[X] My Assistant

[jasedm]

Reading the significant events report for 6th December, it appears that there will be a 10-day period next year where Cassini data may be lost due to the Phoenix requirement for DSN coverage during entry, descent and landing at Mars.
This is unfortunate as it appears that the actual landing (25th May 2008) of Phoenix occurs during periapse for Cassini. There are good flybys of Pallene, Atlas and Janus on that day (whether observations of these are planned or not, I'm not sure) but the Titan flyby on 28th May should be unaffected
The significant events report states possibly 50% data loss over the ten days.

Of course, Phoenix should definitely take priority...

What with sometime heavy rain over Madrid and the increasing number of missions though, I propose a large relay station at our L2 lagrange point

[djellison]

There's the ESTRACK dishes at Cebreros and New Norcia that could assist - but they'll probably be on-call for MEX for the Phoenix EDL relay.

Doug