The MCS guys would be the first port of call I would have thought - I'm not sure what they're measuring, how they measure it and what they already know about it- but I've heard mention of them looking for snow like things in the polar regions at night.

Doug

Ahh - I don't think I would want to get close to the decent stage of MSL....pressurised tanks....nasty chemicals... a heatshield is fairly benign thing to visit, but a parachute, and a crashed pressurised decent stage...I'm not so sure....

On the upside, Mastcam's got a fair chunk of zoom on it, so we won't need to get too close

Doug

They saw the heatshield up close....but not the chute and backshell

And I still think the opportunity for a self portrait in the reflective insulation on the heatshield was a tragic miss
Doug

Just the sun close to the horizon, with an internal reflection to its right.

Doug

Just a bit of the Duck Bay pan looking toward just beyond the end of C.V.

Doug

I would add.....

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov
and
http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/

It's just about visible, but not so clearly in the visible bands once you merge them

Doug

It'll be nice to try and pin down how much of the MPL and Beagle 2 hardware is on the floor - and I've REALLY scoured the MOC imagery in the direction of the alleged MPF backshell ( and thus chute ) with no luck.

Here's one - is 'second colour' of the flight chutes orange for a reason. Blue would seem the obvious choice, and I'm sure I've seen white+blue chutes being tested somewhere.

Doug

bog standard RGBification-with-a-tweak-of-colour-and-a-rotate.

Doug

Bloody hell :
MESSENGER swung by Venus at 8:34 UTC (4:34 a.m. EDT), according to mission operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. About 18 minutes after the approach, an anticipated solar eclipse cut off communication between Earth and the spacecraft. Contact was reestablished at 14:15 UTC (10:15 a.m. EDT) through NASA's Deep Space Network, and the team is collecting data to assess MESSENGER's performance during the flyby.

It's getting personal in here...don't make me get out my administrative boots marked "delete" and "ban"

Doug

Only a very limited ammount with two instruments in a steady orbit. To sequence fly-by observations is a much mroe involved and intensive operation. If Messenger does some Mag observations during this flyby, then that would be analogous to the MARCI/MCS obs of MRO during conjunction.

Doug

Thanks for the nice comments - I was feeling a bit rough (I'd had an astronomical injury.....don't ask) when I did it, and Jim and I were wondering if people were still interested.... I fwd'd on these comments to him, and I think I share his response

"I'm glad that some people continue to enjoy these chats. I enjoy them immensely."

So do I, and one day, I'll do one that uses a mini-disc recorder and not 3000 miles of internet lag

Doug

Well - it's getting there - it's up, and I've started fitting it out inside. First step was the floor. A waterproof membrane on it, and then extra floor boarding over the top of that to strengthen it all a fair bit. Next up - extra battons in the ceiling and the corners of the walls to accept the wall material ( whatever that may be - Gypboard, Plasterboard, Plywood....don't know yet. ) - and then insulation over all interior surfaces.

I'm thinking of making faux-double glazing with some plastic as an inner window, just to eliminate the chance of condensation inside.

If I could - I'd keep it like this as it looks so damn cool Like the inside of a spacecraft under construction....but I'll be boarding over all the cool insulation in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to run power and networking through there first. Wireless just isn't fast enough for my liking - particularly when the words RAID FIVE NAS come into play as they will do eventually.

As for the floor - it's going to get carpet tiles ( cheap, robust, replaceable when I drop a soldering iron or something ) - but I think I'm going to put some insulation down there first, not quite sure what yet though.

Doug

There will be further chances to test the instruments out - but one could ask the same question of MGS, ODY and MRO at Mars during conjunction....why no science.

#1 reason - while you're out of touch you want the spacecraft to be as quiet as possible, so minimising the chance of anything going wrong and causing a safe event which may consume prop etc.

doug

How could we possibly know? Venus, like Mars, is in conjunction. That is the reason there was no science planned for Messenger during this flyby - the spacecraft is totally out of touch.

Doug

Well - in a way. Most spacecraft still use a 'star sensor' and it is essentially the logical derivation of the Canopus sensor of the 60's in so far as it will identify whatever star field it sees and derive a pointing from that.

Doug

Given the complexity of time zones etc etc - I think the answer will be 'all of the above'

Doug

I would still argue that suggesting changes should be made to the Phoenix platform to increase the chances of survival of winter is silly. I'm not saying "OMFG WHAT TEH MORON". I'm saying I think it's silly. Silly is about the least offensive word I could possibly use.

I'll be more verbose.

Making the solar panels a bright colour to make the spacecraft more visible from orbit is silly. It's already going to be visible from orbit - very very clearly with HiRISE. It's a larger spacecraft than MER, considerably larger. It will have a two dark solar arrays and a bright spacecraft deck - any one of which will be as visible by HiRISE as MER is on their own. Furthermore if the terrain is a little darker then the spacecraft deck will be even more visible. If the terrain is a little brighter, the two solar arrays will be even more visible. Fundamentally, when it comes to contrast with the environment - the Phoenix design has all possible bases covered. Not only that, but you're saying that on Sol X - you're prepared to kill the spacecraft for a full Martian winter in the hope that the avionics will survive at 100 deg C colder than the MER WEB.

Folding up the solar arrays for winter - that would involve a MAJOR redesign of the avionics. You would kill the spacecraft in doing so, and would then require some form of batteries etc that could survive a -150C and below soak for > 6 months and then somehow trigger the thing back up again once spring arrives.

Phoenix has a quick, focused job to do, which it will get done before winter arrives. Any changes that try to expand this envelope, particularly in adding complexity to the spacecraft are unjustified. Better is the enemy of good enough.

Doug

Obviously I've voted for the Cassini image, and I must admit it ranks up there with some of MER's finest in my fav-image list...

BUT...

That image has one problem that I can percieve with the public : It doesn't look real. When I first saw it I actually thought "ahh - cool - a CGI version of what the eclipse imagery will look like". I can imagine the public might even reject it because of a similar confusion, you have to understand the image to appreciate it fully I think, and it some regards it's not an easy image to get ones head around.

Doug

No. (and if I could...I wouldn't anyway)

If you need to quote a person, you hit the 'reply' button at the bottom right hand corner of their post

If you don't need to quote a person you hit the 'add reply' button at the end of the thread.

It's not that difficult really

And even if you hit reply not add reply, editing out a quote really is very easy, and I'm an utter HTML/PHP/SQL moron

Doug

(PS - SRF..those SFX images have been released for more than a fortnight - they came out at the Friday HiRISE/MER press con )

I can't imagine why you would land with unbraked wheels, now or even in this blue sky 100 years from now bulldozers on the moon sci-fi plot.

Doug

Going on how I read the orig post - yes I was. Going on how I now see it was more a 'blue sky' as opposed to 'realistic' train of though, then no I wasn't.

Doug

And those solar panels would have to rotates 360 degrees every 28 days.

Doug

I can't help but laugh when people start suggesting design changes to a spacecraft with less than a year till launch. Do you know how silly it is to suggest those sorts of things?

Solar Panels are dark in colour for a reason - and in actual fact, dark solar panels will appear more contrasting to the ligher coloured terrain in the polar region.

And look at the HiRISE MER image - it's the shadow that stands out, not the vehicle itself - with Phoenix, those shadows can at times observable by HiRISE be very very long.

And - once you stow the solar panels again ( which seems unlikely as such operations are usually one way with latches involved) - where do you intend to get the power from to run the vehicle, accept commands and open them up again?

The 'proper' design for Phoenix is the one that gets it on the ground and survives for around 6 months - all the time it will need to do the measurements it is being sent to do. This isn't MER - longevity will not bring anything particularly new. The advancement and retreat of the polar cap is better observed from orbit via HiRISE .

Doug