Oh dear, Time Science has dropped the ball...

Apparently Mercury is tidally locked and always presents one face to the sun...

Planetary Mystery: How in the World Did Mercury Form?



Maybe Mr Kluger should reconsider his choice of vocation?

Oh dear, the spectre of cancellation of the JWST is being raised...

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1107/06jwst/

I can think of a few expenditures that can be slashed to pay for the HST successor....

Not wanting to inject controversy into this thread but if Tyche does indeed exist, would the current IAU "rules" result in this object being considered a planet or a "dwarf"? Its a good assumption to believe the object will have reached hydrostatic equilibrium and be a spheroid, but has it cleared its neighbourhood of debris and minor objects?

Wouldn't it be ironic (hilarious) if Sols largest companion was classified by IAU as a dwarf planet due to a technicality?

Raw close-up pics now (finally) available of Prometheus, courtesy of Rev 124

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=210215
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=210303

I know i've been hanging out for close pics of this rock, being the last of the big(-ish) inner rocks to be imaged up close-ish (good pics already of Janus, Epimetheus & Pandora). I'll bet i'm not the only one

I'm still having problems coming to terms with this failure. How depressing that the (apparent) loss of this fine instrument is due to the use of dodgy batteries, a well-established technology that should by now be rock-solid and present a near-zero risk.

I hope they pin-point the fault, then nail the guilty party (sub-contractor). Hang 'em high and let them serve as a lesson to others

Its gratifying to see so many UMSF'ies defending the Soviet probes! I am more used to listening to the same old derogatory critique and snide comments about "shoddy engineering" Some of the Soviet solutions were quite brilliant. The Venera landers were a great piece of design, and apart from the (recurring) problems with jettisoning camera covers in high temp/pressure conditions, they were remarkably successful.

It is fair to say though that had Soviet electronic components and system integration been more robust, they would have enjoyed much greater success, particularly at Mars. Mars 2 & 3 were badly affected by radio system failures, which may well have cost the Soviets the coup of the first image from the martian surface (there is a school of thought that says the loss of signal was not a problem with the lander, but was due to the orbiter dropping the relay link. Similarly, the failures of the Mars 4-7 armada was due mostly to faulty chips that crippled the control systems. Similarly, the loss of Phobos 2 is chalked up to a computer failure.

I'm REALLY keen to see Phobos-Grunt fly! It would be great to see Russia get a fully successful Mars mission on the scoreboard. The flip side is that a failure would be a gut-punch. I was depressed for 3 weeks after Mars 96 successfully probed the Pacific Ocean, Bolivia and Chile...

AFAIK a lot of the visual differences between Soviet and US/Western designs was due to differing requirements for temperature control of electronic systems. The US (with its advanced electronics industry) developed reliable electronics capable of operating in vacuum (and shedding heat radiatively) allowing their assemblies to be supported on open frameworks, with little required to regulate temperature other than louveres. The Soviets with their much less capable industry relied on off-the-shelf industrial-grade air-cooled electronics. They had to be housed in bulky air-tight pressure vessels, and required fans, TCVs, radiators and plumbing.

From which SAR swath did you pull that Xanadu fault? Doesn't seem to be on the T12 west-east pass...

To be entirely honest, I don't know if Zenit is more reliable than Proton. Admittedly there have been 5 successful launches since the Jan07 failure, but Proton was itself successful on 6 occasions between its failures in Sep07 and Mar08.

Every launch is a numbers game (unless the vehicle in question is a Delta 2, or maybe a Cosmos 3M) and there are no guarantees.

I think Ted has hit the nail on the head here. Computer hardware failure (and software upload control protocols) had doomed every Soviet Mars probe since the Mars 4/5/6/7 flotilla (and maybe caused the Mars 3 orbiter to drop the datalink from its lander thus lose the 1st pics from the Martian surface...)

Lets hope that this time around some bright-spark of an electronics factory manager doesnt have a brilliant cost-cutting idea like using aluminium instead of gold in IC fabrication... (shakes head, sobs quietly)

While we are on the subject, does anyone have any info on the 2nd planned spaceworthy orbiter, often referred to as Pitchka or "Little Bird"?

Last I heard, it had been completed to 98% of flight readiness. Russia has apparently given it to Kazakstan in repayment for debts, and it remains somewhere at Baikonour Cosmodrome in mothballed condition.

Now THAT would make a fabulous museum exhibit!

"How the Soviets Stole a Space Shuttle"

"How the Soviet Space Shuttle Fizzled"

What utter rubbish. Reading these biased hachet-jobs, one would think that the Buran orbiters were some sort of stolen xerox-copy of the US Shuttle. That is complete nonsense. The Buran orbiter was an aerodynamic copy of the Shuttle because that is what the customer (Soviet Military) wanted, ie a like-for-like equivalent of what they believed would be a strategic weapon system. From the outside it looks very similar (especially to technically-challenged journalists) but internally the Buran was engineered indigenously using Soviet technology & engineering practises.

This shoddy and parochial "journalism" is just another example refusing to give the Soviets appropriate recognition for their acheivements. Mean spirited and petty, some people just don't get that the Cold War is over.

SAR junkie... waiting patiently... must.. have... T41... snippets...

C'mon guys. The suspence is killing me!

A Europa-free zone? Nice to see.

Sorry, but i'll believe it only when I see it fly. And even if it ever does, it'll cost way more than 90M.

Oh Great Maker, let it be so....

(for the record, I'm a staunch atheist, but if prayer has one part in a trillion chance of success...
)

As long as the spacecrafts OS is tightly written, even a poor lowly Pentium 1 will have excellent performance. We are too used to horribly inefficient bloatware sucking the mips out of our desktops to really appreciate the awesome power of modern CPUs. I used to program 8085s and Zilog Z80s back in the 80s, and the modern chips are Star Trek technology by comparison.

Don't forget Venera 9,10,13 & 14. All of them photographed their landing torus and colour calibration target, as well as other assorted appendages.

hehe... this is going to cost my employer a small fortune...

<evil chuckle..>

This armchair boffin-wannabee (using the term in its loosest possible context!!) has a endogenic-exogenic theory:

With the Cassini mission description hinting that radar studies show ammonia-water slurries just beneath the surface, is it not possible that Iapetus' interior contains significant quantities of organic volatiles locked deep in the interior? Given that this moon has an obvious history of massive impacts, could a particulary penetrating impactor (eg an iron-nickel object from the asteroid belt) not have ejected large quantities of these deep lying organics to form a orbital debris belt along Iapetus' path ie endogenic source? Once swept up by Iapetus, the organic debris would subsequently darken due to UV-induced breakdown (or would darken while in orbit), ie exogenic deposition.

Are there any relatively young deep impact features that also show signs of dark ejecta? Smowman/Moat is poorly imaged, but could this not be the source?

I guess this theory is nothing new, but is it likely? Reading through the postings, it doesn't seem to be considered a contender.

I wont be happy until we have global high-res mosaics and ground truth from the forest moon of Tau Ceti 4. I plan to stay alive for as long as it takes...

Launch mishaps aside, Proton will still keep flying. Firstly because the Russians don't have another heavy-lifter to replace it (yet) and secondly because the demand is still high (a Proton launch costs about half an Ariane 5 flight, and lifts significantly more).

Plus the Kazaks are paid handsomely for rental of this barren wind-swept tundra. I think the liklihood of finding another tenant other than RSA is rather slim!!

The proton 2nd stage ignition is a very odd fish. Unlike most multistage boosters where the 1st stage seperates and drops away prior to 2nd stage ignition, with Proton the 2nd stage fires with the 1st still attached!! Exhaust gases are vented through the interstage lattice, and the top of the 1st stage is insulated against the heat and blast. Once the 2nd stage is firing, the bolts are fired and 1st stage is discarded. Most unusual.

I wonder if this method results in 2nd stage engine/plumbing damage caused by shockwaves reflecting off the 1st stage back into the engine bay? It would certainly result in some interesting dynamics...

Regarding the idea of deep dust on Phobos, I dont think we need worry too much. Prior to any lunar landings, the same was said about the Moon, yet Luna 9 dispelled that idea. Similarly, touchdowns by NEAR at Eros and by Hayabusa MUSES-C at Itokawa have demonstrated that asteroids have solid surfaces.

Another proton failure... JCSAT11, a Japanese comsat was destroyed due a 2nd stage failure that occurred two minutes after liftoff.

mutter.. mutter... I stil think Proton is reliable...

Not quite. The Chinese Long March CZ-2F used to loft the Shenzhou uses N2O4/UDMH for 1st and 2nd stages, as well as its liquid fuelled strap-ons. They are planning however to retire this booster once the new cryogenic fuelled boosters are available.

Its fair to say that the US only used the Titan as a manned launcher as at the time it was the only thing capable of lifting the Gemini. they abandoned hypergolic propellents for manned flight as soon as Saturn 1 became available.