Dawn Survey Orbit Phase, First orbital phase Options

[ElkGroveDan]

Don't forget New Horizons which released raw images during cruise phase. I'm not sure anyone else can say that...?

unless you count Phoenix's image of its soil scoop taken during cruise

[Bart]

CLASS 2 : Releases one image per day

If it really is once per day, where is today's image?

[tedstryk]

If they do as Messenger has done and have speedy PDS releases, I don't see a problem. I would like full raw releases as the images come in, but I can see the argument against it as well.

[volcanopele]

How about one image per Vesta day? *ducks and runs*

[dilo]

Science Survey Orbit is almost reached:

Now, Dawn is engine-off on almost circular orbit (taking navigation pictures?)... next engine burn could be the final one before "definitive" orbit insertion!

[Gladstoner]

I too am a bit disappointed with the slow image releases, but because there is so much to take in with each new image, not to mention that the mission was almost cancelled -- twice, I'm happy that there is anything to see at all. After staring at the Hubble images for the past several years, I'm thrilled to see the smorgasbord of features and detail on this newly revealed, yet strangely familiar world.

(BTW, I'm not so sure I'll be the same if there is a similar policy with MSL. Having traveled to the American southwest 11 times in the last 20 years, I will probably have minor conniption fits if I have to stick to my imagination at Gale. For some of us travelers and hikers, its all about rolls and rolls of film -- and memory cards -- with thousands of photos....)

[Explorer1]

SOHO does pretty much constant releases, does it not count as a ESA mission (or because its not a planet mission)?

[Gladstoner]

SOHO does pretty much constant releases, does it not count as a ESA mission (or because its not a planet mission)?

SOHO images are probably released quickly because solar activity potentially has economic consequences across the world and needs to be disseminated in a timely manner.

Also, the armchair comet hunters would complain....

[djellison]

Science Survey Orbit is almost reached:
Now, Dawn is engine-off on almost circular orbit (taking navigation pictures?)... next engine burn could be the final one before "definitive" orbit insertion!

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/feature_stories/s...ence_orbits.asp
" That initial orbit of the rocky world Vesta begins Aug. 11, at an altitude of nearly 1,700 miles"

[machi]

Mission Status, August 2, 2011

"Dawn Completes Spiraling to Survey Orbit"

[elakdawalla]

I'm not so sure I'll be the same if there is a similar policy with MSL.

MSL is being held to the policy established by MER. You can start your drooling now

I was thinking the other day that it would be interesting to try to actually quantitatively analyze the impact of releasing all raw images vs releasing one image a day vs releasing basically nothing except in occasional press releases. All three methods are being used. I've heard the argument before that releasing too many pictures blunts the impact of occasional releases. I know how we all feel about that argument; but I don't know of anyone who's tried to examine and quantify the amount of attention a mission receives and correlate that with their frequency of press releases and image releases. Scientists do (or at least should) respond to data. While I would like to believe that the data would show a greater impact correlating with greater openness with data, there's always the possibility that I'm wrong about that.

[Juramike]

This might be easy to check.

Next time you give a talk (museum, library, schoolroom, general outreach):

"Show of hands, how many people have heard of the Mars Exploration Rovers?"
"How many have heard of the Cassini mission?" "How many know where it is?"
"How many have heard of the Dawn mission?" "How many know where it is?"

(As a control, see how many people know what planet the Mars Exploration Rovers are on).

[volcanopele]

Well, one anecdotal piece of evidence is the activity level of the MESSENGER forum here. That project is also using a one image a day policy. The current thread for the project, has only 25 messages in the 4.5 months since the mission began.

[elakdawalla]

That's not entirely a fair comparison -- orbital survey missions are just inherently not as sexy as the treks of the rovers or the Voyager-over-and-over-again tour of Cassini; so if I'd had to prioritize which two missions I'd want all the raws from, I'd've picked those two. Interestingly, most orbital survey missions appear to be following the image-a-day-ish model. MESSENGER - Odyssey - MOC did the same thing, in their day - Cassini's tried to have it both ways, raws plus captioned image a day (and how many of us actually pay any attention to those captioned images?) - HiRISE effectively does one-ish captioned per day, though their 3-month PDS release timeline appears to be close enough to immediate for just about everybody. LROC does 3 per week.

Ironically, it's now that Dawn's in survey orbit that I care less about getting all the images. I wanted them all when the images would have let me ride along with the adventure of navigating to a new, unexplored world. We've arrived, and we've just been given a trove of riches, a survey of all longitudes. And now we'll be fed postage stamps that we won't get to choose. I expect our communal attention to wane.

[hendric]

In my opinion, there have only been one microscoop and one miniscoop.
The microscoop was the discussion we had here when the first Enceladus images were sent back with the geysers. Once they were confirmed there was some high-fives around here, but nothing "public" was ever really said.
The miniscoop was when a certain reporter asked a certain scientist about certain features returning to a certain planet during a lecture before the scientist got to see the images. Said scientist has made their feelings very well known about the incident, but beyond the immediate event the only public fallout that I know of was on here. The scientist's attitude in this specific case was very much of a gatekeeper to knowledge, vs the Steve Squyres' mentality of a co-explorer and companion on a wonderful journey. I don't go to the scientist's mission website precisely because of that attitude, and I'm probably not the only one. I'd much rather hang out with friends who are happy to point me in the right direction to do it myself or do it for me.

There are some real benefits to engaging with your fan base. Dawn could be getting continuous rotation movies like above, or 3d stereo images (red/blue, cross-eyed, parallel), Kodak moments, armchair analysis, comparison views, preliminary maps, etc, etc, done for free by a bunch of people who love space exploration, and love talking about it to their friends and families and schools (and congresspeople). We could be having discussions about the best image of the latest batch, discussing what causes A and B and C, and WTF is D?? Instead we'll get one image a day, sure it's showcasing something interesting, but I'm sure each of us have a different view of what is interesting, and even if we don't all necessarily talk, would like to hear the discussion among the rest of the UMSF crew.

That being said, I do want to thank the Imaging Team for their presence here at UMSF. Even though you'll probably get no credit for it, this is definitely outreach and it matters to me.