rescue something from a mixture of SOHO + One stereo spacecraft perhaps.
Doug
Yup - two spacecraft launched together that separate after launch, and then they both use Lunar flybys - one a month after the other, to chuck one ahead of the Earth, and one behind.
Doug
According to the http://stereo.jhuapl.edu/, the launch is now scheduled for August 1.
Off to the next window, August 20th.
Your photography is stunning. Very slick work.
Thanks...
Aug 31 at the earliest now as they check the Delta second stage for leaks.
Once again postponed, STEREO is now slated for the next window which opens September 18th.
Yet again:
STATUS REPORT: ELV-090106
Expendable Launch Vehicle Status Report
Mission: STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory)
Launch Pad: 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Launch Vehicle: Boeing Delta II
Launch Date: No earlier than Oct. 18, 2006
Launch Time: TBD
A decision was made to remove the STEREO second stage from the launch vehicle and perform inspection from inside the propellant tank to verify it is structurally sound for flight.
The launch of STEREO is now targeted for no earlier than Oct. 18. An electrical checkout of the vehicle is under way due to lightning strikes within a one-third mile radius of Complex 17 during the passing of Tropical Storm Ernesto.
The STEREO observatories remain at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility. Today technicians removed the transportation canister from around the payload to begin the process of reconditioning the batteries and preparing for the storage period (currently about 30 days). The twin spacecraft will remain in storage until the necessary course of action for the Delta II can be more clearly defined. There was no effect on the STEREO spacecraft from Tropical Storm Ernesto.
Another problem that Stereo spacecraft is facing: Boeing engineers at the firm’s Decatur, Ala., rocket-manufacturing facility discovered during routine testing that the rocket’s second stage leaked. The problem was traced back to an oxidizer tank Boeing buys from Alcatel Alenia Space in Turin, Italy.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060904_business_monday.html
Rodolfo
Thought I would post the reminder that the STEREO spacecraft are set for launch Wednesday night aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral.
The launch weather forecast calls for excellent conditions with a 90% chance of good weather. You can get the forecast and updates at http://www.SpaceflightNow.com.
The launch will be on NASA Television (http://www.nasa.gov/ntv for the webcast).
There will be a pre-launch briefing on Stereo:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html
October 24, Tuesday
1 - 3 p.m. - STEREO Prelaunch Press Conference and Mission Science Briefing - KSC (Public and Media Channels)
That's Eastern time.
There will be three months so they will be flying toward to their Lagrange Points: L4 (ahead of Earth) and L5 (behind of Earth).
Enclosed is a cut article from http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/design.shtml
For the first three months after launch, the two observatories will fly in highly elliptical orbits extending from very close to Earth to just beyond the Moon's orbit. STEREO Mission Operations personnel at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, will synchronize spacecraft orbits so that about two months after launch they encounter the Moon, at which time one of them is close enough to use the Moon's gravity to redirect it to a position "behind" Earth. Approximately one month later, the second observatory will encounter the Moon again and be redirected to its orbit "ahead" of Earth.
The following link will show you clearly on how the Stereos spacecraft will get into their respective final points: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/movies/STEREO_phasing.mov
A very elegant fly-by design. It is like to play a ball game. That is to have a very precise aim to get up to there.
Rodolfo
T-4 minutes from launch as the last hurdles (concerns for toxic vapors over populated areas) are cleared
Can't wait for the first pictures..
tha animation of the moon fly by is pretty neat
Launch Success: The STEREO Spacecraft have seperated from the Delta 2 at 9:17 PM EDT
http://stereo.jhuapl.edu/
Watching the live stream here, and people are clapping and smiling, so I presume things are going well.
http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=DataAnalysisOverview
SECCHI has an open data policy. Calibrated data will be made public via the Internet within hours of its receipt. The SECCHI team will provide modern data visualization tools to display the information from one telescope, to overlay data from multiple instruments, and to visualize coincident data from both spacecraft.
And a little more info on some of the instruments:
http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=Specifics
Coronographs: COR2 will image the corona with five times the spatial resolution and three times the temporal resolution of LASCO/C3.
Extreme Ultraviolet Imager: EUVI provides full Sun coverage with twice the spatial resolution and dramatically improved cadence over EIT.
Afternoon all,
I've managed to catch the X-Band signals from both of the Stereo satellites this morning, the signal was extreamly strong which isnt too suprising as they are so close to earth. I could see sidebands on the X-band signal, presumably downlink telemetry. The satellites only peaked at 15 degrees elevation this morning, so half of the dish was blocked by local buildings. Tommorows pass looks better with a 21deg peak elevation.
I've put up a report of the x-band reception at http://www.uhf-satcom.com/stereo/
regards,
Paul
www.uhf-satcom.com
Here's a couple of time-lapse photos:
http://www.launchphotography.com/STEREO.html
Are there any stereo websites that uh, don't suck? Just finding a basic rundown of instrument parameters for something like SECCHI/EUVI is like pulling teeth. I hope that once things get going there's a revamp and consolidation of mission information on ONE website.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html
http://stereo.jhuapl.edu/
http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/
http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.HomePage
Yeah but that's what I mean. I visited all those sites and most of them point to the NRL site for information on instruments but even after poking around that (positively byzantine) site for a while I still don't even know how big secchi's ccd is
The http://www.stereo.rl.ac.uk/hi_sim_document.pdf (page 5) with 2x2 binning.
Shameless plug - I found this using my http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&lr=&client=google-coop&cof=LBGC%3A%23FFFFFF%3BBGC%3A%23FFFFFF%3BT%3A%23000000%3BLC%3A%230000CC%3BVLC%3A%230000CC%3BALC%3A%230000CC%3BGALT%3A%23008000%3BGFNT%3A%23000000%3BGIMP%3A%23000000%3BDIV%3A%230000CC%3BAH%3Acenter%3BCX%3ASpace%2520Flight%2520and%2520Exploration%3B&q=secchi+ccd+.pdf&btnG=Search&cx=013223497075414387822%3Ai1hnrhwchn4just by searching for "SECCHI CCD .pdf". It's the first link.
All kinds of low-level mission info at:
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/
For instance, this week's activities:
no updates in this topic since october, but actually, very interesting things had happened last week:
The website here doesn't seem to have been updated since launch nearly 2 months ago http://stereo.jhuapl.edu/ The site you posted is the only source of information.
By the way, looks like the spacecraft have just had their lunar flybys, and you can start to see their different paths evolve:
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/where.shtml
airbag
That's the first lunar flyby - B is now on its way - A will loop back one more time, get a flyby in about 35 days of the moon again - and head out the other direction.
Doug
Somewhere in their page is a link to an approximately weekly comissioning status report. All instruments have been activating nicely so far, though I think they generally aren't gathering data yet except the radio emissions spectrometer. They've had plots of that data up since almost immediately after launch, and the data from the two instruments is nearly identical..... except when first one spacecraft and then the other makes a periapsis pass through Earth's inner magnetosphere. Then back in the free-streaming solar wind, the data's nearly identical again.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/new.shtml
First pics:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/first_light.html
Phil
Wonderful images, i'm really excited about this mission, more so than any other. Take a look at the High Res "Blue" image, incredible.. its at full resolution - 1800 x 1800 pixels, the others are "half res"
ohh tif files!(??) convenient! anyway, they look very nice and crisp. very low noise realtive to EIT.
You can resize the red 304A TIFF up to 1800 x 1800 to get an idea of what they will look like too.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/
Can anyone access this website anymore? not working for me.
The other STEREO websites are very outdated in terms of the latest information. That was the only one that kept up to date.
Hmmm seems none of the "nascom" sites are working.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
There appear to be images from STEREO posted now, but I have no idea what format they are in (fts), I tried downloading a file but couldn't open it with anything I have.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/data/ins_data/secchi/L0/
I can't seem to get to the data atm (only the home page loads and very slowly). I assume .fts will be some sort of fits format. I'll have a go at this this week if I can get anything off the site.
James
Both the SOHO and STEREO sites are appear to be down again.
The websites are back up if anyone wants to take a look at the STEREO images.
I just had a look. But then I noticed this:
But I managed to download a file but haven't found anything that will open it.
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/data/ins_data/secchi/L0/a/img/euvi/20070104/
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/data/ins_data/secchi/L0/a/img/hi_1/20070104/
Yep I can download the files as well, but I don't think that is because the embargo is over but rather a fault with the archive. I've emailed someone about it for clarification and until we hear otherwise I don't think it's appropriate to post any of the SECCHI images on UMSF.
The .fts files are, as I suspected, standard FITS files and open fine for me.
James
What program did you use to open it with?
Well I used AIPS - but that's because I'm a radio astronomer and a sadist - I wouldn't recommend that!
FV seems to work and I think the GIMP will open FITS files these days although as far as I can tell you can't play around with the grey/colour scale range after loading (although I've never really tried) I think there is a photoshop plugin out there as well, 'FITS liberator' or something, never tried it but I probably should!
James
Im using Windows Millenium Edition lol I found FITSview and it opened the pic ok.
a small animation
- Spacecraft A
- Day 2007/01/04
- Filter 171
- size 25%
http://www.rlproject.com/~marsrovercenter/STEREO_A_20070104_171.gif +- 4 Mega in animated Gif
Oooh that's sweet. I think I'm really going to like this mission.
here a small video ( Xvid codec requis )
- Spacecraft A
- Day 2007/01/(03-04) ( 131 Frames )
- Filter 171
- size 25%
STEREO_A_200701_03_04__171.avi ( 280.5K )
: 989
a quick composition with filter 171,195,304.
Anybody know if Stereo will be able to see comets as they pass the Sun in er, stereo?
Bob Shaw
They're not far from the earth-sun line, and SOHO's near that line too. There will be stereo, but it will probably be too weak to be of any use on comet morphology itself.
Talking about STEREO and comets passing the sun...
http://ares.nrl.navy.mil/sungrazer/index.php?p=latest_news
Airbag
It's unfortunate that McNaught was too early for full commissioning of the instruments and for there to be any significant baseline batween the two spacecraft. We'd have 3-d information on the "isochron" bands you can see in the Stereo images that have shown up on the net.
Each isochron striation is the result of an impulsive dust release from an "event" at the nucleus, spreading out along the tail as light pressure sorts fine particles from coarser and coarser particles. Comet West showed such bands spectacularly.
Wow...just wow.
Date, Spacecraft and Instrument all obvious from filename.
Doug
This imagery is incredible - I'm drowning in 32bits/p!
Here's an animation of the past 8 days or so of imagery of McNaught, one frame per day. All images are logarithmically scaled and then shifted linearly to set black level (totally arbitrary, but it works). This is a zipped avi file, to make the 1MB limit.
McNaught_stereo.zip ( 742.56K )
: 1990
Incredible detail in the tail as it sails through Capricornus. Old striations becoming non-radial with the sun due to orbital motion superposed with newer radial striations. Insane. Ion tail clearly visible on the leading edge, as well. If I had time I'd do the full frame every 2 hours that are available...
Here's one uncompressed frame from the above animation, on the 16th:
Another animation, this time with all 12 frames from the 15th:
McNaught_stereo_15b.AVI ( 947.5K )
: 1020
You can follow individual features in the tail as they recede from the sun.
Wow!!! Like eagle wings on their way through the Universe - just visiting the solar system by circling our sun!
Thanks Fred!
Looking at filenames - how do we tell which are the Extreme UV 304 frame images... STEREO's equivalent of SOHO's EIT 304 (Orange)?
Beautiful anims Fred - what did you use for manipulating the FITS?
Doug
Thanks, Doug - I used http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/. I ain't no image wizard though, and ImageJ was all I had that worked. I like its ability to do math on pixel values and its ability to handle very deep bitdepths. It's a bargain, too.
I see there are also some movies at this URL:
http://ares.nrl.navy.mil/sungrazer/index.php?p=latest_news#McNaught
Does anyone know whether STEREO will have a similar policy to the SOHO mission regarding image release when everything is up and running, i.e. near real time image release. There are "beacon images" available but they are highly compressed for quick transmission.
They are already releasing stuff very rapidly - but as FITS images - they plan to get something better going eventually as I understand it.
Doug
well it's over a year and a half later now, what's going on with this site? still only horribly compressed "beacon images" and months old fits data files. awful.
What's the problem?
http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/sccimages/index.php?subdir=EUVI_B/20081127/1024¬humb=1
What do you want, a medal for complaining about something which 5 seconds with google shows to be totally untrue?
There's also a difference between getting a medal for 'complaining' and getting some helpful comments. And what's 'idiotic' about expecting full-res STEREO images on the official STEREO website? What's up with the 'let's make the ignorant newbie feel dumb' attitude all of a sudden?
Just my opinion.
Let's all take a deep breath and pretend this little exchange didn't happen.
Phil
Just for fun I thought I'd mention that I'm working on a STEREO animation of hi-res EUV data for Science On A Sphere in collaboration with GSFC. This combines the two satellites and uses persistence to show something on the back side of the sun. Hopefully at some point I'll have something (e.g in a cylindrical projection) to show on the web, in addition to SOS itself.
Steve
Here is a test EUV animation. It has a lot of resolution in it, though I'm unsure how well this mp4 file plays in various browsers and such. Feel free to give it a try as it has hundreds of frames at 1500x3000 resolution of the cylindrical map. Each frame is 10 minutes and the file size is 66MB.
http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sun/stereo/stereo.mp4
Steve
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/item.php?gid=1&id=90
Pretty cool; STEREO is going to search for asteroids http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0904/09stereo/. A long shot IMHO, but well worth doing.
Wonder what the odds are of finding an old Saturn upper stage or something?
Cool image lyford. BTW they are inviting the public to help find remnants of the hypothetical planet Theia in the heliospheric images. It would be awfully if I just had the time (or the guts ) to stare at the images for a little point of light(s) that may not even exist. Oh bugger!
That really is an amazing shot!
There was an interesting result by STEREO reported in arXiv a few days ago http://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2710
STEREO A has managed to detect for the first time some sort of activity or gas release on the near Earth asteroid Phaethon, long suspected to be an extinct comet because it shares the orbit with a meteor stream
This seems to have gone unnoticed: http://sirius.bu.edu/News/
STEREO A has photographed the comet-like tail of Mercury. and it was noticed by an amateur accessing STEREO images!
Interesting to see the tail and the solar corona wafting by in the animation. Would this increase the odds for aurorae on Mercury?
Probably not. The tail is point away from the sun in an elongated teardrop-like shape. Very little (if any) of the tail is present at a high or low enough latitude for ions to interact with the tail. I suppose it could be possible to see some very faint aurora if the tail were pointing toward the sun. However, the tail is extremely thin and its likely there wouldn't be enough diffusion/inhibitance within it to produce auroras in Mercury's already lightweight magnetosphere.
What would be incredible to see though is if very faint aurora could be produced on the surface in some way. Possibly it could look like the rainbow colors in a soap bubble? We honestly don't understand magnetospheres very well, especially around terrestrial bodies, Mercury being the only other planet aside from Earth to have one in our solar system. Messenger will definitely answer a lot of questions and expand a lot in the ways of knowledge.
This brings to my mind the question of whether this might lead to indirect detection of the existence of sub-mercurial asteroids.
I can't see how you could detect such asteroids when the tail itself is many times less bright than the parent object. Scattered light would be a pain.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229673.100-suns-fractal-surprise-could-help-fusion-on-earth.html#.U2TIA0ZwZf0
contact with STEREO-Behind was lost last October 1
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/new.shtml
I was reading of their plans for next year's solar conjunction. very interesting, although it almost went unnoticed:
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/solar_conjunction.shtml
http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/solar_conjunction_science.shtml
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/stereo-entering-new-stage-of-operations/#.VDVHmPmSxYA
Recovery attempts continue, even a year later!
http://phys.org/news/2015-12-nasa-stereo-bthe-million-mile-road-recovery.html
The recovery attempts were quite possibly successful!
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-establishes-contact-with-stereo-mission
I've been hoping for this for months. Fantastic.
Oops. I just wish I hadn't drunk all that cough syrup last night, ya know. :-)
Just checked DSN as per my habit, surprised to see contact with B! (here's a link to a Twitter account that archives DSN status, for anyone who checks later):
https://twitter.com/dsn_status/status/912295068177924097
And another from the 22nd : https://twitter.com/dsn_status/status/911340950517161984
Another carrier lock on STEREO B a few hours ago
https://twitter.com/dsn_status/status/1052443506743103491
Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)