MEX VMC - Back on, and online! |
MEX VMC - Back on, and online! |
Aug 22 2008, 01:58 PM
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14448 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
I heard about this 24 hours ago, and couldn't believe it - this is EXACTLY what has been missing from ESA. MASSIVE kudos to the ESOC MEX flight ops team for doing it
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/VMC/index.html The last time I wrote a post and hit 'submit' at UMSF with a smile this big on my face, was when Oppy successfully got out of Purgatory. |
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Aug 28 2008, 02:15 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 27-August 08 From: Darmstadt, Germany Member No.: 4320 |
Phobos and Deimos would both be fun targets, the biggest problem is the distance between them and the spacecraft (and the relatively low resolution of VMC). Even with our high-altitude pericentre (~10,000 km) we'd have issues imaging Deimos (as it's quite a bit further out). We do come pretty close to Phobos at times but on those opportunities we usually use our primary science instruments to observe (see some results of the recent campaign here: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM5H48N9JF_0.html) and VMC is not allowed to be ON with other instruments. That said I'll keep my eyes out for any encounters where we could try something with VMC.
Maybe someone on the forum would like to do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to see at what range we'd start to be able to resolve the moons. This would of course rely on working out the resolution of VMC from Martian features, which again might be a fun job for someone if anyone fancies it! -------------------- |
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