I'm not sure where I stumbled across this a while back, but here's an old map of the planned RADAR swaths (looks like early 2005):

Thanks so much, VP!

This explains the apparent fuzziness of the basin in your maps, Steve...I always wondered why it wasn't more clearly defined. This feature is pretty subdued, but noticeable in Cassini pics as far back as May 2005. If I remember correctly, Phil identified this basin from Voyager imagery years ago. There are excellent high-resolution views at low phase angles obtained during the October 2005 encounter as well. It just seems to disappear from certain perspectives because the relief is so low. Dr. Stooke also stated here that features radial to basins like this are likely ejecta patterns rather than fractures (the "cat scratch" troughs near "Joan" on Iapetus are almost certainly of the same stripe IMHO). The Saturnian system seems like a remarkably good place to inventory large impact structures and related landforms across a broad range of ages and scales ("Claude" looks fresh enough to lick the frosting off of, and "S. Tirawa" looks old enough to make a Trilobite feel youthful).

Thanks! Those two craters were confusing.

Here's another handy misshapen-lump-'o-ice key, out of scale and with north crudely to the right. Is there an object in this system (excluding Enceladus and Titan) without a grotesquely disproportionate impact structure?

This is a portion of the massive 20-footprint Dione mosaic, work in progress...there seem to be a few frames missing at the eastern limb.

Just for fun, a context view of that epic mountain closeup:

Well, hi folks. Look what the cat done dragged in...

Here's the result of playing with some of the Saturnshine pics. I'm pleased to see that the attempt to image the large crater near the southern transition zone succeeded.

I broke my swear jar and ate both the contents and the glass fragments alike with a garnish of happy obscenities in as many languages as I could babel fish for. I've been in the process of moving back to Seattle after a short absence, so I've missed much of the excitement until this morning...I can't even think of an unoffensive acronym to encapsulate just how hard my jaw hit the floor with the sample of images released thus far. Special thanks to Ugordan for the view of Saturn from here (18x now...you should start up a wallpaper surcharge here). See you all here soon. BTW...my money's on the white painted over black now.

Holy shiskies...we are going to have our hands full after this flyby! Big thanks to TA for keeping us informed, to TD for enough information to choke the organism of your choice, and Emily for a wonderfully succinct blog distillation. Exciting times... a few days to Tethys and Rhea, and then on to the show. Give it up, you two-faced (expletives deleted).

Congrats to Gordan for the Wikipedia pic of the day!

Woohoo!! Those tiles look like they came through nicely. Post-landing

Thanks for posting that link, Doug...totally forgot about that. However, unless I'm sorely mistaken, photos from STS missions after 110 are rare. Can't seem to get enough of those 70mm frames, but I imagine they take a while to scan and archive.

More Earth obs photography would be wonderful on the shuttle pages. The ISS galleries consistently have a much better selection of those. I love the hardware shots though, especially the unprecedented nearly-full views of the orbiter docked with the Earth in the background. Some of the EVA images have an almost Apollo-esque feel. I have to admit that most of the in-cabin stuff annoys me to no end. Touristy pics just seem grating in context of the grandeur out the window that speaks for itself.

Great article, Stu! Just caught the link earlier...and certainly agree with the sentiments of you last post.

Safe passage through that fire.

Just an observation regarding this flight...the photography posted in various NASA galleries is arguably some of the most spectacular ever taken on a shuttle mission, especially the EVA shots. Several sequences obtained during the third EVA on flight day eight will likely grace coffee-table volumes for decades to come.

EVA 3

If ever there was a convenient spot for me to drop out of Lurkspace and engage the much-admired UMSF MER crowd, this is it. The gender-specific pronoun question is both fascinating and hilarious...I've always considered spacecraft to be somewhat androgynous (excepting the unfortunate docking analogies alluded to by Arthur C. Clarke in "2010"). Strange how most of the program/vehicle nomenclature in NASA's pantheon have been masculine by the convention of naming missions after scientists, mythological figures, or "professions"; yet the machines themselves are anthropormorphized as female. As this is likely steering things further in the direction of being off-topic, I'll move to the subject at hand...

I've been following this storm with great worry and interest, and strongly empathize with the people who post here regularly. Whether boys or girls, I hope to see these astonishing rovers survive and continue their contributions to what may well be remembered as the Platinum Age of planetary exploration.

Thank you to everyone in these forums for your excellent images and personal observations.

This blurb from the significant event reports was the basis for the idea:

Tuesday, July 17 (DOY 198):

The final sequence development process for S34 kicked off today. The sequence is unusual in that it will be composed of four parts. The first part is similar to a normal background sequence but will run for only two weeks. This is followed by uplink and checkout activities for CDS version 10 flight software that will last for about a week and a half. During this time period there will be no science observations. After the conclusion of the CDS activities, a mini-sequence devoted to Hyperion observations will run for about four days. The last piece of S34 is again like a normal background sequence with full science activities. This will run for a little over a week, concluding on or about November 1. The Hyperion mini-sequence base products and stripped subsequences and the sequence products for the pieces of the S34 background sequence have been released for team review.

The (admittedly inaccurate) Cassini XYZ trajectory used in Celestia gives a closest approach on the order of 120,000km 21 October, which would likely produce images about good as those obtained 10 June 2005 (but properly exposed). The orientation of The Hyperion model is also way off, so I have no idea as to the viewing geometry.

Thank you, Phil. SPUD is a marvelous acronym for these purposes. This all seems like a potential growth industry with so many newly (or better) imaged aspherical worlds to consider. Hyperion looks in this light to be the outstanding candidate next to Eros and Phobos for the clearest possible modelling of shape prior to the Dawn and Rosetta results in years to come.

Condolences for the loss of Mr. Simonelli.

I'm particulary curious about the processes applied when mapping an irregular body, especially in terms of applying a digital photomosaic over the (future) shape model. Imaging coverage of Hyperion is fairly extensive now globally, but I imagine the relatively low resolutions over much of the surface and radically different lighting conditions complicate things. The Bond-Lassel facet seems to fare best, as it did in Voyager 2 imagery (the addon shape model I'm using in Celestia was marginally useful with respect to topography).
@#%*!!! I wish I could hold this daffy rock in my hands and run my fingers over it...come to think of it, every time I hold a chunk of basalt, I imagine Hyperion.

The rocks with holes are warm in my hands...apologies to Kimya Dawson. I hope the XM will have a few decent passes.

I'm admittedly ignorant as to the precise answer to that question, but I'd imagine it would have something to do with the fuels interacting poorly with the insulation.

Atlantis came back from STS-27 looking very badly pummeled...lots of white showing on the crew cabin's starboard side. In retrospect, that looks incredibly scary now. Hopefully this divot proves easily repaired, and judging from the prudent response to the OMS insulation peelback on the last flight, repair will likely be on the agenda. Excellent opportunity to test repair techniques and get some spectacular photos from down there too.

There's a bit of gap filler protruding on the port landing gear door nearby as well.

This was an experiment done in an attempt to get a grip on the shape and identifiable surface features of a world that gets to be a whole box of rocks in itself (and keeps making me feel as dumb as one.) The ranges and resolutions vary widely, and it's more or less an effort to follow rotation crudely rather than being chronological. Hope it's somewhat useful and informative.

Perhaps the upcoming NT flyby in October will sharpen up some of these perspectives.



Below is a color-coded key with features tracked from frame to frame:

Those really are stunning! I'm going to need to install some kinda retraction mechanism to reel my eyeballs back into my skull every time someone posts in this thread. Thanks, Gordan...you just hijacked my desktop for oh, like the 17th time this year.

True, that...double true. Ditto corroded cables, and well worth a second look. Whatever the cause, I wish I had 240ft PV arrays at my disposal. Hey...wonder if this thing could be bicycle-powered. Always looking for an excuse...

For VP, Dr. Lorenz, or possibly Mike...just out of morbidly insufferable curiosity, on which pass was the HiSAR section obtained, and at what resolution? I still haven't been able to find any information on this. Furthermore, is this technique applicable on future encounters? The results have always looked suprisingly good.

Ooooh...double burn!!!

I've been taking belly dancing classes..."Equatorial Jewelry" has multiple possible connotations and would be an excellent name for a band as well.

Really looking foreward to seeing that whole crater and how old it actually is. Judging from the single WAC frame from 2005 of that area, Rhea is a lot more interesting on small scales than she looks from afar.

Gordan, a Hyperion multi-angle composite should be up tomorrow.

I got the impression from post-117 reading that the computer glitch was related to the dramatic change in the shape of the complex from the addition of the S3/S4 element and the effect it had on the particles-and-fields environment surrounding it. Hopefully the problem doesn't repeat itself on this flight or 120 this fall (when the P6 "mast" moves over to it's permanent position). S5 is such a tiny structural addition that it seems unlikely this time.

An observation...it's really neat to see ISS attain a form resembling all of those years of concept art and engineering diagrams. I remember marvelling at the tinkertoy EASE/ACCESS experiment photos from 61B and watching the relatively dreadful "Space Camp" movie and it's station concept as a 10-year old.

CICLOPS' Rev 49 Looking Ahead page is up. Highlights include a fourth monthy Voyager-class encounter with Tethys with 500m resolution over Odysseus (finally!)
Detailed mosaics of Rhea's prominent ray crater and points west are on tap for Old Scabby's second closeup. This should be a really cool periapsis passage to tide us over until the 10th of September.