[X] My Assistant

[jsheff]

The January PSG meeting is now in progress and the tour for extended mission is scheduled to be chosen on Thursday (Feb 1). There are 13 tours being considered OF4a, PF-3, PF-4, PF-6, PF-6h9, PF-7, PF-8, PF-9, PF-10, PF-11, PF-12 & PF-13 --plus 'tweaks' on these tours e.g. there is a PF-8a, PF-9a

S-S-So ... has anybody heard anything?

- John Sheff
Cambridge, MA

[john_s]

The winner is (drum roll please) PF6h9. Officially adopted on Thursday. I haven't sifted through all the details yet, but from my parochial point of view, I know it includes seven close Enceladus flybys, so that's good. Most of the science groups (Titan, Rings, Magnetosphere, Saturn, and Icy Satellites) were pretty happy with this choice- it packs in an amazing number of science opportunities.

John.

[belleraphon1]

I agree that, moonwise, Titan and Enceladus are the prime targets for extended mission exploration....

But....

For those who say "one more flyby will tell us all we need to know about Iapetus". Reminds me of all those squggly line scientists who once said "Viking gave us all the pictures of Mars we will ever need".

Let's wait for this years Iapetus close flyby and I am sure more mysteries will unfold. Nature is never as nice and neat as our paper calculations........... and those equatorial mountains are saying something very significant about this world's (and the Saturn system) development.

I hope that another Iapetus flyby can be fit into the second extended mission. Otherwise we wait for the next dedicated Saturn orbiter (which will undoubtably focus on Titan or Enceladus) that can spare some time to scan that mountain range....... and at my age I will probably be viewing that from some assisted living facility (yuck..... rather have the ice at Headlands on Lake Erie take me).

Craig

[ugordan]

Reminds me of all those squggly line scientists who once said "Viking gave us all the pictures of Mars we will ever need".

Yes, but Mars was/is geologically active. Iapetus looks like it's... well, dead. Probably been for a very long time now. The question is if it even differentiated, it sure as heck has one lumpy shape with all those enormous impact basins.

I like to think about Iapetus the same way as Phoebe. How much more would we learn if we had another close flyby? I'm guessing not that much. Don't get me wrong, Iapetus is one of my favorite Saturnian moons from an imaging point of view and I'd like to see more close-ups just as the next guy. Scientifically, I don't know how interesting that would be.