2014 MU69 "Ultima Thule" flyby, For discussion of the encounter as it happens |
2014 MU69 "Ultima Thule" flyby, For discussion of the encounter as it happens |
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![]() Administrator ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 ![]() |
It's only 10 days now until the "Core" phase of the 2014 MU69 flyby begins! I thought it was time for a new thread. Carry on discussing distant observations of other KBO worlds in the KBO encounters thread, and use this one for MU69 until after the departure phase is officially over on 8 January.
I'll be posting a "What to Expect" article next week. -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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#2
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Junior Member ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 30 Joined: 15-June 15 Member No.: 7506 ![]() |
I tweeted this at Alan Stern but I imagine that he's getting so much spam that I'm going to repeat the question here in the off chance that he gets some time to read it and give a reply:
@AlanStern Amazing work by the whole team. I'm curious why thumbnails of CAO6 weren't prioritized among some of the first data? Couldn't those be binned down to more or less trivial amounts of data by the spacecraft and still give you an idea of what to expect? Thanks! Since I'm in long form - GIF compression with white and black only, say 4x4 each, then maybe even reduce that to a 4-bit value that simply represents the number of pixels that ended up white(and if you are really trying to conserve bits, then gzip the whole 4-bit series as a C struct/array with the sequence identifiers as the keys, I imagine it would compress to <300 bits or something ridiculous like that) - all 3 of these options are practically nothing even at <1000bps, and the binning process sounds like a good deal less work than the process described during today's press conference to try to infer if and in which sequence there is anything useful based on refining trajectory elements, so I assume that there's a very good reason for not using thumbnails and I'm very interested to learn what it is. |
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#3
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Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2520 Joined: 13-September 05 Member No.: 497 ![]() |
I assume that there's a very good reason for not using thumbnails and I'm very interested to learn what it is. Not having to have the ground in the loop to decide what to send down would be one reason. Especially when you're six light-hours away. -------------------- Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.
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#4
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Junior Member ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 30 Joined: 15-June 15 Member No.: 7506 ![]() |
Not having to have the ground in the loop to decide what to send down would be one reason. Especially when you're six light-hours away. No need for the ground to be in the loop for the operation I described. What I described is a simple sequence of software that the spacecraft can run to produce a data product that could be less than 300 bits which would tell them if, and in exactly which images the highest resolution pass captured UT. It's not unprecedented, this has been a common practice during the opening days and hours of multiple recent missions and encounters(thumbnails in general that is, not the extra reductions I described to further minimize the size of the useful dataset in the case of this particular mission.) |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 21st June 2024 - 01:56 AM |
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