A few WA comps...

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/titan_01.jpg

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/titan_02.jpg

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/titan_03.jpg

The power of methan-o-vision

Doug

Nope - you might have seen a cover over the business area of the rat in early animations -but they never actually built it that way.

Doug

Wow - 3.8 megabits over a couple of hours - that's really poor Imagine the sacrifices for other instruments if they'd just have had something as simple as the Huygens camera suite onboard.

Like many misisons I'd like to see, and places I'd like cameras to go - the cloud tops of Jupiter for instance...we're just not quite at the technical level to do it at anything like a reasonable budget really.

Doug

Feasable perhaps, but fairly pointless I'd have thought. You know that bit on a plane flight when you're going thru the clouds and you cant see the end of the wing.....

That - plus the bandwidth from probe-to-orbiter was fairly poor I'd imagine, much like Huygens was.

Doug

Well - look at Voyager. 25 years + with an RTG.

I really really cant see how a solar array could help extend that on Mars.

Doug

2013? That puts it from being 4 years away to being 8 years away - that's just madness

Doug

I was actually thinking, when looking at a chart that John Zarnecki had of the tilt angle of the huygens probe on the way down to titan that it's a shame we've not seen the same treatment that we saw for the MER EDl sequence, applied to previous Entry sequences.

I dare say it could technically be done manually in an animation package - but it would be a nightmare.

If the Galileo stuff is anywhere -it'll be here
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/PDS/data/gp_0001/

Doug

If you go here...

http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/merweb/merweb.pl

You can search imaging sequences by Sol - usually up to 1 sol in advance.

I selecte 598 and 599 and clicked detailed report and I got this...

Under 4. What EDRs did we request?

Expected EDRs by sequence number and image type:

Sol Seq.Ver ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot Description
--- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
598 p0755.03 10 0 0 10 0 20 navcam_5x1_az_270_3_bpp
598 p1201.14 2 0 0 2 0 4 front_haz_penultimate_1_bpp_crit_27
598 p1212.07 2 0 0 2 0 4 front_haz_ultimate_2_bpp_pri15
598 p1301.01 2 0 0 2 0 4 penultimate_rear_hazcam_pri_27
598 p1311.03 2 0 0 2 0 4 ultimate_rear_hazcam_pri_15
598 p1586.00 4 0 4 0 0 8 navcam_cloud_4x1_dwnsmp_RVRAz330
598 p1586.00 4 0 4 0 0 8 navcam_cloud_4x1_dwnsmp_RVRAz330
598 p2113.13 13 13 0 0 2 28 pancam_magnet_array_L234567Rall
598 p2123.05 26 26 0 0 2 54 pancam_cal_w_sweep_L234567Rall
598 p2600.07 2 2 0 0 2 6 pancam_tau
598 p2600.07 2 2 0 0 2 6 pancam_tau
599 p2630.01 56 2 54 0 2 114 pancam_saw_skysurvey_L4578R2478
Total 125 45 62 18 10 260

Now Ultimate and Penultimate are Hazcam images taken at the end, and just before the end of a drive.

Looks like 599 has a nice sky survey in there

Doug

Wow - it REALLY does...just 10 x smaller

http://near.jhuapl.edu/iod/20000121/index.html

Doug

I know all that - (actualy, it's Mossbauer, not APXS that's suffering) - I didnt state it's infinite -I said it's effectively indefinitely. i.e. you're going to have many years of guarenteed high power.

Doug

Sorry it's taken so long to edit it up.

This was my first hack at recording ' in the field' - so there's a bit of wind every now and again, and a coot quacks at one point...and you can hear the MD recorder.

But - you can hear it all

It's 22 Mbytes, it's 5 seconds short of 50 minutes long..and it's here

http://www.rlproject.com/audio/ss_qna_030905.mp3

Thhat MP3 is sponsored by the kitchen staff of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge - who saved Nico and I some dinner despite arriving 45 minutes late for it, it's all Steve's fault really

To all of you who submitted questions that didnt get asked....I'm sorry - but I had to be selective on the day as we were running out of time - but I hope the quality of Steve's replies makes up for it. I didnt mention each members question specifically - but you should recognise your questions in there

The winner of the competition has been notified, just waiting to hear back before announcing it publicly.

Doug

LMFAO Is it me or can you see a little reflection of light from the IDD onto the rocks beyond?

Doug

Well - we're two months from the end of the MEX primary mission - so things breaking is to be expected to some extent, but it's always a dissapointment, especially with something as astonishing as that one.

On the upside, more bandwidth for everyone else.

Doug

Reminds me of a baby Eros, or even a bit like Comet Borrelly

Assuming an 800m sphere at 12hrs rotation ( which is probably ballpark-ish-right )

Circum= 2500 metres, so it's rotating at about 200 metres per hour - 3 1/3 per minute - - 5.5 cm / second

Doug

BUT....

it required lots of surface area, doesnt work at night, unless you're lucky will trend to lower output over time etc etc

Just a 100W RTG will give you 2400 Whrs per sol - 3 x the average for MER, and it'll give you that power whenever you want it and essentially, indefinitely.

Doug

http://planetary.org/blog/20050905.html

Doug

I probbaly shouldnt do this...but...

This was a question asked at the end of Mike's talk to the BAA

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...crater_size.mp3 (100kb)

Doug

From Emily's blog..

"Mark had shown these to me yesterday, saying that they hoped to release them this week. He pointed out that "you can actually see Stickney crater" in the image and there was a great "ooh!" from the audience. "We're doing planetary geology!" Steve said."

Doug

I totally agree. It almost seems that one instrument is happier to share data with an instrument on a foreign spacecraft, before sharing it with it's neigbours onboard it's own spacecraft.

Doug

Wow - we've not even unpacked properly yet

Doug

Compare it to the size of the moon as seen in eclipses and you'll find your answer.

Doug

My email doesnt seem to be working right now - drop me a PM via the forum Ustrax - and it'll be in the post later

Doug

http://iceds.ge.ucl.ac.uk/

Doug

It'll take me a day or two - but oh yes, it will be done.

Doug