Peanuts and antacids?

Any Epoxians here? Would love to know which current SPICE kernel to use in my realtime simulation (www.dmuller.net/epoxi ... version 3 rolling out in due course):

spk_drm230_WithBurn-full.bsp
or
spk_od230_NoBurn-full.bsp

Thanks in advance!

Sirius here, shining brightly so everyone can see, but I heard they canceled the Virgin Galactic flight again so I guess nobody will be coming

Cassini, or any of the Saturnian objects on the SSS is down, the rest seems to work. My wild guess is they ran out of trajectory data on one of those objects (possibly Cassini). From memory, the old (pre-XXM) long-term trajectory files for Cassini ended around a month after the end of the extended mission, so that may be it.

This may, or may not, be anecdotal evidence on the interest Rosetta @ Lutetia generated. The ESA blog linked to my realtime simulation site, and that generated heaps (for me, at least) of traffic which I can analyse: 4,500 visits from 2,200 visitors during the 48 hours around C/A. The geographic distribution:

1. United States 1,033
2. Japan 799
3. United Kingdom 515
4. France 380
5. Germany 255
Then in declining number of visits:
Australia - Canada - Czech Republic - Belgium - Italy - Netherlands - Sweden
And a whole set of other European nations, New Zealand and Colombia in the top 25

If you ask ugordan (post related to Phoenix), the inside of the 'remove before flight' tags look like this

Sounds like a feasible idea. Too late to implement for Rosetta @ Lutetia, traffic to the site is too high at the moment and I won't risk messing up the database now

Emily: You've described my problem quite well! The ultimate solution will be to offer two realtime simulations, one in SCET, the other in ERT. The problem is the data processing, in particular converting events from SCET into ERT without blowing up the database (or doing everything manually!) My target to have that sorted out is the MESSENGER Mercury Orbit Insertion. Unfortunately there is no quick fix, other than leaving out Earth-based events (which I usually do), however, in this case I wanted to draw attention that ESA has a webcast.

maschnitz: it's great that people find the website useful. The link from ESA has certainly yielded many referrals. On 10 July (my local time in Australia), I had 2,200 visits (usually between 40 to 100).

Not yet ... the red box is the "next event" ... start of the flip maneuver is still some 4 hours away.
EDIT: Will try to make it clearer in version 3 of the sim

I have (at last!) added the "angular diameter" and other calculations to my realtime simulation at http://www.dmuller.net/rosetta

The ESA operations center ESOC is in Darmstadt, Germany, and Germany is in that game against Uruguay. So I guess they want to avoid publishing that "spherical leather-like surface with hexagonally shaped canyons" as the surface of Lutetia.

Incidentally, today is day # 2,500 for Spitzer and Voyager 1's 12K is just 15 days away.

EPOXI is now 3.5 days from its final(?) Earth flyby. It's already closer to Earth than Herschel and Planck!

Hayabusa was aiming more or less directly to Earth, hence seen from Earth it did not move in the sky, it just got bigger. Hayabusa, looking down on Earth, just saw Earth rotating underneath it, left to right ... that corresponds to a right to left (east to west) ground track. Only right at the end was it obvious that it's target was offset from the center of the Earth, and it began moving in the sky. It's a bit like you're standing next to a street and watch a car approach from the distance. Until right at the end, it just gets bigger but has very little horizontal movement away from you ... if you stand right in its path (not recommended), the car will only get bigger and there is no horizontal movement until ... ah well ...

Congrats to the Hayabusa team for bringing it home. Sorry I didn't have enough data to write a realtime simulation for it. I noted delays in ustream and twitter, maybe we need to set up an umsf quick twitter in time for the MSL landing and get people who get NASA TV on TV to update events

This replay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPUxTSPN_bQ on YouTube seems to indicate that thetrail starts at lower right in image (cloud & explosion is early in trail)

Probably search helicopters locating the beacon. They'll get GPS coords and then retrieve capsule in daylight.
The spacecraft reentry / burn-up seemed to be in center of ustream screen

fireball was visible in ustream

Hope Hayabusa completed immigration card and quarantine declaration ... tick yes for "bringing in soil" :-)

NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Fires Past Record for Speed Change:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?rele...elease_2010-192

ABC News (the Australian ABC) just carried the same announcement. I have google-mapped the road blocks, see it here.

I have also removed Phoenix from my Spacecraft on and around Mars webpage. At least on my website, Phoenix has now joined other "Martians" (MGS, Vikings & many more) as a historic timeline of a successful mission. After all, Phoenix started my realtime simulations website, and I'm glad it entertained ~4,000 visitors last month alone!

Just about 800 days to go to the Mars Science Lab / Curiosity landing ...

I didn't make any decision here, just used the little I could remember from an earlier discussion here. Besides it sounds better than series 1 and series 2 as printed in the pdf doc! Given the language developments across the globe (i.e. the shortening of everything), maybe we should just call it apo and peri.

I had another look at the SPICE kernel for the nominal arrival timeline (planning) and can infer the following key events:



I have also plotted the apohestion & perihestion distances during the descent from the survey orbit to the first science orbit (pdf file attached below). Very interesting to see the 'bouncing' of the lines as a result of continuous low thrust (compared to two bursts that would be needed with chemical propulsion).

Will update my realtime simulations with the above events in a couple of days

NEAR orbited Eros apparently 230 times: http://near.jhuapl.edu/intro/faq.html

Speeds ... though I wouldn't know exactly how you could do that. Maybe use lines of lights, or distance covered in a particular time, or time required to cover a certain distacne. Show:

Speed of light
Speed of Helios B
Formula 1
Speed of Spirit / Oppy