Bright spot on Venus Options

[Juramike]

space.com story on mysterious cloud brightening on Venus:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0907...right-spot.html


...also spotted by an amateur astronomer.

[remcook]

"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?

[stevesliva]

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.

[ugordan]

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.

I think it would take several weeks at least. New sequences are uploaded onto the s/c weeks ahead of execution and they would need to be worked out and tested and validated on the ground before that.

[stevesliva]

I think it would take several weeks at least. New sequences are uploaded onto the s/c weeks ahead of execution and they would need to be worked out and tested and validated on the ground before that.

Yeah. And they need to hold the meetings where they tell the instrument teams on the wrong side of the spacecraft that their science is getting removed.