Just to clarify, there is no connection between "The Messinger' the free magazine and "The Messenger" the Space Probe, and "The Messinger" the resident board anarchist

I enjoy working with people. My mission responsibilities range over the entire operation of the forum, so I am constantly occupied. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all, I think, that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.

http://www.underview.com/2001/haltrans.html#afternoon

Open the pod bay doors, please, ljk...

-the other Doug

I'm sorry, the other Doug, I'm afraid I can't do that.

http://www.underview.com/2001/haltrans.html#goodbye

Visit ESA's new Multimedia Gallery at:

http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmghome.pl

Fantastic imaging - this is an excellent webpage!

Another month though, and still no report, 'Lessons Learned' or otherwise from the Huygens' channel 'A' failure.

Overstatement, no great shakes. Only artist's impressions, Mars pseudo-images generated by computer and some images of Earth. Typical for ESA. Unattractive.

Well I did like the EVA practice showing both Dutch & Belgian Astronauts together

Looking forward to the next ESA Bulletin !

COSMIC VISION 2015-2025: FUNDAMENTAL LAWS

Theme 3 - What are the fundamental physical laws of the Universe?

The most important challenge facing fundamental physics today is to
understand the foundations of nature more deeply. Physicists know that
the laws of physics as formulated at present do not apply at extremely
high temperatures and energies, so that events in the first fraction of
a second after the Big Bang are not at all understood. Matter as we
know it today did not then exist; protons and electrons formed later.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38657

=====================================================
FUTURE MISSION - UPDATES

PLANCK
The Planck Flight Model is currently being prepared for transport from
the prime contractor Alcatel Alenia Space (located in Cannes, France)
to the cryogenic test facility at Centre Spaciale de Liege (Belgium)
where the spacecraft will undergo thermal balance testing.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38729


HERSCHEL
The completed Herschel Structural and Thermal Qualification model
satellite has been mounted onto the HYDRA platform in preparation for
mechanical vibration and shock tests to complete the environmental
qualification campaign. This test is to ensure the satellite can cope
with the vibrations experienced during launch by the Ariane V launcher.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38735

=====================================================
STATUS REPORTS

VENUS EXPRESS
Report for Period 27 January - 02 February 2006

During the reporting period the Thermal Characterization Scenario with
Sun illumination of the cryo face (-X) and the Main Engine face (Z)
has been completed. The MAG instrument has
been switched ON, the Star Tracker Stray Light Test has been performed,
and a TM bit rate test with the Cebreros Ground Station has been
performed.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38728

=====================================================
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Very intriguing and lofty goals. I STILL think there is a tantalizing trail toward these very objectives in the Huygens' data - both what has been made public, and the pieces that are still being mulled over by the PI's. There are too many pieces of the puzzle that do not fit. Cassini also, is just scratching the surface.

Wednesday, 15-Feb-2006

COSMIC VISION 2015 - 2025: THE UNIVERSE

Theme 4 - How did the Universe originate and what is it made of?

Since antiquity, the Earth's inhabitants have observed the sky with curiosity
and perspicacity, taking advantage of technological progress to help understand
what the Universe is made of. Our present knowledge is the result of centuries
of continuous cross-fertilisation between astronomical observations and
theoretical constructions.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38658

====================================================
FUTURE MISSION - UPDATES

PLANCK
The Radio Frequency Qualification Model (RFQM) of Planck is being prepared in
the Compact Antenna Test Range of Alcatel Alenia Space in Cannes, France.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38780

HERSCHEL
Video footage of Herschel undergoing mechanical vibration and shock tests at the
ESTEC test facilities in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38802

====================================================
STATUS REPORTS

VENUS EXPRESS
Period 3 to 9 February 2006

Operations during the reporting period have been moved again over the
New Norcia station and spacecraft activities has focused on further TTC tests,
characterisation of STRs acquisition performance, and Radio Science activities.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38746

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Thursday, 30-Mar-2006

===================================================
MISSION RESULTS

+ CLUSTER AND DOUBLE STAR REVEAL THE EXTENT OF NEUTRAL SHEET OSCILLATIONS
For the first time, neutral sheet oscillations observed simultaneously at tens
of thousands kilometres distance are reported, thanks to observations by 5
satellites of the Cluster and the Double Star Program missions. Published 8
November 2005 in Annales Geophysicae, this new observational first provides
further constraint to model this large-scale phenomenon in the magnetotail.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38993

+ SMART-1 TRACKING OBSERVATION OF REINER GAMMA
SMART-1 has performed a tracking observation of Reiner Gamma, a bright albedo
feature located in the Oceanus Procellarum on the near side of the Moon. The
feature, originally thought to be a crater, was identified as a flat region with
a very high albedo when spacecraft imaged the region from lunar orbit.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39022

===================================================
MISSION STATUS REPORTS

+ VENUS EXPRESS - Perihelion Passage onto Venus Approach
After passing through perihelion, the Venus Express spacecraft is now heading
away from the Sun and the Venus approach phase is proceeding according to
schedule with the planned arrival at Venus on 11 April.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38992

===================================================
TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE 2006

On Wednesday, 29 March, the Moon's shadow swept over the Earth during the 4th
total solar eclipse of this century. Expeditions to two locations on the path of
totality have resulted in images of the solar corona during totality, as seen
from Benin in Africa and Kastellorizo in Greece.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38963

===================================================
VENUS EXPRESS GROUND OBSERVING PROJECT

The Venus Express Ground Observing Project (VEXGOP) is an opportunity to
contribute scientifically useful images and data to compliment the Venus Express
(VEX) spacecraft observations of Venus. The project will focus on utilising the
capabilities of advanced amateurs to obtain images of the atmosphere of Venus;
specifically filtered monochrome images obtained with CCD based cameras in the
350nm to 1000nm (near ultraviolet, visible and near infrared range).
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=38833

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It's a disaster ! They've got this new Ion-drive spacecraft, its up since 2003 and is now going around the Moon ( that's 3 years I heard some news about Moon Calcium and Lunar-Poles back in 2005 but that's about it
and I can count all the newsitems I've seen on this Smart-one on 'One-Hand', you guys are right the ESA is PR disaster !

For those of us silly enough to ride out the night of the Venus Expess insertion, the 'press' effort was very predictable: We had a silent webcam of the control room set at an angle that revealed nothing. Once again a great story, great success, and no technical detail

For news we had Emily running in and out of the briefing center, downloading her typing elsewhere, and finally we had a press conference where the only relevant question was artfully dogged:

"Did you achieve the desired orbit?"

"Ask me again in an hour, after we have ranging data."

It was a good answer, but a better on would have been "We have the Doppler, but not the ranging data, yet, and a report on whether or not the Doppler is nominal.

Finally, it has been many hours now, and of coarse, no ranging data has been publicly posted - (I would love to be wrong about this).

But not to worry, we were assured that there will be another press conference...at the end of the Venus Express mission

Edited to add:
At ~12:30 UTC the ESA announced the results of the orbital insertion are "nominal".

Monday, 24-Apr-2006

===================================================
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

+ 16TH ANNIVERSARY OF HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE [HEIC0604]
To celebrate the NASA-ESA Hubble Space Telescope's 16 years of success, the two
space agencies are releasing this mosaic image of the magnificent starburst
galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). It is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of
M82, a galaxy remarkable for its webs of shredded clouds and flame-like plumes
of glowing hydrogen blasting out from its central regions.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39139

+ MAGELLANIC GEMSTONES IN THE SOUTHERN SKY [HEIC0603]
Hubble has captured the most detailed images to date of the open star clusters
NGC 265 and NGC 290 in the Small Magellanic Cloud - two sparkling sets of
gemstones in the southern sky.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39107

===================================================
MISSION STATUS REPORTS

+ VENUS EXPRESS - ORBITAL CONTROL MANOEUVRES
Report for period 14 April - 20 April 2006. Venus Express has successfully
completed its 9-days capture orbit with the first of five Apocentre Lowering
Manoeuvres on Thursday, 20 April at about 08:00 UTC (200 m/s). This manoeuvre
has set the spacecraft onto an orbit with a period of about 40 hours and an
apocenter altitude of 99 000 km.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39138

+ ROSETTA - FIRST SOLAR CONJUNCTION
Report for period 10 March - 7 April 2006. The reporting period covers four
weeks of cruise, in which the spacecraft was gradually entering the first solar
conjunction of the mission. At the end of the reporting period the angular
separation from the Sun was down to 1.04°.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39113

+ SMART-1 - SMALL DROP IN SOLAR ARRAY POWER
Report for period 20 February to 19 March 2006. SMART-1 operations have been
nominal during this period. It has been found that after an eclipse occurred on
28 October, there was a drop in the solar array +Y current of about 1.1 Amps
(~52 Watts). The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), SMART-1's industrial prime
contractor, has suggested that the most probable cause is the loss of one
subsection of the solar array at the +Y panel. The small reduction in power is
not causing any problem for the spacecraft's day-to-day operation.
http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39073

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Interesting bit regarding this in Emily's excellent notes on the VEXAG meeting:

"I hear a lot of complaining from people about how ESA does not do as well as NASA as making its data available, either by way of press releases or through archiving of data in a way that other scientists can use. This strange lack of funding for data analysis is one of the reasons that ESA data tends to be less available than NASA data. It's not that the scientists don't want to share, it's that they simply don't get funded to do the work necessary to share. " [says Håkan Svedhem]

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000559/

Time for us Europeans to get off our backsides and start asking for some funding to be allocated for this.

This is somewhat of a red herring. Was there or was there not, an investigation into the Channel A failure on Huygens, and when will the (promised) report be released? Why wasn't the problem with the mirror on Venus Express made public until five months after the fact? The only mention I can find about safe mode problems of the Mars Express is in the articles touting that these problems have not surfaced on the Venus Express.

And in any event, saying that they lack the resources to properly study scientific data is all the more reason that it should be released to the public as soon as possible - if the data is not athenticated and calibrated, let the users know and beware. There are hundreds of hungry graduate students who would give their left eye for a crack at virgin data. This is very similar to what happened with the Dead Sea Scrolls - they were cloistured away for years waiting for the experts to have time to pick through them, but as soon as the pages where made publicly available, a fountain of papers emerged.

I don't think that's what they're saying. They're saying they aren't funded for preparation of data for public release NOT that they are unable to work through the data themselves.

...which is a better excuse than ITAR.

I have been very impressed with the Cassini mission reporting, both with the quick release of raw data, new observations, and the event log:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/sig-events.cfm

It is great to have a front row seat to a great mission!

I bring attention to this here, because of this entry in the Cassini event log:



I have to ask the question: Could the Huygens channel 'A' failure have been caused by the accidental tripping of the SSPS for the Huygens USO by a cosmic ray, rather than a programming error? The announcement that it was a programming error was made on the same day as the landing, at a time when everyone was exhaustively tired and not necessarily in best form for analysing code.

Has a follow-up report been issued confirming the programming error? Was it related to ITAR access restrictions as has been intimated elsewhere? As a sometimes analyst of critical event programing, it is difficult for me to imaging that the command to "Turn on the Power Supply" was omitted from a programing sequence that developed through years of careful planning. This is one time that a gremlin makes more sense.

I had the impression that the error was not in the computer programme content so much as in the workflow, and that the error was managerial rather than anything else - it simply wasn't picked up during whatever preparatory work was done.

I may be wrong...

Bob shaw

Why does ESA have an american presenter called Tammy?

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ESApod/SEMKFX8ATME_0.html

There was quite a detailed article on the error in Aviation Week, in which the ESA not only said flatly that it was a software error, but blamed ITAR for not allowing them to do enough software rechecks to catch it. More details later, when I'm not too tired to look them up.

Bruce:

I think we might not be in disagreement, except in the details of interpretation!

Bob Shaw

I keep checking the ESA site and their planetary data archive. I share the frustration voiced my many here about the lack of openness about data, images and mission status. I don't buy the argument that they lack resources to put images on a website. Every entry about Venus Express on their public website comes with those useless paintings or CGI renderings of the spacecraft doing this or that. That costs at least as much money as someone dropping a real image file into a website. It costs nothing at all for the PIs to drop a picture into a blog. The only exception seems to have been the Titan pictures, and I fear that was only because the PI on the camera system was from Arizona University.

Here are some links to supposed data resources:

VIRTIS - Images
VMC Images
Planetary Science Archive

I think there needs to be some public pressure on ESA about this issue, because frankly I just don't think they care if anyone other than the principle investigators have access to their data. Don't make excuses for them, complain!

Was it ITAR that caused them to forget the Doppler effect in their receiver design? I don't think so.
I think they are just using ITAR as a convenient excuse for simple human error.

Maybe. Anyway, here's the story from the 1-31-05 Aviation Week:

"Mission operations experts said there was an opportunity to catch the problem in a March 2003 rehearsal of the descent, and suggested that a heavy workload at the time and export-control rules conspired to hide the problem...

"Careful examination of the rehearsal engineering telemetry provided by the PSA [Probe Support Avionics package] would have shown that the RUSO [Receiver Ultra-Stable Oscillator] was off. But, because of the pointing angle of the Cassini antenna, during the rehearsal it was not possible for it to receive simulated Huugens radio signals coming from Earth. That allowed the missing RUSO instruction to remain obscured because actual RF operation of the receivers was not tested.

"Under the workshare agreement between JPL and ESA, this telemetry was provided to ESA for review without being examined by JPL, which at the time was busy preparing for Saturn orbit Insertion. ESA's inquiry is trying to determine how the problem was missed.

"The general agreement between JPL and ESA is to draw a line between the probe and the orbiter and define the interface between the two. Then each agency proceeds, sticking mainly to its own side. On the orbiter, this line was drawn between the PSA and the rest of the spacecraft. JPL acts as a courier service for ESA's binary commands to the PSA and data coming out of the PSA, which are decoded by ESA.

"This divided workshare is partly to simplify the arrangement, but it is also driven by ITAR [regulations] that seek a clear boundary and discourage JPL from providing assistance to ESA. Roles were separated in ground tests as well. When the PSA was tested at JPL, ESA engineers took the data and left, in part due to ITAR. As a result, there haven't been any systems engineers operating across the JPL/ESA interface on Cassini/Huygens. 'You have to have a systems enginer for the entire link or you are dommed,' one official said.

"David Southwood, ESA's science director, has made it clear from the outset that he considers his agency responsible for the error. But he noted last week that the problem 'clearly lies on the boundary between ESA and NASA, and so does ITAR.

" 'We are not against security measures by the US or anyone else, but we need to have effective international cooperation,' he said. 'We don't want this event to cause us to pull back [on cooperation], but interface issues are clearly part of the story.' "

Such interfaces are a potential problem, worthy of great scrutiny, regardless of whether they cross international boundaries. Southwood says himself, and this seems clearly the case from the facts in evidence, that this is ESA's error. If they knew the interface was critical, they should have been paying more attention to it. They built the receiver system on Cassini and it was their responsibility to insure it had been commanded into the right mode.

I'd read about this in the official ESA review, had they ever released any such thing.

Thanks for the legwork Bruce. I would still be much happier with a formal report issued months, not weeks after the faux paw.

"Careful examination of the rehearsal engineering telemetry provided by the PSA [Probe Support Avionics package] would have shown that the RUSO [Receiver Ultra-Stable Oscillator] was off. But, because of the pointing angle of the Cassini antenna, during the rehearsal it was not possible for it to receive simulated Huugens radio signals coming from Earth. That allowed the missing RUSO instruction to remain obscured because actual RF operation of the receivers was not tested."

This is amazing. Shouldn't this functionality of this code have been well-defined and tested long before launch, long before ITAR stuck its mitts into the gearbox?

The black-box status described should not have been acceptable to anyone involved in mission communications on either side of the Atlantic. How can you walk off into an eight year long trek in the forest without once making sure your walkie talkies are on the same frequency and the on/off switches are working

For what it is worth, I have never read any mention of ITAR in any of the hundreds of pages of mission planning documents. There are a number of places where NASA/ESA responsibilities are delineated, but as much as I would LIKE to blame ITAR, wasn't all of the contractual hocum in place long before ITAR?

Oh, there's no question that most of the blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of ESA -- Southwood would have looked like a moron to deny it, and as Mike Caplinger says they also screwed up the Doppler business on the receiver. (Thank God they caught THAT in early rehearsals -- I'm just waiting for the public reaction when an expensive outer Solar System probe spends years getting to its destination and then fails at the last second, as so many inner System missions have.)

But they are hardly the only ones griping about ITAR -- "Phoenix" project scientist Deborah Bass waxes almost apoplectic about it on her blogsite ( http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/features/we...eborah_bass.php , 6-17-05 and 9-15-05 entries).

Bruce, I'm not disputing that ITAR is a pain in the ass, but then so is international cooperation in general. Just scheduling telecons with Europe is a huge pain. For that matter, even the East Coast is a pain.

All I'm saying is that the notion that the Cassini problems were caused by ITAR is simply not supported by fact.

Of course, nobody likes to admit they made a multi-million-dollar boo-boo. In terms of being forthright, the ESA seems to be somewhere in between NASA and the early Soviets. Spaceflight is complex, and developing insanely rigorous QA and procedures is one of the hard-won lessons the Americans and Russians learned.

International Workshop Eyes Cooperative Solar System Exploration

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Internat...xploration.html

Sarteano, Italy (SPX) May 15, 2006 - More than 60 participants representing
space agencies from Europe, North America and Asia have concluded the ESA/ASI
Workshop for International Cooperation for Sustainable Space Exploration.

Don:

In between... ...18 months for DART, 17 months for the Huygens data cock-up, about a month or so for Soyuz-11 and weeks for the pre-ASTP Soyuz abort?

I think I'll stick with the Soviets!

Bob Shaw

MISSION NEWS AS OF 24 MAY 2006

+ SOHO MISSION EXTENSION

At the Science Programme Committee (SPC) meeting on 15-16 May, an extension of
the SOHO mission was approved, pushing back the mission end date from April 2007
to December 2009. The new funding ensures that SOHO plays a leading part in the
fleet of solar spacecraft scheduled for launch over the next few years.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39292

+ HUBBLE CAPTURES A FIVE-STAR RATED GRAVITATIONAL LENS [HEIC0606]

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the first-ever picture of a
distant quasar lensed into five images. In addition the picture holds a treasure
of lensed galaxies and even a supernova.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39283

+ AKARI FIRST LIGHT

AKARI (formerly known as ASTRO-F), the new Japanese infrared sky surveyor
mission in which ESA is participating, saw first light on 13 April 2006 (UT).
The first images were taken towards the end of a successful checkout of the
spacecraft in orbit and show the reflection nebula IC 4954 and spiral galaxy M
81.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39279

====================================================
MISSION STATUS REPORTS

+ SMART-1 SECOND PUSH-BROOM OPERATIONS PHASE

Report for period 17 April to 14 may 2006

This period saw the start of the second push-broom observations phase. SMART-1
operations have been nominal apart from a necessary adjustment in the solar
arrays offset to prevent the arrays from reaching temperatures above the
qualification level.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39291

+ VENUS EXPRESS EARLY ROUTINE SCIENCE OPERATIONS

Report for period 14 May to 20 May 2006

The reporting period is the first during which all operations have been executed
according to the planning inputs received from the Science Operations Center.
The spacecraft is operating nominally and all observations were executed as
scheduled without any problems.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39290

=====================================================
FUTURE MISSIONS - UPDATE

+ PLANCK PREPARING FOR THERMAL TESTING OF TELESCOPE

The Planck telescope will be tested soon at low temperature (100-110K) in the
Large Space Simulator test facility at ESTEC. The objective of this test is to
measure the deformations of the fully integrated Planck Flight Model telescope
at low temperatures with video-grammetry.

http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=39284

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Looks like they still haven't got the damn PFS mirror unstuck.

Keep your fingers crossed. That's one of the most important experiments. We still don't really know what is in the damn clouds on Venus, especially the lower layers. Here are some specs on Fourier spectrometers sent to Venus:

PFS:
1.2 - 5 micron with 8000 samples
5 - 45 micron with 2000 samples

Venera-15:
6 - 40 micron with 2845 samples
(reduced to 1024 in telemetry)

So it certainly seems like it will example the shorter range with far greater resolution, if they can get it unstuck. Didn't this instrument cause problems on Mars Express too? Is it the same problem?

We have been assured on this thread discussing the problem:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...opic=2460&st=15

That there is no commonality, other than the fact that they are both a long ways from home and no one is around to give either one of them a swift kick.

Yes -- the problem with the PFS on Mars Express was the gradual failure (after 10 months) of a internal motorized "vibrating pendulum" setup that was necessary to make the interferometer work with proper resolution. Fortunately, they had a backup motor included in the event of such a problem. In this case, it's the instrument's entire outside viewing mirror that is (at least to some extent) stuck.

Has anyone, besides me, tried to extract information from the Huygens data archive? It is actually not too difficult, once the data base is understood. But there are some problems:

1) Not all of the science is there - several experiments have not been added - the folders are still empty, including sonic and surface science data.

2) What is there, is incomplete. The altimeter data is 'corrected' and there is a reference to a paper that explains how and why, but the paper is not included in the archives...i don't think - there are hundreds of pages of supportive documents with minimal indexing and no capacity for key word searches.

There is only one file containing barametric pressure data, and it is entered at 77 second intervals. These values were recorded at least every second, where is all the data?

3) To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a release of the results of the investigation into the software error that caused the loss of data on channel A, and no release of the VLA triangulation data which may or may not collaborate the calculated Huygens' descent profile.

This is very important, because with the loss of the Doppler experiment, assumptions had to be made, including the existence of a powerful wind shear in the upper atmosphere. These turbulant wind profiles are quite at odds with the Voyager and Cassini Titan limb and cloud observations, which indicate a very benign atmosphere at all altitudes. There is also the issue of Huygens rotation in the opposite direction from what was expected. Is the atmosphere turbulent, or was the parachute tangled? Or do we just not know?

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM7QJRMTWE_index_0.html


Huygens’s second landing anniversary – the surprises continue


But don't be too surprised...If there is any new information in this release, I am surprised:

ESA outreach efforts back at spacEurope.

Sorry if this is getting too off-topic, but at least the data exist, and will (I assume) eventually be released.

Compare this to archaeology, where the excavation leader used to have full control over the publication schedule, and often waited years or decades before publishing. There were many cases where he or she died before getting around to publishing, resulting in a complete loss of information about what was found at that site -- and since the site is destroyed during the excavation, the information is gone for good.

Compared to that, a few extra years' wait for Venus Express results is not too bad. (not that it's good, since the delay presumably hinders planning for followup missions)

Bill

Good points, but archaeology digs don't cost $200 million, and Venus is a much harder place for unscrupulous raiders to poach your dig.

I don't know about the other instruments, but I know that in the case of the VMC, until recently, there haven't been any scientific results due to callibration issues as a result of instrument anomalies. Now that these anomalies have been characterized, the data can be properly processed. As I understood it, it was just on time to put together the nature paper, which is embargoed.

Sometimes I can't really understand some people...
Looks like they're doing it on purpose...
I, as European AND Tax Payer am extremely proud for the work developed by ESA since its foundation almost 20 years after NASA.
I'm proud to see my miserable 1,5€/year being spent in such manner, helping making great science, taking us to Mars, Venus, unravelling some of the Universe's secrets...

If people are unhappy with the outreach policy they should complain to the proper authority and not to someone who freely gives some of its time.

The rules of the game are clear, even if those same rules are against what some scientists might think on the subject:

"In fact, much differently from NASA, ESA - by its constitution - doesn't fund the payload of its spacecraft, which are on the contrary funded by European Scientific institutes or National Space Agencies. The payload
scientists have priority right to use the scientific data for a few months from their reception; only after this time ESA can claim back its full property of the data."

Contrary to what some people might think ESA is not part of the EU, is an independent organism.

...And I won't even start talking about people starting making suppositions about Rosetta's images...

The ammount of time that ESA has been around is in no way a mitigating factor in their current press efforts.

I am very proud of what my money does with ESA (even more so having visited ESOC) ...but I still maintain, based on the facts of what is and is not available to the public, they are not doing enough.

I was discussing only last night with someone who was in the room with me when I asked Bernard Foing when Smart 1 data would start being released. That was last October in Valencia and he said a few weeks.

Hmmmmm.. (checks PSA) . Nope. DISR, SSP.....Nope. VEX.....Nope.

If you want to compare something for a laugh - look at the speed with which every ounce of DI data was dumped onto the PDS before the end of '05.

It's a two fold problem - they're not in the habit of release science data as quickly and as completely as they should which is unacceptable from a scientific perspective - and the ammount of imagery released by VEX and Smart 1 was nothing short of disgracefull. I'm not looking for MER and HiRISE like performances....although that would be nice...I'm just looking for enough information so that if someone goes "can you give a talk about Venus Express" - I don't have to go "Sorry - there's not enough information out there to do a talk about"

BUT - to be fair...at least we see something from MEX and HRSC and VEX. I'm beginning to think MARCI has fallen off MRO.

Doug

What really, really disappoints - and, yes, bugs - me about ESA's poor public Outreach efforts isn't anything to do with "getting value for my money", it's about ESA displaying a quite frightening lack of common sense, and an even more disturbing lack of appreciation for the treasures they have. I've said it before but I'll say it again - ESA is Just Not Getting It!

We live in a visual age now, and a 24hr image-on-demand age at that. A news story breaks, it is on internet news sites within minutes and on the TV News a few minutes later, we all know that. Instant gratification, for good or bad, that's just the way of the world now. Pictures talk, they always have done. But pictures aren't just worth a thousand words anymore, they're worth ten thousand, as people surfing the net at breakneck speed scan page after page, eyes flicking in search of something that grabs them by the eyeballs and makes them think it's worth pausing in their mouse clicking to take a closer look. NASA knows this, which is why it releases killer pics from Hubble, Cassini and the MERs at the earliest opportunity.

ESA isn't NASA, I know that... different budget, different missions, different hierachies etc etc... but they're in the same business, and have the same customers: us. I don't mean we're financial customers, I mean that, after the media, we're the main group of people who take what they produce and work with it, day after day, spreading it to others, either through using the images in illustrated talks to large groups or just by calling someone at work over to our computer to show them something cool. Most people here have done that, I'm sure. And we're all here because we want to see new pictures as often and as quickly as possible, let's face it.

This weekend, with the public more aware of Mars than ever before - thanks to the wonderful images taken and released from MERs, MRO, Odyssey and MGS, splashed all over the internet and on the pages of magazines from Norway to Antarctica - with Rosetta passing Mars ESA had a huge, impressive Gift Horse, a great steaming beast of an animal, ready to let loose upon the world. Instead they let it out of its paddock for a brief trot around, allowing the public a brief, tantalising glimpse of it, then penned it in again, out of sight. Today, breathtaking images from Rosetta should have been dominating the internet space pages and headlining every TV news program too. Rosetta should have been proclaimed across the world as a triumph, proof that European technology was equal to American (not saying it is, not getting into that argument at all! ) but nothing new has come out since yesterday, and that's not just a shame, it's not just disappointing, to be brutally frank it's b****y stupid. I'm sure they're not, but it makes ESA seem aloof and snobbish, as if all that mattered was getting in the right position to take the pictures and not the pictures themselves.

ESA has big plans, Big Plans, a sleek, silver Mars rover among them. If those plans are going to succeed, then they need to re-think their whole approach to Outreach, because if they don't they just won't get the support - political or public - necessary to stage such ambitious missions.

There are only two real possible reasons why they are so bad at this. One, they just don't care; the science is the important thing, and we, the Little People, couldn't possibly understand the science, so why bother trying to explain - or show - results to us? Or, two, they genuinely Don't Get This, they don't realise that out here the Little People now have a hunger for these images, and are genuinely excited by them. They don't realise that some of us out here give talks and want, desperately, to include ESA missions in our presentations but, as Doug said, can't because there's nothing to use. (Just last week I gave a talk, and at the end someone said to me, quite pointedly, "Why have you just shown pictures taken by American spaceships? Europe has a space program too you know!" I had to explain to him that I'd love to show pictures taken by European probes but they're rarer than dragon's eggs... I honestly don't think he believed me...)

I want to believe it's #2. So, with that in mind I'm going to send a copy of this posting to David Southwood and see what comes back. I'll let you know.

Wish me luck!

And nothing makes the practice in archeology right or useful, either.

Hoarding useful (and interesting!) data is simply not justifiable to me. I appreciate it when a PI says "We've put so much of our lives into this, isn't it fair that we get to see and use the data before anyone else sees it?" But while someone may have spent years or decades of their lives working on these programs, his or her salary almost invariably comes from the public.

If I'm helping to pay salaries, I don't think it's fair that they keep their work secret from me, or want to release to me only those bits of it they choose to show me. As an American who grew up in the 1960s, that kind of behavior was always characterized as the Soviet approach to things. It was invariably criticized, and cited as one of the reasons why the Soviets had such high failure rates in their space programs.

The whole thing *feels* like an attempt on the part of the PIs to avoid any accountability for their work. These people are accountable to their supporting taxpayers and to humanity in general, *not* just for the publication of whatever small subset of their data they choose to show the world.

Maybe it's just an American cultural thing, I don't know, but I think Americans tend to mistrust people who hoard information. In America, people who keep secrets are usually thought of as people who have something to hide. I know that my basic emotional response to ESA's poor excuse for public outreach is "What the heck are they hiding from me, and why should they want to hide anything from me?"

This is the kind of behavior that just fuels the kooks and c0nspir@cy guys, too -- how many times have those guys pulled the line "if this probe took thousands of pictures, what's in the ones they haven't shown us??? Why are they keeping them secret???"

-the other Doug