EPOXI Mission News |
EPOXI Mission News |
May 21 2009, 07:15 AM
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#31
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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 |
A nice presentation "Remote Detection of Life on Earth ….inferences from EPOXI"
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May 26 2009, 05:05 AM
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#32
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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 |
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 The article Alien Maps of an Ocean-Bearing World is now on arxiv |
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Jun 7 2009, 06:40 AM
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#33
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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 |
There is a mission update on the EPOXI site: http://epoxi.umd.edu/1mission/status.shtml
Characterizing Comet Hartley 2 Although the EPOXI mission's spacecraft is in a period of relative inactivity, the team is still actively working on a variety of questions. One of the key areas of investigation is the characterization of the next target, comet Hartley 2. Several investigations have been carried out to characterize the nuclear size and albedo, the large dust, and the rotation of the nucleus. These investigations have been aimed for the period before the nucleus begins outgassing significantly as it approaches the sun. Observation were taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope in August 2008. The analysis of those data yields a nuclear effective radius of 0.6 km, slightly smaller than, but still comparable to, the size deduced using the European Infrared Space Observatory at the previous apparition. These observations also show that there is a trail of large dust particles released much earlier and still orbiting the sun close to the nucleus. This is a common phenomenon among comets. The next step was an effort to determine the rotational period in order to design the observing sequence for the approach to the comet. A series of observations with the Hubble Space Telescope in late April were somewhat puzzling. Subsequent observations with a variety of ground-based telescopes, particularly with Gemini-South and Gemini-North on the same night, have suggested a rotational period near 2/3 day, but with narrow minima that were not caught in the HST observations. |
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Jun 21 2009, 06:38 PM
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#34
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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 |
From the latest Discovery and New Frontiers Newsletter
Although the EPOXI mission's spacecraft is in a period of relative inactivity, the team is actively working on a number of areas of interest, including characterizing the next target, comet Hartley 2. Several investigations have been carried out to characterize the nuclear size and albedo, the large dust, and the rotation of the nucleus. These studies are timed for the period before the nucleus begins outgassing significantly as it approaches the sun. Another effort is to determine the Hartley 2’s rotational period to design the observing sequence for the approach to the comet. A series of observations with the Hubble Space Telescope in late April were somewhat puzzling. Subsequent observations with a variety of groundbased telescopes, particularly with Hawaii’s GeminiSouth and GeminiNorth on the same night, suggest a rotational period near 2/3 day, but with narrow minima that were not caught in the HST observations. The team is preparing to continue its role in testing software that could lead to improved interplanetary network communications. Last fall, a NASAwide team used DisruptionTolerant Networking, or DTN, software to transmit dozens of space images to and from the Deep Impact spacecraft which was more than 20 million miles from Earth. The test was called DINET (Deep Impact DTN experiment). Computers on the ground at JPL were used to simulate stations on Earth, Mars, and the Martian moon Phobos. The experiment was successful, with all the data transmitted without corruption even as various faults and breakdowns in the system were simulated. The team was pleased to support this activity that will ultimately lead to much better communications across the solar system. The Preliminary Design Review for DINET2 was conducted on May 13. The current timeline is being reviewed to determine when to begin DINET2 activities on the spacecraft. It may begin following the infrared imaging of Earth at high southern latitudes scheduled for August 17. |
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Jun 26 2009, 05:07 AM
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#35
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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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Jun 30 2009, 06:24 PM
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#36
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
There was a somewhat distant Earth flyby of Epoxi on 29 June at some 1.3 million km ... distant yet Epoxi is still closer to Earth than Planck is at the moment. Next close-ish approach at the end of the year
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Aug 1 2009, 03:39 PM
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#37
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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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Aug 28 2009, 06:39 PM
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#38
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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 |
Browsing the DSN schedule (http://rapweb.jpl.nasa.gov/Planning/TMODMISS.pdf) I noticed that EPOXI is to conclude in November 2010 after the Hartley flyby, but the document gives a "probable end" date for the mission of 31 October 2011. Any idea what they plan to use the spacecraft for during the intervening year?
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Aug 29 2009, 05:03 PM
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#39
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 57 Joined: 21-September 06 Member No.: 1172 |
Any idea what they plan to use the spacecraft for during the intervening year? EPOXI trajectory from HORIZONS lasts till February 1, 2012. My program predicts several distant flybys of tiny asteroids and pass through cloud of Schwassmann-Wachmann comets: CODE Object Name Distance(AU) Date 73P-BB/Schwassmann-Wachmann 0.15935 2011-May-30 73P-V/Schwassmann-Wachmann3 0.06787 2011-Jun-15 73P-BD/Schwassmann-Wachmann 0.06865 2011-Jun-21 73P-BG/Schwassmann-Wachmann 0.06644 2011-Jun-28 73P-BR/Schwassmann-Wachmann 0.07153 2011-Jul-02 73P-BF/Schwassmann-Wachmann 0.09753 2011-Jul-23 73P-AT/Schwassmann-Wachmann 0.11083 2011-Aug-27 I guess they could tweak spacecraft's trajectory and study some of these objects. |
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Aug 31 2009, 05:47 AM
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#40
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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 wrote to EPOXI PI to ask for some clarifications and he tells me that
QUOTE Oct 2011 is the official end of our contract from NASA for EPOXI, but that includes the preliminary analysis phase. Our current plan is that spacecraft operations will end in Dec 2010.
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Sep 17 2009, 05:09 AM
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#41
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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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Sep 24 2009, 12:49 AM
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#42
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" but I thought I'd check here...has there been a PDS release of any of the Deep Impact / EPOXI data from after the Tempel 1 encounter? Specifically, have any of the MRI or HRI images of Earth and/or Moon hit the PDS?
--Emily -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Sep 24 2009, 06:02 AM
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#43
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14448 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
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Sep 25 2009, 08:50 AM
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#44
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 18-March 09 From: Pasadena, CA USA Member No.: 4677 |
Hi all:
Just a quick update. EPOXI scientists have discovered water absorption features on the moon. The data was obtained from the IR spectrometer calibrations taken in December and twice in June. Chandryaan's M3 instrument also observed similar absorption features. This was published in Science yesterday. Read more here: http://epoxi.umd.edu/2science/hydratedmoon.shtml ~Rich |
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Dec 14 2009, 06:31 PM
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#45
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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 |
Yet another EPOXI-related paper on arXiv:
Studying the atmosphere of the exoplanet HAT-P-7b via secondary eclipse measurements with EPOXI, Spitzer and Kepler |
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