[X] My Assistant

[Decepticon]

I hope this gets approved!

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/05071...yby_future.html

[gpurcell]

I hope this gets approved!

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/05071...yby_future.html

Hm. Indicates that it would need to be approved as a new Discovery project.

Not sure that would be the best use of resources...particularly with the messed up optics.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Of course, they're talking about it as one of the little "Missions of Opportunity" -- consisting, up to now, of single instruments piggybacking on other nations' planetary spacecraft -- whose cost cap is $30 million. And the HRI's optics aren't THAT badly messed up -- it is, I think, still about 3 times higher resolution than the MRI. (Take a look at the difference between the HRI and MRI movies of the Tempel impact if you don't believe me.) I remain convinced that it is well worth doing for that cost.

[djellison]

Hell yes - they it would be madness to throw away a fantastic instrument in space with so much opportunity to do good science. Be it an Asteroid, Comet or BOTH flybys

Genesis - granted - not much it could do ( and I believe it's now officially retired, and drifting into a slight earth leading solar orbit )

Stardust - it's going to be a tired, fuel-starved vehicle when it gets home.

But this is almost brand new

Doug

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

They came fairly close to assigning Genesis to an extended mission monitoring the solar wind (under the name "Exodus") -- but finally decided that its lack of a magnetometer made it non-cost-effective.

[remcook]

another stupid question of mine:
where does NASA get the money from for all extended missions? Does it affect any other missions? Does it have to go through congress?

[tty]

I remember that Carl Sagan once suggested in a book that some private foundation should "pick up" residual NASA missions as they were "turned off", and that this would be an extremely cost-effective way to conduct research. Perhaps an idea to explore. One problem is of course that access to the DSN will usually be required.

tty

[dvandorn]

Yeah -- and NASA controls the DSN. So, if you have a good idea to use left-over planetary probes, all well and good -- but if you need to use the DSN to communicate with them, you're SOL if NASA doesn't want to give you DSN privileges.

I think we need to figure out alternatives to the DSN before we can talk about private extensions of planetary probe missions. And since there *are* no alternatives to the DSN for communicating with planetary probes, that doesn't leave much in the way of alternatives...

-the other Doug

[abalone]

Yeah -- and NASA controls the DSN.  So, if you have a good idea to use left-over planetary probes, all well and good -- but if you need to use the DSN to communicate with them, you're SOL if NASA doesn't want to give you DSN privileges.-the other Doug

There are quite a few radio telescopes that are not part of the DSN, example the radio telescope in Parkes, Australia. It does work for DSN like Apollo 11, attempts to re-establish contact with Pathfinder when it died and the Mars Polar Lander when it dissappeared, some of the Huygens downlink, but most of the time it does research. There are others around the world as well, it would just take some coordination to put together a useful syndicate. It would depend entirely if they could be convinced to give up a few hours of telescope time to do this work. There is no reason why NASA has a monopoly through its DSN on communication with probes.

[Bob Shaw]

Could a network of semi-amateur/student/small organisation stations be set up using apeture synthesis/phased array techniques and aggressive, SETI@Home-like signal processing to pick up data? We're talking about, in many cases, a very low bitrate for 99% of the time. Amateurs certainly picked up Apollo transmissions in the 1960s, and presumably could have listened to the ALSEPs until they fell silent.

[djellison]

I'm guessing you want at least an equiv to a 35m dish.

What's the pricetag on one of those anyway - and would an array of smaller dished adding up to a similar or larger size be a cheaper option

Doug

[Phil Stooke]

Re: Abalone's comment about other radio telescopes etc....

We are going to be hearing more about this in a little while! Too bad I can't say more right now but just wait. Things are bubbling away beneath the surface like... buried bubbling things.

Phil

[abalone]

Could a network of semi-amateur/student/small organisation stations be set up using apeture synthesis/phased array techniques and aggressive, SETI@Home-like signal processing to pick up data?

It is not enough to just pick up data, you have to be able to transmit commands as well. Parkes has two dishes the larger being about 64m, the same as the larger dishes in the DSN.
If you have not seen the movie, there is one called "The Dish" starring Sam Neil that give quite a good account of its contributuion to the first Moon landing.

[Bob Shaw]

It is not enough to just pick up data, you have to be able to transmit commands as well. Parkes has two dishes the larger being about 64m, the same as the larger dishes in the DSN.
If you have not seen the movie, there is one called "The Dish" starring Sam Neil that give quite a good account of its contributuion to the first Moon landing.

For some high percentage of the time, listening is probably acceptable - especially with semi-dormant spacecraft, and I still wonder whether big dishes are required for that. Obviously, you *do* need a big dish to wake 'em up and tell them to perform, because they only have little titchy antennae on 'em and they just wouldn't hear you otherwise.

I wonder what the post-encounter cruise bitrate(s) for New Horizons is(are), and what the long-term strategy for the vehicle is (if you're not running cameras or other warm things, and are prepared to accept a c-o-l-d vehicle) assuming there's cash to fund it? We have a decade plus of computational advancement to prepare for the Pluto encounter, assuming that a distributed reception network is feasible, and potentially decades more of operation thereafter (I hope!).

[abalone]

For some high percentage of the time, listening is probably acceptable - especially with semi-dormant spacecraft, and I still wonder whether big dishes are required for that.

My recollection is that it does not quite wark this way. The Voyager craft for example I believe still have several hours of com time each week. This must be followed by a ground transmission of an aknowledgement of receipt otherwise it would just keep repeating the transmission and wasting power. In sleep mode the craft still need to maintain attitude, charge batteries, regulate temp and constant self diagnosis and be regularly monitored by com with the ground.