Venus Express Options

[cndwrld]

Venus Express was deep into planning joint observations with Akatsuki, so we were very sad when VOI didn't work. But there's a chance they can get into some kind of orbit in 2015, so we live in hope. VEX won't live to see it, but we all hope it works for them.

Hopefully, I'll be alive when the next Venus mission arrives. Just so I can bore people with stories about how much harder it was in my day with Venus Express and Magellan. Did you know that for Magellan, there were no rockets? We had to get a big group of people together and throw the probe upwards.

[stevesliva]

Did you know that for Magellan, there were no rockets? We had to get a big group of people together and throw the probe upwards.

Well, if the spring action in the shuttle bay hadn't worked, that might've been the backup plan.

[dvandorn]

...We had to get a big group of people together and throw the probe upwards.

Yeah, I hear you. When I was a boy, we had to walk to the Moon. Uphill. Both ways.



-the other Doug

[cndwrld]

After a four month delay, the Venus Express status reports are again being published. They're a bit behind; this one covers July and August of 2013. The report can be found here.

[marsbug]

Venusian 'glory' hints that cloud chemistry is still not understood. Here's the (pay per view) paper.

[cndwrld]

The ESA page on the Venus glory paper is here.

[stevesliva]

In what context is "glory" canonical for this sort of thing? The term I first heard years ago referenced Ulloa, which seems to be "Ulloa's Halo," but I have to say that in recent googling "fogbow" is a good term.

The geometry also seems the same as Opposition Surge.

[mcaplinger]

In what context is "glory" canonical for this sort of thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_%28optical_phenomenon%29

[stevesliva]

There needs be some more linking between wikipedia articles. Because Ulloa, Boguer, and Fog Bow all duplicate some of that discussion.

Is "glory" canonical among pilots, then? Meteorologists?

[edit] Fog bow at least declares it's something different. Perhaps Antisolar point would be a good place to link to all the individual phenomena.

[mcaplinger]

Is "glory" canonical among pilots, then? Meteorologists?

I'm not an etymologist but "glory" is a well-accepted term that appears in popular scientific literature all the time (see, e.g., the references at the bottom of the wikipedia article), at least in the United States.

Perhaps there is some technical distinction between different effects, or perhaps it's called something different in other countries.

[cndwrld]

Another VEX status report managed to get on-line, for August of last year. A couple more are queued up.

The report archive is here.

Graphs!

[cndwrld]

A guest post on the Planetary Society blog with a nice overview of recent findings related to possible evidence of volcanism on Venus, using Venus Express data.

Link here.

[cndwrld]

Another monthly report is on-line. This on covers 13 October to 9 November 2013, which included the continuation of quadrature operations, temporary star tracker outage, start of the sixteenth occultation season, and entire thirteenth Atmospheric Drag Experiment Campaign

It would be great if these on-line status reports were more up to date. But the teams are now preparing for a two-month aerobraking campaign, and at some random point the end of the spacecraft's fuel and therefore the end of mission. So these status reports are unlikely to get published at a faster rate until June or so.

[cndwrld]

On 11 April 2006, the Venus Express team held their collective breath and waited to see if the main engine would fire and put us into Venus orbit. Thanks to Astrium, the manufacturer, it went perfectly. And VEX has been in orbit now for 8 years.

Since no other missions to Venus are being planned by any agency, and the chances of Akatsuki getting into orbit next year are uncertain, the VEX database will likely be the baseline for future research for a long time. And as recent announcements about volcanic activity has shown, there's a lot of science yet to be pulled out of the data.

Nicely done, VEX. Nicely done.

[nprev]

Your updates on VEX have been invaluable, cndwrld. Thanks for keeping us informed!!!