Venus Express - Finally! |
Venus Express - Finally! |
Mar 20 2006, 09:21 PM
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#1
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 6 Joined: 19-March 06 Member No.: 717 |
Hi guys,
In only 21 days we will have the orbit insertion of this great spacecraft: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=64 Venus Express is a follow on from the Mars Express mission. Many of the instruments on the mission are simply upgraded versions of those on the Mars Express platform. After a 153 day cruise to Venus the spacecraft will enter Venusian orbit in April 2006. I hope the mission will be successful and we can start to investigate Venus as exhaustive as we do in Mars... |
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Mar 20 2006, 09:28 PM
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#2
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
I hope the mission will be successful and we can start to investigate Venus as exhaustive as we do in Mars... Me too, especially because I'll be in Darmstadt to watch! We are LONG overdue for a followup mission to Venus. --Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Mar 20 2006, 09:34 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Hi guys, In only 21 days we will have the orbit insertion of this great spacecraft: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=64 Venus Express is a follow on from the Mars Express mission. Many of the instruments on the mission are simply upgraded versions of those on the Mars Express platform. After a 153 day cruise to Venus the spacecraft will enter Venusian orbit in April 2006. I hope the mission will be successful and we can start to investigate Venus as exhaustive as we do in Mars... Pardon me for this, Alex, but there is already a forum devoted to Venus Express: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showforum=32 But I certainly understand your excitement. Perhaps we will finally learn for certain if Venus produces lightning or not. And if that sudden burst of sulfur dioxide detected by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO) was due to volcanic activity or something else. And just what was that sudden increase in infrared radiation detected by all the Pioneer Venus drop probes before their sensors were overloaded? -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Mar 20 2006, 09:37 PM
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#4
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Guests |
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Mar 20 2006, 09:48 PM
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#5
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Pardon me for this, Alex, but there is already a forum devoted to Venus Express: But we will probably want a discussion to talk about its arrival! Those kinds of events usually generate a lot of posts with more excitement than substance Probably wouldn't hurt to subtitle this discussion "Orbit insertion 11 April 2006, 08:32:47 UT" Just out of curiosity, are you going to be in Darmstadt to watch orbital insertion or during some other time frame? Indeed yes I'll be there for the arrival. I'm going there in order to accompany the winner of the Postcards from Venus contest, but I'll also be witnessing all of the fun stuff associated with the arrival. It won't be as dramatic as Huygens was by a long shot but it'll still be exciting. --Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Mar 20 2006, 09:57 PM
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#6
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 6 Joined: 19-March 06 Member No.: 717 |
Pardon me for this, Alex, but there is already a forum devoted to Venus Express: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showforum=32 But I certainly understand your excitement. Perhaps we will finally learn for certain if Venus produces lightning or not. And if that sudden burst of sulfur dioxide detected by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO) was due to volcanic activity or something else. And just what was that sudden increase in infrared radiation detected by all the Pioneer Venus drop probes before their sensors were overloaded? Yes, sure no problem, I am new here and just discovered this forum (which is great!) Certainly I am excited, I can't wait to have Venus charted, just like Mars... And luckily, in a couple of years, we will also have Google Venus! |
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Mar 20 2006, 10:00 PM
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#7
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
And luckily, in a couple of years, we will also have Google Venus! Why can't we have it now? Magellan did a pretty good job as I recall. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Mar 20 2006, 10:21 PM
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#8
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
Yes, sure no problem, I am new here and just discovered this forum (which is great!) Certainly I am excited, I can't wait to have Venus charted, just like Mars... And luckily, in a couple of years, we will also have Google Venus! With no radar on Venus Express, we shouldn't expect any surface mapping in any way that would improve upon (or even come close to matching) the resolution of existing maps. I have a Venus globe on my desk. Magellan data is all that is needed (save for the gaps in coverage) for that level of resolution. Better resolution is going to have to wait for another, better radar mapper or some colossal effort from an armada of subcloud aerobots. |
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Mar 21 2006, 01:29 AM
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#9
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
With no radar on Venus Express, we shouldn't expect any surface mapping in any way that would improve upon (or even come close to matching) the resolution of existing maps. I have a Venus globe on my desk. Magellan data is all that is needed (save for the gaps in coverage) for that level of resolution. Better resolution is going to have to wait for another, better radar mapper or some colossal effort from an armada of subcloud aerobots. It's true that Venus Express won't outdo Magellan for resolution. It'll be like the difference between Cassini VIMS and RADAR at Titan -- the radar images are certainly easier to interpret geologically. But they're like an X-ray; they're a way of seeing that has nothing whatever to do with how the human eye sees things. Even though VIMS and even ISS images can be tough to interpret at Titan, at least they tell us reasonably truthfully what would probably look bright and dark to our eyes. VIRTIS will show us Venus' surface in a new way. Whether they'll be able to correct for all those atmospheric effects well enough to even begin to approximate how the human eye would percieve an airless Venus globe I couldn't predict, but it'll be interesting to watch them try. For example, I wonder if any of those volcanic flows on Venus really look any different to one another in visible or near-IR wavelengths, or if they're all just identical black black black basalt. --Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Mar 21 2006, 01:43 AM
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#10
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1636 Joined: 9-May 05 From: Lima, Peru Member No.: 385 |
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Mar 21 2006, 02:11 AM
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#11
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 43 Joined: 10-December 05 Member No.: 605 |
QUOTE And luckily, in a couple of years, we will also have Google Venus! A few years, maybe, but Google is apparently planning for the future today : "Google has now plans to create similar sites for other major planets for which information is available. It has obtained domain names like Google Mercury, Google Venus and Google Jupiter." No planet is safe! |
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Mar 25 2006, 06:23 PM
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#12
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Member Group: Members Posts: 124 Joined: 23-March 06 Member No.: 723 |
The PFS failed before
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM6N9638FE_index_0.html On Mars it had a spatial resolution ranging from 7 to 12 kilometres when the Redplanet was observed from an altitude of 250 kilometres. |
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