Venus Express Options

[cndwrld]

VEX Nature Papers Available

The suite of VEX papers published in the journal Nature are available at:

http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/venusexpress/index.html

The are available for open use, and they are free.

For anyone interested in Venus, or climate modeling in general, the sum of the papers is much more than the individual ones. Taken together, it seems that we can finally begin to understand how the place works, and how it got to be the way it is. It is an atmosphere which works totally different than Earths, and it is fascinating stuff.

I think ESA has done a good job with the graphics used to illustrate the main talking points from the papers and the news conference which was held in conjunction with the Nature release. To view them, you can go to:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/...73R8F_0_ov.html

[OWW]

I think ESA has done a good job with the graphics used to illustrate the main talking points

I can't open the pictures in the article "Caught in the wind from the Sun:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEM0G373R8F_0.html

[tty]

That must have cost ESA a pretty penny. Free access isn't exactly Nature's strong point.

[djellison]

Brilliant to see the results beginning to come out - can't begin to pretend I understand much of it yet - but I'll get there

[remcook]

I guess giving free access to papers is a form of outreach/PR...good idea! (though probably expensive)

[cndwrld]

Opening up the papers to public access is indeed expensive, but ESA must have thought the results significant enough to fund it. But FYI, the public access is only temporary, on the order of a couple months. So anyone interested in the results should not wait too long before checking it out.

[cndwrld]

Planetary Science Operations Consolidated At ESAC

ESA maintained its science operations teams for planetary missions at the European Space and Technology Center (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands. But 18 January is my last day at ESTEC, and I'm the last person in science operations scheduled to transfer. With my departure, all planeary science operations, with the exception of MEX, will be done at the European Space and Astronomy Center (ESAC). This includes VEX, Rosetta, and upcoming missions. The astronomy missions were there previously, so with minor exceptions all ESA science operations will be done at ESAC. And the site is expanding, so we anticipate more things being moved or started there in the future.

If you're interested, ESAC is at: 40°26'38.83"N, 3°57'12.26"W. I Tried to attach a Google KMZ file, but it said that I was not permitted to upload this type of file. Too bad. If you Google Earth the location, you can see that there is a castle overlooking the site, sitting just to the left.

The ESAC site info on the ESA web pages is at:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESAC/index.html

[djellison]

When I toured the 'back office' of ESOC at the Rosetta Mars Flyby, there were control rooms for many missions - have all those transfered to ESAC now then as well? And what will be conducted at ESOC and ESTEC in the future? Would future press events ( like the mars flyby) be held at ESAC instead now?

No offense to any German readers - but Madrid sounds like a much more exciting trip than Darmstadt

Good luck with the move!

Doug

[peter59]

Third anniversary of this interesting page developed by Venus Express Group.
http://www-atm.physics.ox.ac.uk/project/vi...tis-images.html
Congratulation to University of Oxford.
(Sorry, it's joke. "Coming soon" are key words of a joke.)

[remcook]

First of all, that page is not developed by a big Venus Express Group. It was made by a single grad student (who is pretty much the largest part of the Oxford Venus Express 'Group'), whilst probably trying to avoid writing his thesis. If he didn't make this page there would be nothing at all. About the images, even if he wanted and had time to put images on it, I'm not sure he'd get permission by PI's to do this outside of the main ESA site and/or before it's all in PDS.
It's not all as simple as it seems. Pretty much all outreach done by university staff is done in their (limited) spare time. They're not payed at all for these kinds of efforts (often it actually costs them money). In short, outreach is not on the university's agenda, which brings us back to the ever-occurring problem of ESA outreach, since almost all scientists on ESA missions are not employed by ESA, but by universities. Even their research grants for ESA science don't come from ESA, but from the National research councils.

mods-feel free to move this to ESA PR thread.

[centsworth_II]

...it's joke.

Well, I thought it was funny, and I'm not a rabid ESA hater.

I do thank remcook for the background info. It was interesting, if not funny.

[cndwrld]

Sorry for the long delay in answering Doug's question. I've been getting my household moved to Spain. Thanks for the good wishes; it is nice to finally be here. From the Madrid area, there is a large, bright object in the sky for about 10 hours a day which gives off a lot of light and heat. I'm trying to identify it.

The actual ESA spacecraft operations will remain at ESOC, in Darmstadt Germany. So exciting events will still be done from there. Those rooms that were toured are still there, and still full of activity from the excellent operation teams.

What has now been relocated to ESAC, near Madrid, is the science operations. MEX is something of a special case, as RAL in England is heavily involved in MEX science operations, so that isn't being moved. But Rosetta and VEX will now have science operations done from ESAC. And future missions are expected to be done from there. We will work with the instrument teams to collate and check their instrument commands; those are then sent to ESOC for a final check, and for upload to the spacecraft.

[Greg Hullender]

From the Madrid area, there is a large, bright object in the sky for about 10 hours a day which gives off a lot of light and heat. I'm trying to identify it.

I saw that here last week too. Kind of low in the southern sky. Really, really bright. Could hear everyone up and down the hallway lowering their blinds, since it made it hard to read your screen. Fortunately it went away after about 30 minutes. We're calling it "the bright yellow thing."

So you say ESA is observing this too?

--Greg (Seattle) :-)

[cndwrld]

ESA has put out a press release about a paper published by the Venus Express VIRTIS team. The paper gives some details about the composition of the lower atmosphere. You can see it on the Science and Tech pages (with graphs!) at
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=42249

and the general press release at
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEMMJ432VBF_0.html

[peter59]

Five new VEX's images. I'm shocked.
The light and dark of Venus