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Bright spot on Venus
Juramike
post Jul 30 2009, 09:33 PM
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space.com story on mysterious cloud brightening on Venus:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0907...right-spot.html


...also spotted by an amateur astronomer.


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dvandorn
post Aug 4 2009, 07:37 PM
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Ummm... let me get this straight. VEX ops are pre-planned four months in advance and nothing can be changed in those pre-planned ops plans? So that any follow-up on transient phenomena literally cannot take place for at least four months?

If that's the case, then we truly don't have a resource at Venus that can do anything at any given time except its pre-planned program, which will always be a good four months out of date. I guess we can take "respond to transient phenomena or rapid changes in environment" off the list of VEX's abilities. (I know, it's never been a claim of the project.... but, as Doug says, the whole thing gives me rage.)

But, to be fair... with what do I compare this? Can Cassini's op executions be changed after they are loaded into the spacecraft? If so, how quickly? How fast can Cassini respond to some changing circumstance? How about Hubble? We know Hubble had been packed solid with use requests and that it was still capable of being re-tasked to get Jupiter images within a week of the first detection of the impact on old Jove.

Maybe we're all just too used to ops plans like those for the MERs, where what we do tomorrow is highly impacted by what happened today. Obviously, many NASA probes (especially those in the outer system) don't have that kind of operational flexibility, either. So... how does VEX compare to other planetary probes in terms of being re-tasked?

-the other Doug


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cndwrld
post Aug 6 2009, 07:51 AM
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QUOTE (dvandorn @ Aug 4 2009, 09:37 PM) *
Ummm... let me get this straight. VEX ops are pre-planned four months in advance and nothing can be changed in those pre-planned ops plans? So that any follow-up on transient phenomena literally cannot take place for at least four months?

If that's the case, then we truly don't have a resource at Venus that can do anything at any given time except its pre-planned program, which will always be a good four months out of date. I guess we can take "respond to transient phenomena or rapid changes in environment" off the list of VEX's abilities. (I know, it's never been a claim of the project.... but, as Doug says, the whole thing gives me rage.)

But, to be fair... with what do I compare this? Can Cassini's op executions be changed after they are loaded into the spacecraft? If so, how quickly? How fast can Cassini respond to some changing circumstance? How about Hubble? We know Hubble had been packed solid with use requests and that it was still capable of being re-tasked to get Jupiter images within a week of the first detection of the impact on old Jove.

Maybe we're all just too used to ops plans like those for the MERs, where what we do tomorrow is highly impacted by what happened today. Obviously, many NASA probes (especially those in the outer system) don't have that kind of operational flexibility, either. So... how does VEX compare to other planetary probes in terms of being re-tasked?

-the other Doug


Any other questions?


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Posts in this topic
- Juramike   Bright spot on Venus   Jul 30 2009, 09:33 PM
- - marsbug   Volcanoes at last? Or some strange artifact of ven...   Aug 3 2009, 01:37 PM
- - Stu   Yaaay for the amateurs! But what a shame we do...   Aug 3 2009, 02:16 PM
- - remcook   It's bright in UV, which means there's pro...   Aug 3 2009, 02:28 PM
- - MarsIsImportant   I wouldn't rule out volcanic just yet. We...   Aug 4 2009, 01:19 PM
- - remcook   I think the space.com article said "We have s...   Aug 4 2009, 01:48 PM
- - cndwrld   To give people some idea of what to expect, a few ...   Aug 4 2009, 02:25 PM
|- - imipak   In defence of ESA: the Saturn system, and Mars, ar...   Aug 4 2009, 08:34 PM
- - Stu   Good to hear the Venus Express team is excited by ...   Aug 4 2009, 02:47 PM
- - Greg Hullender   Venus is usually too close to the Sun for Hubble t...   Aug 4 2009, 04:56 PM
- - dvandorn   Ummm... let me get this straight. VEX ops are pre...   Aug 4 2009, 07:37 PM
|- - cndwrld   QUOTE (dvandorn @ Aug 4 2009, 09:37 PM) U...   Aug 6 2009, 07:51 AM
|- - tedstryk   With the slow Venusian rotation, if the white spot...   Aug 6 2009, 08:46 PM
- - remcook   "We know Hubble had been packed solid with us...   Aug 5 2009, 07:24 AM
|- - MahFL   We are talking Europeans who go on vacation for a ...   Aug 5 2009, 01:27 PM
||- - ugordan   You have a problem with that?   Aug 5 2009, 03:11 PM
|- - stevesliva   QUOTE (remcook @ Aug 5 2009, 03:24 AM) Fo...   Aug 5 2009, 04:27 PM
|- - ugordan   QUOTE (stevesliva @ Aug 5 2009, 06:27 PM)...   Aug 5 2009, 04:36 PM
||- - stevesliva   QUOTE (ugordan @ Aug 5 2009, 12:36 PM) I ...   Aug 5 2009, 05:12 PM
|- - john_s   The July 2005 Cassini Enceladus flyby was definite...   Aug 5 2009, 05:11 PM
- - ollopa   There are now some earth-based pictures on the VEX...   Aug 5 2009, 01:17 PM
- - Phil Stooke   Good point. It would have to be one gigantic belc...   Aug 6 2009, 09:40 PM
- - tedstryk   We need to check the satellite maps. If a big, wh...   Aug 7 2009, 11:41 PM


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