Venus Express |
Venus Express |
Apr 12 2005, 06:56 PM
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#16
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
If all goes well, Venus Express will be a major topic for discussion in this forum a year from now. Does anyone know how good the surface coverage will be from VIRTIS and VMC? My understanding is that VIRTIS will obtain low resolution multispectral maps, and that VMC will, in addition to cloud monitoring, have one channel that can see the surface, but I don't know at what resolution or at what quality. It will be nice to have some non-radar images of Venus' surface besides the Venera snapshots and the shadowy images from Earth and Galileo's NIMS.
Ted -------------------- |
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Nov 10 2005, 12:36 AM
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#17
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Guests |
Venus' upper atmosphere is MUCH more stable, density-wise, than Mars' -- simply because Mars' total atmosphere is so thin that the heating from dust storms can cause the atmosphere as a whole to dramatically warm, and thus balloon upwards in Mars' weak gravity. In fact, it was stated by a speaker at the COMPLEX meeting that this is the one piece of new environmental engineering measurements we absolutely MUST have for near-future Mars missions even of the unmanned variety: a satellite to monitor Martian weather and its correlation with upper-atmospheric density fluctuations in much more detail than has yet been done. We came within a hair of losing the Spirit rover even BEFORE it also ran into those high-speed near-surface winds (which, by the way, are less important for a throttled-rocket soft lander), because Mars' upper air density was 10% less than even the worst-case prediction based on obsevations the week before the landing, and so the vehicle was braked much less during entry than expected.
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Nov 10 2005, 01:43 AM
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#18
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Member Group: Members Posts: 624 Joined: 10-August 05 Member No.: 460 |
QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Nov 9 2005, 05:36 PM) We came within a hair of losing the Spirit rover even BEFORE it also ran into those high-speed near-surface winds (which, by the way, are less important for a throttled-rocket soft lander), because Mars' upper air density was 10% less than even the worst-case prediction based on obsevations the week before the landing, and so the vehicle was braked much less during entry than expected. Where do you get all this stuff? I have been looking for the descent profiles for Spirit and Opportunity for a year now! |
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