New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Options

[stevesliva]

Updates from the PI here and here:
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=5108
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspec...ive_current.php

[Guest_John Flushing_*]

Here is an article from the Baltimore Sun.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/ba...ealth-headlines

[elakdawalla]

John Spencer just sent me a glog, including Alice data from Jupiter!! And a new Hubble image of Io with something erupting!!!!!

(I'm excited. )

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000874/

--Emily

[nprev]

Me too! Thanks, Emily. Bet that volcanopele's bouncing off the walls...

[JRehling]

Me too! Thanks, Emily. Bet that volcanopele's bouncing off the walls...

Makes you appreciate what could be done with a dedicated Io observer in Earth orbit. With, of course, HST resolution.

That kind of mission wouldn't quite be merited, but something to add to HST "bandwidth" to provide frequent monitoring of time-varying targets would be nice.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

I vaguely remember some ideas of a planetary space telescope (~1 meter aperture? - I don't remember), probably about 10 years ago. Could have been very useful although Earth-based telescopes with adaptive optics can perform miracles.

A completely different topic: Does anyone know if SPICE kernels (or to be specific: SPK kernels) for NH are available somewhere? I've searched the PDS NAIF node but didn't find anything. I was going to do an animation of the NH Jupiter flyby.

[tedstryk]

I vaguely remember some ideas of a planetary space telescope (~1 meter aperture? - I don't remember), probably about 10 years ago. Could have been very useful although Earth-based telescopes with adaptive optics can perform miracles.

A completely different topic: Does anyone know if SPICE kernels (or to be specific: SPK kernels) for NH are available somewhere? I've searched the PDS NAIF node but didn't find anything. I was going to do an animation of the NH Jupiter flyby.

There are too problems for earthbased telescopes. One is the fact that while on a great night with AO, they can provide great coverage, great conditions can't be counted on. More serious is the complete blockage of all but the nearest UV wavelengths and a lot of the infrared as well. This is the biggest advantage of a space telescope of that size.

[SFJCody]

I vaguely remember some ideas of a planetary space telescope (~1 meter aperture? - I don't remember), probably about 10 years ago. Could have been very useful although Earth-based telescopes with adaptive optics can perform miracles.

Reminds me of an idea I had for a Galileo 2 in two parts (someone else probably had this idea as well). Part 1: A 1m aperture (or greater*) imaging spacecraft placed completely outside Callisto's orbit that would do lots of high bandwidth distant observations of the Galileans and Jupiter but would have comparatively meagre propulsion and rad hardening requirements (cutting down on mass and increasing longevity). Part 2: a small, simple, highly rad-hardened fields and particles/radio science spacecraft that would make lots of close flybys of the Galileans for low bandwidth in situ observations.


*Maybe a scaled down version of the JWST design?

[CAP-Team]

A completely different topic: Does anyone know if SPICE kernels (or to be specific: SPK kernels) for NH are available somewhere? I've searched the PDS NAIF node but didn't find anything. I was going to do an animation of the NH Jupiter flyby.

I've been looking for these kernels for quite some time, but haven't found any.
They should exist since JPL's solar system simulator can simulate New Horizons.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

New Horizons has been launched so they definitely exist. Fortunately I was able to get the information needed here:

http://pds-rings.seti.org/tools/ephem2_jupnh.html

A bit more messy for me than using the SPICE kernels directly but the result was equivalent:

New Horizons Jupiter flyby animation (4 MB)

This animation starts 7.5 million km from Jupiter on February 24 2007 00:00:00 and ends 7.5 million km from Jupiter on March 4 2007 11:30:00. The field of view is 5 degrees. The animation includes the Galilean satellites. The starfield is fictional. I made no attempts to make the transit times of Jovian cloud features like the Great Red Spot accurate. The Jupiter texture map is based on Cassini images.

EDIT: Bad URL fixed, the animation can now be downloaded.

[NMRguy]

The latest PI Perspective is up. Very exciting times!

"Today, we're studying atmospheric composition and structure of both Io and Callisto, mapping the surface compositions of Ganymede and Europa, searching for embedded moonlets in Jupiter's rings, obtaining high-resolution images of the Little Red Spot on Jupiter, imaging Io's volcanic plumes, and obtaining ring images to study the phase-angle behavior of their dust. We're also sending home eight hours of downlink data. All the while, we're studying Jupiter's magnetosphere. By late tomorrow we'll be at closest approach, but there are still twice as many observations tomorrow as we're making today!"

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Thanks Björn for sharing that Jupiter flyby weblink... I'm curious to see what we'll hear from NH after the observations are finished by the end of June 2007... It's another 8 years to Pluto!
Exciting times indeed!

[tfisher]

In the latest PI perspective, Alan Stern comments about the Boeing Star-48 upper booster stage which is cruising along on a similar trajectory to New Horizons. I wonder if there is any possibility of spotting this from New Horizons. It just brings to my mind one of the experiments proposed to study the pioneer anomaly, where an actively controlled and communicating mother spaceship travels along with a free-floating test mass. Since there are no active propulsion or thermal systems on the test mass, a large category of the mundane explanations for the anomaly are ruled out in studying the test mass's motion. Most likely the Star-48 stage is unsuitable for this purpose, but I wonder... :^)

[tasp]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Star-48 stage is very unsuitable for this (but I would be happy to be wrong).

Any residual solid fuel in the casing might be outgassing and perturbing the trajectory. And this might be happening kind of randomly as it is probably spinning and tumbling and therefore is not thermally stable. Also, any plastics or fibreglas materials might also be outgassing too. IIRC, the thermal re-radiation might perturb the course too, and if it is spinning (nutating?) this might be another variable.

If the booster was put into a stable spin and a known orientation, and it stayed that way after NH deployment, maybe it would be suitable . . .



. . . with a laser retro-reflector and a dedicated instrument on NH to watch it.

[helvick]

Given that the Star-48 is roughly half a million kilometers away it is well beyond the ability of NH to detect so this isn't practical unfortunately.