EPOXI Mission News |
EPOXI Mission News |
May 28 2008, 07:48 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1592 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
Looks like the Deep Impact list has been revived. Posting here for others to get back on board:
********************************************************************** EPOXI E-News #1 May 2008 ********************************************************************** WELCOME BACK! Did you know that the Deep Impact Flyby Spacecraft has a new assignment? The EPOXI mission combines two exciting science investigations in an entirely new mission that re-uses the Deep Impact spacecraft. The Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization (EPOCh) investigation will observe stars that have known transiting giant planets. The Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI) of comets observes comet 103P/Hartley 2 during a close flyby in October 2010. The education and public outreach team decided to get back in touch with our Deep Impact friends and begin sending out newsletters again to keep you informed of these two exciting investigations! During the two years since our last newsletter for Deep Impact, the science team has stayed busy continuing to do more analysis on the data collected in July 2005. The science team also proposed and was awarded an extended mission teaming up with a group from Goddard Space Flight Center. EPOXI website: http://epoxi.umd.edu/ Mission Overview: http://epoxi.umd.edu/1mission/index.shtml Press Releases: http://epoxi.umd.edu/7press/index.shtml DI Results: http://deepimpact.umd.edu/results/ ********************************************************************** MISSION STATUS Dr. Deming, Principal Investigator (PI) for the EPOCh portion of the mission, sends us the latest mission status report in which he tells us about the current observing target GJ436. “This is an exciting time for EPOCh, as we search for an exo-Earth orbiting a stellar neighbor of our Sun!” reports Dr Deming. He also talks about the plans to observe a very special planet in late May and early June. Read his status report as well as past reports from other team members at http://epoxi.umd.edu/1mission/status.shtml ********************************************************************** EPOCh TARGETS The EPOCh component of the EPOXI mission will carefully study a small number of stars in order to learn more about planets that we know are orbiting those stars by watching the planets as they transit (cross in front of) the star. EPOCh will also search for clues to other planets that might be orbiting the same stars. Read more about the EPOCh science targets to find out which stars are being observed. http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/targets.shtml ********************************************************************** PLANET QUEST Are we alone? For centuries, human beings have pondered this question. Medieval scholars speculated that other worlds must exist and that some would harbor other forms of life. In our time, advances in science and technology have brought us to the threshold of finding an answer to this timeless question. The recent discovery of numerous planets around stars other than the sun confirms that our solar system is not unique. Indeed, these "exoplanets" appear to be common in our galactic neighborhood. The EPOCh investigation is part of a larger family of missions studying extrasolar planets. Learn more at the Jet Propulsion Lab Planet Quest Web site. http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm ********************************************************************** OBSERVING CHALLENGE The transits that will be studied for EPOCh are extremely difficult to observe because the change in brightness is very small and requires high precision photometry that can be accomplished with instruments on the Deep Impact spacecraft. Observers on Earth can still take a look at the stars in the night time sky. The selected stars are also pretty dim because we don’t want them to saturate or over expose the spacecraft instruments but they are bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes if the sky conditions are good and the skies are dark. Like people, stars have multiple identifiers. EPOCh’s first target was a star labeled as HAT-P-4 by the scientists observing it. They made their own list of target stars so that was their shorthand name. But HAT-P-4 has numerous other names which are more useful in identifying it in other databases. HAT-P-4 = SAO 64638 = TYC 2569-1599-1 is a magnitude 11, G-class star located in the constellation Boötes. Chart: http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/challenge.shtml ********************************************************************** SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Please forward this e-mail to others interested in NASA missions. New subscribers may join the EPOXI Mission e-news mailing list on our website at: http://epoxi.umd.edu/6outreach/newsletter.shtml |
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Mar 23 2009, 09:52 PM
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#16
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 18-March 09 From: Pasadena, CA USA Member No.: 4677 |
So I just got a blessing from the Ethics office. Attached is the presentation on EPOCh observations I gave at the IEEE conference in Big Sky. Feel free to bug me with questions. I'm continuing to research the legal aspects of posting the paper here too. Stay tuned!
EPOCh_IEEE_Presentation_umsf.pdf ( 963.67K ) Number of downloads: 923 ~Rich |
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Mar 24 2009, 12:35 AM
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#17
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
Dear Rich,
Daniel, the SPICE kernel you have is slightly out of date. Your version was generated before TCM-14 without the TCM-14 burn. You want to be using spk_drm224_Burn-full.bin That's the latest and greatest o.d. solution. Thanks so much for the clarification. I will incorporate the file into the next data update. Where are you getting these by the way? Are they public? Yes the SPICE kernels are public and for most missions they can be found at http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/ EPOXI, still under the Deep Impact name, is listed under the Comet and Asteroid missions at http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/data_comet.html The Horizons system at http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons also runs on SPICE kernels but occasionally it is not updated. At the moment it seems to use CODE Trajectory Name Start UTC Stop UTC ----------------------------- -------------------- -------------------- [...] drm220_withTCM12-full 2008 APR 18 09:00:00 2008 DEC 09 00:00:00 (103P/Hartley 2 soln.: #49) drm223_with_tcms-full 2008 DEC 09 00:00:00 2012 JAN 31 00:00:00 epoxi_2008-2019.090217 2012 JAN 31 00:00:00 2019 JAN 01 00:00:00 I sent an e-mail to the webmaster for space.jpl.nasa.gov and asked him to add EPOXI. He hasn't gotten back to me, but I hope we'll get EPOXI in there. Thanks. If you wish to include timeline events, feel free to send them to me and I'll upload them in due course. Anything to create a grain of outreach for your mission :-) -------------------- |
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Mar 25 2009, 12:03 AM
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#18
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IMG to PNG GOD Group: Moderator Posts: 2254 Joined: 19-February 04 From: Near fire and ice Member No.: 38 |
Let me talk with our Public Outreach people and our science team and I'll see if I can get any data released to the "world". What exactly would you guys want? .jpgs? raw binary images? Please let me know and I'll see if I can get any data released. I myself prefer PDS formatted data and there are probably lots of people here that also prefer it but PNGs are better known and are probably the best option to make the data easier to use for lots of people. As previously discussed, PNGs are far better than JPGs due to the absence of compression artifacts and the fact that they can be 16 bits/pixel when needed. Their only drawback compared to JPGs is bigger files. |
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Mar 25 2009, 08:43 PM
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#19
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 18-March 09 From: Pasadena, CA USA Member No.: 4677 |
I myself prefer PDS formatted data and there are probably lots of people here that also prefer it but PNGs are better known and are probably the best option to make the data easier to use for lots of people. As previously discussed, PNGs are far better than JPGs due to the absence of compression artifacts and the fact that they can be 16 bits/pixel when needed. Their only drawback compared to JPGs is bigger files. Sorry Bjorn. I don't think the project will release any EPOXI data to the PDS until April and it may not get released to the public until May. You'll have to stay perched on the edge of your computer chair until then. I'll see if I can get anything released to the world, but you may have to settle for .jpgs. Sorry! .jpgs are better than nothing! ~Rich |
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Mar 27 2009, 12:15 AM
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#20
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 18-March 09 From: Pasadena, CA USA Member No.: 4677 |
Mission update:
FYI, we will be taking more pictures of the Earth tomorrow in a similar fashion to how the previous Earth observations were performed (in fact, we're using the exact same sequences, fancy that). However, we will be significantly closer than the Earth Observation that took the lunar transit movie (17 Gm compared to 50 Gm (that's giga-meters, or Mkm (that's Mega-kilometers) (and yes, that's a subnested parenthetic remark)). Since the spacecraft is now north of the ecliptic plane, we will be looking down on the Earth's north pole. A simulated image of what we might see has been floating around JPL. I'll ask around to see if I can post it. Images will be coming down Saturday. ~Rich |
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Mar 27 2009, 12:49 AM
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#21
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Sweet. Can't wait to see the pics. --Emily
-------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Mar 30 2009, 10:21 PM
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#22
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 18-March 09 From: Pasadena, CA USA Member No.: 4677 |
I have noted that EPOXI is not on the Solar System Simulator (http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/) ... Deep Impact is but gives an error if you enter today's date ... which I think would be a good tool to have (both for the general public and to incorporate images into my simulations). So maybe you could suggest to the team at the Solar System Simulator to have EPOXI enabled :-) Good luck with your mission! dmueller: It's amazing what a simple e-mail does EPOXI is now in the JPL Solar System Simulator! Thanks for pointing that out to us. In other news, the images from this weekend's Earth Observation are now on the ground and they look great! |
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Mar 31 2009, 02:51 AM
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#23
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
dmueller: It's amazing what a simple e-mail does EPOXI is now in the JPL Solar System Simulator! Thanks for pointing that out to us. Thanks for asking, Rich! Have updated the EPOXI Realtime Simulation accordingly. Incidentally I figured out how to make my website tweet to my Twitter. In due course I hope to get it to periodically tweet mission updates onto my Twitter. Standby. -------------------- |
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Mar 31 2009, 11:27 PM
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#24
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 18-March 09 From: Pasadena, CA USA Member No.: 4677 |
Hi all,
I just noticed a new article on the EPOXI website by the EPOCh P.I. Drake Deming: http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/alienmaps.shtml Enjoy! ~Rich |
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Apr 1 2009, 07:40 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
I just noticed a new article on the EPOXI website by the EPOCh P.I. Drake Deming: There was a presentation on the same subject here: http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/cowa..._lunch_talk.ppt but it has been removed. It is cached on Google in html http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:wdXK3..._lunch_talk.ppt |
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Apr 4 2009, 06:55 AM
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#26
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
Incidentally I figured out how to make my website tweet to my Twitter. In due course I hope to get it to periodically tweet mission updates onto my Twitter. Standby. Selected trajectory information about some missions (including EPOXI) are now tweeting automatically to my Twitter account about once every day -------------------- |
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Apr 7 2009, 04:44 PM
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#27
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 18-March 09 From: Pasadena, CA USA Member No.: 4677 |
There was a presentation on the same subject here: http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/cowa..._lunch_talk.ppt but it has been removed. It is cached on Google in html http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cache:wdXK3..._lunch_talk.ppt Paolo: I can't seem to find those presentations. You don't have a copy of them do you? ~Rich |
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Apr 7 2009, 07:26 PM
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#28
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
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Apr 10 2009, 06:40 PM
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#29
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
FYI, Hubble is presently studying Hartley-2 to try to pin down the basic properties of the nucleus, especially the rotation period, so that the information can be incorporated into mission planning.
http://www.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/get-visit-sta...rkupFormat=html http://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.p...st&id=11990 -------------------- |
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Apr 12 2009, 06:48 PM
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#30
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
FYI, Hubble is presently studying Hartley-2 to try to pin down the basic properties of the nucleus, Observations have also been carried out by Spitzer, but I have noy seen results published yet http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008sptz.prop50593L |
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