MEX VMC - Back on, and online! Options

[djellison]

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.

[ormstont]

Wow...you beat me to posting the link I've just been chatting again with the Omega team (the ones that wrote that paper that your last link is based on)...if anyone knows Mars clouds it's them! We had a quick look at surrounding features and worked out the VMC cloud would be around 18 degrees South and 162 degrees East, which would put it close to the equator but still away from a common region of these clouds (based on Omega observations).

More generally all the MEX instrument science teams responded very warmly to the results produced by yourselves and other VMC contributors and may even see about giving us more VMC observations as a valuable contribution to Mars Express science. We'll put it all up on the VMC website though as always, as soon as it's down on the ground (next dump should be Friday/Saturday, so look for more new pics at the start of next week!).