Rev 49 - Aug 9-Sep 14, 2007 - Iapetus I1, The only close flyby of Iapetus Options

[belleraphon1]

Sunspot..

this has certainly not been a disaster.... let us count our blessings. The hit could have happened a few hours earlier... that would have been bad.

We have an invaluable set of observations. We need to be patient.

The up side is that perhaps this will convince the mission planners to add another Iapetus flyby at the end of the extended mission.

But can't wait for the Voyager mountains in high res.

Craig

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

That's funny, Alex, but I was really looking forward to some nice low phase global views.

Given the difficulty of targeting Iapetus in any tour, yes, it would have been nice to have a flawless flyby. However, just imagine if the C/A observations had gotten hosed.

[OWW]

Does this mean we will have no global images of the sunlit side AT ALL? That's a disaster for the mapping gurus I would think....

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

You know, you "this-has-been-a-disaster" guys all need to calm down and get some perspective. I don't know how you would have survived the last several Io flybys during the final Galileo mission extension, when safe mode seemed to be the normal state of the spacecraft.

[ugordan]

Far from me saying this was a disaster, but your analogy with Io flybys is a little off. You always had the next Io flyby if the current one failed Besides, I'm sure everyone understood the risks of flying by Io.
This was a one-shot thing. It was supposed to be a routine flyby, more or less. Stupid cosmic ray power trip...

[OWW]

Ok, compared to I33 this has been a success. This situation is similar to what happened with Galileo on E19.

[Ian R]

Typical - the first safe mode event for four years had to occur just after the Iapetus flyby...

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

It was supposed to be a routine flyby, more or less.

In this business, it would be a good idea to eliminate "routine flyby" from one's vocabulary.

[ugordan]

Ian - what? Solid state power switch trips occur several times a year, each time safing the s/c. We don't always hear about them, they're mostly mentioned in Cassini weekly reports.

Alex, point taken.

No raws yet, I'm calling it a day... and a flyby.

[scalbers]

Yes the thrill of spaceflight. I'm looking to see if we'll get either of the 250m resolution outbound images that would be just before the downlink in question:

http://www.geoinf.fu-berlin.de/projekte/ca...us013_vims.html

http://www.geoinf.fu-berlin.de/projekte/ca...3_vims_img.html

I'm curious as well about what this might mean for the extended mission(s).

[Roby72]

Far from it. All the highest-res observations were successful and are going to be downlinked. The sequence was halted about 6 hours after closest approach, so the outbound full disk stuff got scrapped, which is a bummer, but there is more than enough amazing data to keep everyone busy for a long time. It's just not going to be quite as much as they had planned for.

We're lucky we even know how much data acquisition was planned.

--Emily

6 hours after C/A - that means that this sequence (and also the following six ! ) are lost:

link



Robert

[OWW]

Was the WAC snapping pictures just before the downlink?

[volcanopele]

Odd that the press release says 'no impact on Iapetus Science data return'
Of all the major icy satellites, Iapetus has the biggest 'terra incognita' patch in the global maps, and this flyby would have more or less filled it...

??? We will fill that gap, don't worry! Just not tonight...

It certainly has not been a disaster. Aggravating, but not a disaster. We will get nearly all the high-resolution science we planned on.

By the way, the REGMAPTRL001 images are just fine! Most of that just won't get played back until tomorrow.

[Juramike]

Does this mean we will have no global images of the sunlit side AT ALL? That's a disaster for the mapping gurus I would think....

On one hand, it's a bummer. On the other hand, it gives us another chunk of "Here there be tygers" terrain in the solar system to look forward to discovering in the futue.


"Some see the glass as half full,
some see the glass half empty,
and some see it as time for another round."

-Mike

[Rob Pinnegar]

That is really too bad about the full-disk sequence. It would have been nice to see all of Roncevaux Terra at much-improved resolution. I do hope that at least some of the images of the large basin come through. [Edit: I didn't see Jason's above post before saying this.]

The important thing is the high-resolution stuff, though, and that seems to be safe.