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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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remcook
post Aug 5 2009, 07:24 AM
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"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."

I suspect it might have been more hard to do if the instrument was already in proper science phase. But perhaps someone would have been willing to give up time...

For Cassini I remember there was a re-design after discovery of Enceladus' plumes by the magnetometer. There were 4 months in between the flybys and I think this was an 'all hands on deck' kind of moment. Maybe John Spencer can tell more about this? The manpower for VEX is a lot smaller, but I suspect if there was really something big going on it would in principle be possible to change the design within a month or so if people put in all efforts (cndwrld?). I'm not sure it makes sense changing the designs in this case since VMC has a whole globe view at least every orbit. I wouldn't be surprised if they saw the entire atmosphere every orbit. What would you change in the observations and is it worth the extra manpower?

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stevesliva
post Aug 5 2009, 04:27 PM
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QUOTE (remcook @ Aug 5 2009, 03:24 AM) *
For Cassini I remember there was a re-design after discovery of Enceladus' plumes by the magnetometer. There were 4 months in between the flybys and I think this was an 'all hands on deck' kind of moment.


From reading the Cassini status reports, the biggest rip-up is changing the trajectory, the second biggest is changing the pointing, and the third biggest is changing the timing. For timing updates, they have whitespace in their plans, for pointing updates they obviously have to throw out the old and begin anew, but they can do this with reasonable speed given proper motivation. A few weeks, I think?? But that is a special request.
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john_s
post Aug 5 2009, 05:11 PM
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The July 2005 Cassini Enceladus flyby was definitely a special case. The decision to change the trajectory to reduce the close approach distance was made in mid-April 2005, just 3 months before the encounter. There was already a fully-developed observation plan, but we only had to tweak the period around close approach (maybe +/- 30 minutes or something like that). It was a scramble, but of course it paid off big time. I don't think we've made a tweak of that magnitude at such short notice since then- usually even the detailed observation sequence is pretty much frozen 4 or 5 months out. I suspect that if there was a big impact on Saturn, say, something could be done to observe it with a lead time of a couple of weeks, but it would be a major effort that would take away from other high-priority planning work- not a decision to be made lightly.

You can be a lot more flexible in planning observations for a spacecraft that can happily sit tight while you figure out your next move, than for a spacecraft that's careening through the solar system at many kilometers per second!

John
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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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