T44 Flyby (May 28, 2008), The Last Flyby of the Primary Mission Options

[Juramike]

Rev 69 Looking ahead is up!

http://ciclops.org/view/4889/Rev_69

The T44 Flyby highlights include:

1. ISS of Hotei Arcus
2. SAR RADAR Swath over Xanadu (Tui Regio) and N Central Shangri La (this is gonna be good!) and S Dilmun
3. More radiometry and scatterometry (over W Belet?)

-Mike

[rlorenz]

Rev 69 Looking ahead is up!

http://ciclops.org/view/4889/Rev_69

The T44 Flyby highlights include:

1. ISS of Hotei Arcus
2. SAR RADAR Swath over Xanadu (Tui Regio) and N Central Shangri La (this is gonna be good!) and S Dilmun
3. More radiometry and scatterometry (over W Belet?)

-Mike

Ciclops doesnt speak for all of Cassini. They write their own stuff, based on earlier project
discussion. In this case they may be wrong - I think the scat and rad had to be deleted because
of the DSN being taken by Phoenix. Better to refer to the project flyby summary

[volcanopele]

I know that Ralph. I mention that in the summary.

[peter59]

T44 Mission description is now up!

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...description.pdf

TITAN-44 SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

• RADAR : T44 altimetry will be close to Hotei, over an area that was SAR imaged by T43. The SAR swath sweeps northwest across Xanadu, over the Shangri-La dunefields and onto Dilmun. The SAR will image the southern edge of Xanadu, which shows a sharp boundary in microwave emissivity that is not presently understood. The SAR data is hoped to yield information on Xanadu's large-scale topography, as well as the influence of Xanadu on regional wind patterns as revealed in the dunes, and a partial overlap with T13 SAR may give stereo information and refine estimates of Titan's rotation state.
• INMS uses the RADAR orientation, and because of the higher altitude of this flyby the spacecraft is above most of ionosphere and INMS will obtain exospheric observations. The team will use these observations to identify what chemical compounds are escaping from Titan’s atmosphere, looking at both altitude and the difference between the northern and southern hemispheres.
• CIRS continues to extend spatial and temporal coverage of Titan, from low-spectral resolution disk maps to high spectral resolution nadir and limb integrations. Getting good time resolution is very important because we are looking for seasonal changes in the stratosphere, especially the expected break-up of the northern polar vortex in northern spring. In a rare occurrence, during the T44 targeted Titan flyby, CIRS will be observing the rings of Saturn. Usually, the Titan observations are considered more compelling during the flybys since the geometries and opportunities are so spectacular, so this Rings observations is quite unique. CIRS will determine the mean thermal gradient across Saturn's many-particle-thick rings by executing radial scans of Saturn's main rings (A, B, C) over multiple illumination geometries (including phase, S/C inclination, and solar elevation) on the lit and unlit sides of the rings. This is one of those observation sets.
• VIMS observations concentrate on determining time scales for cloud formation and dissipation.
• ISS: The T44 flyby geometry shows a half-illuminated Titan as Cassini approaches and recedes. On approach ISS will carry out night-side imaging for photometry and searching for lightning and aurora. ISS will also acquire a regional-scale map of Hotei Arcus, its highest-resolution observation of this region to date. Outbound, ISS will see portions of Belet and Adiri and territory to the north, capturing global and full-disk mosaics. As the geometries of the T41 through T44 flybys are very similar, ISS has opportunities to detect clouds in this region every few weeks.
• RPWS: As Titan is out “in front” of Saturn, the T41 through T44 flybys put the spacecraft in an ideal location to have another opportunity to see Titan outside of Saturn’s magnetosphere, in shocked solar wind ahead of the magnetosheath as happened on T32. We are interested in duplicating the flyby geometry to look for shorter time-scale phenomena in Titan’s plasma environment, so this series of four flybys, especially T41 through T43, will offer that opportunity.

[Juramike]

I wonder if it would be possible to include the expected SAR RADAR Swath track in the mission description?

I'm really curious to know if this swath will view Kerguelen Facula (which I bet will look like Sotra Facula) or image any parts of the Sliced Carrot feature of NW Shangri-La.

-Mike

[volcanopele]

No, the swath cuts a little further north than Kerguelen.

[rlorenz]

I wonder if it would be possible to include the expected SAR RADAR Swath track in the mission description?

The SAR swaths are not as straightforwardly pipelined a product as the image views are.

Nothing is impossible. Everything takes work.

Who do you think writes the captions for these image releases? It's part of the job, but not
a part that gets you fame and fortune. (Arguably writing papers for Science doesnt get you
those either, but at least journal publications are a metric by which planetary scientists'
careers are partly judged.)

[Juramike]

Who do you think writes the captions for these image releases? It's part of the job, but not
a part that gets you fame and fortune.

I've spent many an evening browsing through the Planetary Photojournal. I've found the captions easily understandable and very well written. The legends usually capture the essence of a key concept in planetary science. Each image provides yet another vignette of a beautifully complex system slowly being revealed.

I see it as a part of the continuum of research and education. The scientific papers have the full research, but are accessible and understandable to a limited few (and don't even get me started about journal access). In contrast, the Planetary Photojournal images and CHARM presentations are freely available and are for a much wider audience. Even in the UMSF domain of amateur enthusiasts, most of the Planetary Photojournal images are picked up and discussed immediately, while a lesser fraction of the scientific papers are presented.

I'd be interested in knowing how many hits an image in the Planetary Photojournal gets compared to an article in a scientific journal.

Even more important, who is reading it? I can imagine an interested high school student surfing the Planetary Photojournal, but not easily browsing the latest issue of Icarus. (Most high school libraries don't carry Icarus).

-Mike

[rlorenz]

I've spent many an evening browsing through the Planetary Photojournal. I've found the captions easily understandable and very well written.
.....
I'd be interested in knowing how many hits an image in the Planetary Photojournal gets compared to an article in a scientific journal.
....
Even more important, who is reading it? I can imagine an interested high school student surfing the Planetary Photojournal, but not easily browsing the latest issue of Icarus. (Most high school libraries don't carry Icarus).

Very good points, Mike. I guess you're guilting us into being more diligent about these!

FYI, what happens is the team decides on image segments to release (e.g. that do not compromise
upcoming publications and perhaps adjust/improve their appearance, since first SAR processing run
with predicted attitude and ephemeris can be ratty) and then writes a draft caption. Captions then get
edited and approved by JPL and HQ, which typically takes several days - this process usually entails the
introduction of english units and the removal of terms that are too arcanely geological (i.e. specific and
accurate). So it can be pretty thankless.

[JRehling]

Even more important, who is reading it? I can imagine an interested high school student surfing the Planetary Photojournal, but not easily browsing the latest issue of Icarus. (Most high school libraries don't carry Icarus).

Based on comments a friends of mine made about the athletic shoe industry, I've always seen space science aficionado-dom similarly. There is a tiny group of hardcore practitioners doing active research at the top, then a larger but still small group of heavy fans, then a much larger group of people who give the topic their attention from time to time, and the larger still, perhaps, group of people who don't care at all.

The career rewards that Ralph allude to key very highly off the responses of the tippy-top alone, factoring in appeal to the next segments down almost not at all. Unless, like Carl Sagan, you create a PR tour de force like "Cosmos". Of course, that's not all Sagan did...

It's true in other disciplines as well. You've got some jazz musicians out there who are respected largely by other jazz musicians and hardly sell any records at all. As to which deserve more accolades is a matter of philosophy -- and funding.

[hendric]

So it can be pretty thankless.

Sounds like a perfect job for some UMSF volunteers.

[peter59]

Janus - 189,602 kilometers away
Enceladus - 515,115 kilometers away

[MahFL]

I just noticed the subheading....last flyby of the primary mission already, I can remember when she was launched

[Adam]

Has it really been 44 titan flybys? Truly amazing, it feels like the first mapping began yesterday

[rlorenz]

Has it really been 44 titan flybys? Truly amazing, it feels like the first mapping began yesterday

well, really it's been 45, unless you count T0, in which case it is 46

remember Cassini counting, 0, A, B, C, 3, 4, 5,......44