That's my bad http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000715/

Wipers to cover all of the arrays on a vehicle would be complex, large and heavy. You want a non-moving, low mass, low volume solution. I reported on one in development at the IAC in '06 - something along these lines..
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.js...rnumber=1391965
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.js...6141.pdf?temp=x
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6911593/description.html
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.js...85/01190698.pdf


Doug

Not Sol 3 related - but it's a graphic image pulled out by Adobe Soundbooth of the Melacom recording from MEX If I had to guess, the bright part that finished at the bottom of the 'trough' would be the plasma 'blackout' period and the kink on the 'up' slope the 'chute deployment or the switch from 8k to 32k. The wider, brighter area covering most of the signal period, perhaps noise from HRSC or Spicam.

Doug

virtually no one had questions!!

Keeping with the practice of sol-by-sol discussions, here it is.

This is the same as the PSA ( ESA's PDS ) Rosetta archive having Alice data only to date.

The DISR on Huygens was mainly a US instrument.

Doug

BBC News did very well on Monday evening.

Phoenix will be on the surface for 90 days ( and then what, it's coming home? )
Jet engines helped it land on the surface ( what, like on a Jumbo Jet? )
It will look for signs of life ( this is pure fiction, coming from every side of the media, and it drives me bad )


Doug

MastCam is going to be on there - but as to the exact status of the Zoom ( or, if descoped as we've been told, what the fixed focal length will be ) I don't know. As I understand it, the mission changed the requirements to include a wider latitude range. This meant significant engineering changes (particularly regarding lubrication) so the 'over runs' were caused by a shift of goal-posts. Mastcam's zoom being the only moving part of the instrument I'd guess, fell at this hurdle.

Doug

Surface
-----------
Fine Dust
-----------

Basaltic
Sandy
Soil

----------


Icey Soil


---------

Ice-T



Maybe....just guessing

It's a comedy thing ' Give us what we want, or we'll shoot the dog' or something like that.

Doug

I'll hold the gun, you shout, Stu holds the kitten. How's that?

Doug

That's what I want to establish - why do they notdo this. There are always students who would do this to get the credit. Pete Smith was talking about students handling the Phoenix website. For 20 pence and a beer, they'll do anything.


Doug

One is a mirror of the other. In the rush to get it ready for press, they probably didn't get time to properly process, or they didn't compensate for some obscurity due to the weird imaging plan involved.

I just totally guessed it from the Polar projections on the Phoenix website - Photoshop distorted back to rectangular, and then reduced the height by about 3/4s. About as scientific as measuring the distance from the earth to the moon with a ruler.

Doug

Nahh - you're no good, you totally lack the passion and motivation to be involved in that.

(Of course you will be involved. You'll be holding the kitten while I hold the pistol while Ustrax screams "Give me the Rosetta images or the Kitten gets it!")


D

Getting bored of martian doughnuts - so I un-philed this one

I'll shut up the old one now - but this one will probably run until the press con after next.

Once the early phoenix rush is over - and my NYC holiday is done - I'm going to look very closely at ESA, and then start an active campaign, using Europlanet, the IAC and the up coming IYA as leverage on getting something happening.

Doug

For the first time, I'm going to get that HiRISE image in full, and get it printed as big as it takes to see that in full.

Can't wait to get that parachute in colour not-via-a-web-feed

Doug

How well did I do

So it's the backshell to the south, and something else to the north.

Doug

Yes - I think they've mentioned observing the landers soft-underbelly with the RAC - and Mark Lemmon told Emily that they might even use the RAC for DD monitoring as it has quite a wide FOV compared to the SSI.

Doug

At touch down - vertical velocity was 2.4m/s - horizontal velocity only 0.1m/s