NASA Dawn Asteroid Mission Told to "Stand Back Up", Reinstated! |
NASA Dawn Asteroid Mission Told to "Stand Back Up", Reinstated! |
Mar 28 2006, 07:58 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
Just 'cause I said I would...
Hopefully, though, this whole episode has made its point -- NASA isn't afraid to tell overbudget missions to stand down. I just *really* wish we could get the magnetometer back on the beastie, though... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Mar 28 2006, 04:27 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 94 Joined: 22-March 06 Member No.: 722 |
^
The launch has been pushed back to July 2007. That's better than nothing, but time will tell if it stays in-budget. -------------------- Mayor: Er, Master Betty, what is the Evil Council's plan?
Master Betty: Nyah. Haha. It is EVIL, it is so EVIL. It is a bad, bad plan, which will hurt many... people... who are good. I think it's great that it's so bad. -Kung Pow: Enter the Fist |
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Mar 28 2006, 10:01 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 311 Joined: 31-August 05 From: Florida & Texas, USA Member No.: 482 |
^ The launch has been pushed back to July 2007. That's better than nothing, but time will tell if it stays in-budget. Oh, I have no complaints delaying launch a year, so long as it flies. So does this mean we can just add 1 year to the arrival times? (2012=Vesta and 2016=Ceres?) Ugh... these mission timelines are so painful! I'm beginning to loathe the "efficiency" of ion propulsion. Other questions: 1. did the recent keck/hubble observations of Ceres place a size limit boundary on any possible moons? 2. are Vesta and Ceres expected to both have at least one moon? (seems like most main-belt 'roids have companions, right?) 3. aside from visual clues, are there any instruments on Dawn that can determine if there is a subsurface ocean on Ceres? Is this completely unlikely, without tidal heating... or has Enceledus taught us a sound lesson to expect the unexpected? 4. Is EVE simply a Dawn clone to visit Pallas and other big 'roids? Should a lander mission be in the works for Ceres (dare I say, sample return)? 5. any likelyhood of the Pentagon being told to "stand down" as we review their incredible cost overruns and in the meantime use that budget to fund EVE and Dawn's Early Flight? |
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Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Mar 28 2006, 10:55 PM
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Guests |
3. aside from visual clues, are there any instruments on Dawn that can determine if there is a subsurface ocean on Ceres? Is this completely unlikely, without tidal heating... or has Enceledus taught us a sound lesson to expect the unexpected? Of course the magnetometer and, to a lesser extent, the laser altimeter, both dropped during the descope, would have addressed this. As is stands now, the best bet for determining the internal structures of Ceres and Vesta, and possibly detecting a putative internal ocean, is by the Dawn radio science experiment. Alex Konopliv of JPL and his colleagues hope that this experiment can return data resulting in 12 degree or higher global gravity field solutions, determination of principal axes, bulk density, etc., thereby placing constraints on the asteroids' internal structures. Whether this is enough to determine the existence of an internal ocean (e.g., by getting a good value for the asteroids' Love numbers) is unclear to me. This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Mar 28 2006, 10:59 PM |
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