[X] My Assistant

[edstrick]

tallbear: "....However, the Cassin Tour will be altered in early 2006 and these opportunities may go away while others may appear.....

Uh... Say WHAT?....is this a branch to an entirely different series of encounters than the second half of the primary mission that they've been designing in (necessarily) obsessive-compulsive detail for the last decade? Did they have to retarget to make a close flyby of a Vogon Mothership? Or did they find a spinning blue telephone call-box floating in Saturn orbit? <grin!>

[volcanopele]

A few things I should note: first, in order to accomplish the icy satellite flybys, we have to descend from the high inclination orbit we have at the end of the nominal mission to Saturn's equatorial plane, and that will take lots o' hydrazine, especially if we want to do it quickly. We could stay up to continue to monitor the rings, but that would also require hydrazine, as we would naturally decrease in inclination over time.

[tallbear]

A few things I should note: first, in order to accomplish the icy satellite flybys, we have to descend from the high inclination orbit we have at the end of the nominal mission to Saturn's equatorial plane, and that will take lots o' hydrazine, especially if we want to do it quickly.  We could stay up to continue to monitor the rings, but that would also require hydrazine, as we would naturally decrease in inclination over time.

depends upon which sats have priority ... during revs 6 thru 14 the ring plance crossing occured righte close to 4.0 Rs which is great for Enceladus... and those orbits were inclinded in the 20'ish degree range to optimize for RSS OCCs. Studies are in place to see what sorts of orbits are required for what satellites and if any satellite flybys require
an EQ orbit. ... and there are lots of events that can not be viewed in EQ orbits so the pressure is on ..... all these EM studies and discussions are in their infancy .... so don't expect more than specualtion for ages.( Feb 2007 with a fair HINT at the naure of the Tour out in Aug 2006) ,....

[volcanopele]

depends upon which sats have priority ...  during revs 6 thru 14 the ring plance crossing occured righte close to 4.0 Rs  which is great for Enceladus... and those orbits were inclinded in the 20'ish degree range to optimize for RSS OCCs.  Studies are in place to see what sorts of orbits are required for what satellites and if any satellite flybys require
an EQ orbit.  ...  and there are lots of events that can not be viewed in EQ orbits so the pressure is on .....  all these EM studies and discussions are in their infancy ....  so don't expect more than specualtion for ages.( Feb 2007 with a fair HINT at the naure of the  Tour out in Aug 2006) ,....

That's my understanding too. I wouldn't be surprised if somekind of compromise tour is select, where we stay up reasonably high, a few Enceladus encounters (1-3) and plenty of non-targeteds. HOWEVER, such a plan would all but eliminate another Iapetus encounter, I would think.

BTW, thanks for explaining what observations the rings people could get from staying high.

[tallbear]

BTW, thanks for explaining what observations the rings people could get from staying high.

The CIRS folk really want to see the season change on the Rings as the Sun crosses into the Northern Hemisphere and sunlight hits the North side of the Rings. Right now the unlit side of the B-ring looks like most of it hardly knows about the sun .... they want to see how fast the lit side cools and how fast the dark side warms when the 'season' swap occurs.

Star Occs arund the Prometheus - F_ring collision will tell us about how this event affects the F_ring as well as the wakes in the A ring ... those star Occs will also tell us about how the next J-E orbital swap afftects those wakes.... and the speculation about the height of the wakes aldo is a driver for watching the EQ crossing to look at possible shadows of those wakes/waves... but we don't need to be at a super high inclination to watch any of these events....

BTW... there is a proposed Saturn Ring Mission that would orbit just above the Rings (on the lit side) .. requires lots of orbital maintenance maneuvers ... it's out there on the wish list of Missions that are being proposed....

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

BTW... there is a proposed Saturn Ring Mission that would orbit just above the Rings (on the lit side) .. requires  lots of orbital maintenance maneuvers ...  it's out there on the wish list of Missions that are being proposed....

Is that Tom Spilker's Saturn Ring Observer mission concept?