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volcanopele
Perhaps now would be a good time to start a new thread on the Extended-Extended Mission.

http://www.space.com/news/090127-cassini-m...-extension.html
brellis
One hopes the thruster swap doesn't affect any decision on long term planning - science daily article
Juramike
Wait....what?

(from space.com article)
"such as evidence of what appear to be cryovolcanoes spewing extremely cold liquid into the atmosphere of Titan."

Did someone detect lower temperature spray actively venting????


volcanopele
VIMS may have detected photometric changes at Hotei Arcus and in a region of Western Xanadu.

http://gishbar.blogspot.com/2008/10/dps-meeting-so-far.html
Juramike
Ahhh, OK, I get it:

The material when erupted would have been "extremely cold" by our standards, but probably warmer than the surface temp by Titan standards.
(So, an erupting plume of locally cooler material was NOT detected on Titan)

Sorry if I got a little pedantic, I wanted to confirm I hadn't missed something....
volcanopele
Of course, I didn't start this thread completely randomly:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/significan...events20090205/

QUOTE
Thursday, Jan. 29 (DOY 029)

Today at the Executive Session of the Cassini Project Science Group
meeting, a tour was selected from among four candidates to be part of
a proposal to be made to NASA next week for a follow-on mission after
the current extended Cassini mission is complete.
ngunn
Does that mean that a tour has to be selected before the go-ahead is given for another extension? That seems the wrong way round to me.

BTW Do you know what the four candidates were? (Yes or no will do.)
volcanopele
Yes, I do know what the four candidates were. The one selected is pretty good and it seemed to please the most groups in Cassini (obviously, why else would it be selected). I preferred some of the Titan flybys in another tour, but since the tour selected won't exactly match the one that will be flown, who knows, maybe one the Nav guys and gals can adjust one of the Titan flybys to look like one of the ones from one of the tours not selected.

QUOTE
Does that mean that a tour has to be selected before the go-ahead is given for another extension? That seems the wrong way round to me.

Well, in a way it might seem like the backward way to go, but when you propose a plan to NASA for an extended mission, it is probably a good idea to have... a plan: a plan for how you plan to spend the money you are requesting and a plan for how the extended mission will look. We can go to NASA and tell them what we plan on doing in 2016, how many moons we will fly by, and how many times.
Greg Hullender
When I read about this last year

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/march_08_meet...ons/spilker.pdf

I read that the prime mission had managed to get radar coverage of 22% of Titan's surface and that the XM would get an additional 8% -- for a total of 30% across 6 years. There was no mention of how much the 7-year XXM might get, but it would be nice to know. Is it reasonable to hope for an additional 20% coverage (for 50% total)?

--Greg

volcanopele
At this point we have JUST selected which tour we want to fly, and at this point, it is too early to start slicing it up until we know kind of funding we will be look at for the XXM.
jsheff
Can you give us any highlights? Any Iapetus flybys?
stevesliva
QUOTE (jsheff @ Feb 6 2009, 09:50 PM) *
Can you give us any highlights? Any Iapetus flybys?


The image of passing between the rings and he cloudtops is a nice tease...
volcanopele
QUOTE (jsheff @ Feb 6 2009, 06:50 PM) *
Can you give us any highlights? Any Iapetus flybys?

Nope, we don't come any closer than 900,000 km of Iapetus.

There are some nice encounters currently planned. Quite a few Titan and Enceladus (12 < 10000 km) encounters. The long mission does afford quite a few nice encounters of some of the other moons. If you like little rocks, mark May 20, 2012 on your calender (Methone and Telesto). Someone must really like Helene for some reason...
Mariner9
Twelve more close Enceladus encounters???? Oh joy. More skeet shoots. More global mosaics. More 'sniffing' the plumes.


A lot of people, myself included, get a bit morose when we think about how long it will be before the next Saturn mission arrives. But I am heartened by something I heard once in a lecture at JPL.

Ellen Stofan was giving a talk on discoveries at Io by the Galileo mission. I think an audience member asked her if she had any regrets about the high gain antenna problem, and the data she had lost because of it. She told us of a conversation with a Voyager researcher, who had said that he did most of his research on Io based on about 20 key images from Voyager. She went on to say that she did wish they had some additional thermal map images, but she was pleased with the rest of the data set, and wasn't even sure if she would be able to handle much more.

I'm sure she was putting a bit of a positive spin on things, but it was an interesting point. Twenty of the right pictures are worth more than 200 images at random. By the end of Cassini's mission we will have had more than twenty close flybys of Enceladus, with a carefully selected set of gravity, fields, particles, and remote sensing data.


And that ain't chicken feed.
Byran
volcanopele, when publish the complete list of all flybys the Cassini's Extended-Extended Mission mission?
Greg Hullender
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Feb 20 2009, 02:06 AM) *
Someone must really like Helene for some reason...


Probably some French guy from USC.

--Greg :-)
Del Palmer
From the latest Cassini Significant Events report:

"A two-day NASA Senior Review of a proposal for a Cassini Extended Extended Mission (XXM) concluded today. The review board's comments and questions indicated that they were quite impressed with the science, science team, and technical presentations, and that they understood and appreciated the XXM plans, rationale, and concerns. Within a month the final review board report should be available and some time after that a final decision is expected from NASA Headquarters."

They were only quite impressed? smile.gif
ugordan
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Feb 20 2009, 11:06 AM) *
Someone must really like Helene for some reason...

How close?
Hungry4info
A 12 km Enceladus flyby sounds nice =) (When do we finally land? biggrin.gif )

I, actually, find the rock moons rather interesting.
Has Mimas ever gotten close flyby?
volcanopele
No, no, I meant that there are 12 encounters of Enceladus with C/A distances of less than 10,000 km.

The Helene encounter is currently around 1800 km on June 18, 2011.

Looks like both flybys (the other being on March 3, 2010 at 1820 km) will allow for nearly global imaging of the small body so that after the two flybys, Helene should be pretty well mapped.
Hungry4info
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Feb 21 2009, 04:07 PM) *
No, no, I meant that there are 12 encounters of Enceladus with C/A distances of less than 10,000 km.


huh.gif rolleyes.gif blink.gif Ah, yep. I apologize, I misread your post. That's awesome, though, about Helene.
dmuller
I found a website which lists 4 different scenarioes for the XXM at http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/cassini/xxm/xxm.html
Anybody has any idea as to which one is most likely to be chosen?
volcanopele
It was SM-7.
ilbasso
Just heard Carolyn Porco speak at Spacefest this afternoon. She saved Enceladus for last in her talk, and she spent more time talking about it than she did about Titan. In discussing the XXM, she was most excited about the additional Enceladus flybys, and also about the ring plane crossings.
jasedm
QUOTE (dmuller @ Feb 21 2009, 11:07 PM) *
I found a website which lists 4 different scenarioes for the XXM at http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/cassini/xxm/xxm.html
Anybody has any idea as to which one is most likely to be chosen?


Some very tempting options here, and a tough call for those making the decision - two of the rejected trajectory options include close flybys of Hyperion (and yet still managed to allow 10 close Enceladus encounters into the bargain) - it would have been fantastic to get another set of very close views of Hyperion from a different perspective.
By my reckoning (if it isn't already) Enceladus will be easily the most intimately-known object outside of Mars' orbit at the end of the XXM.
Greg Hullender
Is there something that indicates what sort of Titan coverage we might get during the XXM?

--Greg

ugordan
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Feb 21 2009, 11:07 PM) *
The Helene encounter is currently around 1800 km on June 18, 2011.

Thanks. That's close, will Cassini be able to track Helene the whole encounter - angular rates and all that?

Too bad about the missed opportunities to re-image Hyperion, that moon makes for great poster material.
dmuller
QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Feb 23 2009, 04:12 AM) *
Is there something that indicates what sort of Titan coverage we might get during the XXM?

Have a look at http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/cassini/xxm/SM-7/SM-7_all.txt
That seems to be what's in the running, but I have no further insights other what's been said on this forum and that website
volcanopele
Whoops...

Floyd
Cassini having a very bad day ohmy.gif
stevesliva
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Feb 23 2009, 01:54 AM) *
Whoops...


Yes, I see the problem. Your collision simulation clearly has a poor representation of the resulting "explosion."
djellison
Nothing unusual about that news release.
Byran
QUOTE (ugordan @ Feb 22 2009, 11:50 PM) *


- 55 Titan
- 11 ENCELADUS (in 2651, 49, 48, 49, 1208, 49, 49, 49, 81, 1800, 2234, 49, 4999 km)
- 3 DIONE (in 199, 523, 510 km)
- 2 RHEA (in 200, 2300 km)
- EPIMETHEUS (in 3125 km)
- METHONE (in 1453 km)
- TELESTO (in 2867 km)
- HELENE (in 1807 km)
Bjorn Jonsson
As previously discussed there are no targeted Hyperion flybys. However, there are some pretty close nontargeted flybys:

HYPERION 2010-332T03:31:35 Nov28 Sun Inbound 71598.9 km flyby, v = 4.9 km/s, phase = 73 deg
HYPERION 2011-237T17:50:51 Aug25 Thu Outbound 48781.7 km flyby, v = 5.2 km/s, phase = 106 deg
HYPERION 2011-259T13:22:45 Sep16 Fri Outbound 57347.5 km flyby, v = 4.8 km/s, phase = 84 deg
HYPERION 2012-068T01:21:42 Mar08 Thu Inbound 93452.2 km flyby, v = 5.5 km/s, phase = 148 deg
HYPERION 2015-151T13:42:21 May31 Sun Outbound 35456.9 km flyby, v = 4.3 km/s, phase = 71 deg

The last flyby in particular is at much closer range than any of the flybys so far with the exception of the targeted flyby.

In addition there are several flybys of Mimas at significantly closer range than the closest flyby (~61,000 km) of the primary mission. There are also many nontargeted flybys of Tethys including two flybys closer than 10,000 km. The W/NW part of Odysseus isn't particularly well imaged, hopefully this 'gap' gets filled.

There are many nice flybys of Rhea. There isn't very good stereo coverage near 0° longitude. Hopefully that relatively small 'gap' gets filled - I want a high resolution DEM of Rhea's *entire* surface smile.gif.

Lots of nontargeted Dione flybys as well and many flybys of the small 'rocks'.

I'm a bit surprised there are no Voyager class (~100,000 km) Iapetus flybys since there was a ~120,000 km flyby early in the mssion and that one was by luck/accident and not planned. It happened when the first few months of Cassini's trajectory were altered in response to problems with the Cassini - Huygens communcations.

This is going to be a very interesting extension to the mission provided everything goes well.
Mariner9
Any estimates available on annual cost of the XXM? I recall reading that current mission costs are running about 80 million dollars. They had hoped to get that down to 40 million a year, but it was deemed impractical to go that low.

Holder of the Two Leashes
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Feb 20 2009, 04:06 AM) *
If you like little rocks, mark May 20, 2012 on your calender (Methone and Telesto).
smile.gif

QUOTE (Bjorn Jonsson @ Feb 23 2009, 01:28 PM) *
As previously discussed there are no targeted Hyperion flybys. However, there are some pretty close nontargeted flybys...
The last flyby in particular is at much closer range than any of the flybys so far with the exception of the targeted flyby.
These will be excellent for pictures. Unfortunately, the gravitational data that was missed in the close flyby will not be recovered by any of these. Not a criticism, though. Just a little regret.

QUOTE (Bjorn Jonsson @ Feb 23 2009, 01:28 PM) *
In addition there are several flybys of Mimas at significantly closer range than the closest flyby (~61,000 km) of the primary mission..
The closest flyby is during the current extended mission, and it will be a good one. Just inside 10,000 km on 13 Feb 2010. At that range, it will take about eight NAC frames or so to stretch across the disk of Mimas (figure about fifty to seventy frames for a mosaic). Herschel crater will be at high noon, so you might not get much shadow relief. But the "Kodak" quality should still be pretty good. I can't speak for everyone, but if they pull it off, I'll consider Mimas as done well enough.

QUOTE (Bjorn Jonsson @ Feb 23 2009, 01:28 PM) *
I'm a bit surprised there are no Voyager class (~100,000 km) Iapetus flybys...

Boy, so am I. Biggest disappointment of the XXM. sad.gif Can't have everything, though. A lot to look forward to.
paxdan
QUOTE (stevesliva @ Feb 7 2009, 05:23 AM) *
The image of passing between the rings and he cloudtops is a nice tease...

Proximal Orbits wow! The view from 3800 km is going to be awesome
ngunn
Following the 'proximal' link I've just read that piece by John Spencer. Made me wish I had a hat to throw in the air. I always said we needed a long lived 'weather satellite' for Titan in particular, now it seems that Casssini can take on that assignment and a lot more besides. Will it be funded? Well I don't think NASA will ever be offered so much science at so small a cost.
Holder of the Two Leashes
Clicked on the link Paxdan provided for the Planetary Society. Now that's a story!

Kudos to the Cassini team for their great planning and hard work. I appreciate the fact that they tried to work in another Iapetus encounter. It just wasn't in the cards.

Volcanopele's cryptic picture now makes perfect sense. So this is how the journey will end. Not with a whimper, I trust. Hope Cassini is transmitting right to the end.
HughFromAlice
I've just read John Spencer's "Solistice Mission" article on Emily's blog. It made me extend my lunch break as it was such a fantastic read!! Let's just hope that the team can make a proximal orbit around the money and get the required slingshot effect to take us to the pay off on September 15 2017!!!
ngunn
I know most people who come here keep an eye on TPS too but it seems appropriate to link to the excellent new flybys diagram for Cassini's whole mission, existing and proposed:

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001857/

It's breathtaking how much one spacecraft can undertake.
Thu
QUOTE (ngunn @ Feb 26 2009, 04:32 AM) *
It's breathtaking how much one spacecraft can undertake.

You're absolutely right!

From the diagram we can easily find out that the more Titan flybys, the less icy moons' and vice versa. Well, we cannot get both of them for free laugh.gif
ugordan
QUOTE (ngunn @ Feb 25 2009, 10:32 PM) *
It's breathtaking how much one spacecraft can undertake.

Of course, we are yet to find out if it's able to handle such a long extension.

Knock on wood.
remcook
Great write-up!
In the (pretty) graphic representation of the mission Emily posted today on her blog it mentions G Arc flybys, one of them taking place next year. What are the observations like for these?
HughFromAlice
QUOTE (remcook @ Feb 27 2009, 03:58 AM) *
G Arc flybys ..... What are the observations like for these?


If you mean why are these observations being made then ...........The G arc is part of the G ring - a faint ring about mid way between the F and E rings. There is a bright bulge or arc for about a sixth of the ring circumference that is held in place by an orbital resonance with Mimas. I think the interest in studying this is that the properties of the arc strongly suggest that it is the remnants of a small icy moon (small = about 250m diameter) that broke up quite recently in astronomical terms (maybe a few hundred thousand years ago?). So obs from a close range will give us more information on its dynamical properties, size of constituents etc as a step forward in understanding how the rings of Saturn may have formed.

If you mean what observations are to be made, then I don't know!

Good that the mission is not to be extended for too long - the G ring is expected to dissipate within the blink of an astronomical eye - a few thousand years!
Byran
QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Feb 7 2009, 05:30 AM) *
When I read about this last year

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/march_08_meet...ons/spilker.pdf

I read that the prime mission had managed to get radar coverage of 22% of Titan's surface and that the XM would get an additional 8% -- for a total of 30% across 6 years. There was no mention of how much the 7-year XXM might get, but it would be nice to know. Is it reasonable to hope for an additional 20% coverage (for 50% total)?

--Greg


http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-058
About 38 percent of Titan's surface has been mapped with radar so far. On March 27, Cassini will complete its 52nd targeted flyby of Titan.
floron
QUOTE (Byran @ Mar 25 2009, 04:55 AM) *
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-058
About 38 percent of Titan's surface has been mapped with radar so far. On March 27, Cassini will complete its 52nd targeted flyby of Titan.

is the 38% figure including the low-res scatterometer coverage?

ftp://ftp.lpi.usra.edu/pub/outgoing/lpsc2009/full254.pdf page 11
jasedm
QUOTE (Del Palmer @ Feb 21 2009, 10:19 PM) *
From the latest Cassini Significant Events report:

"A two-day NASA Senior Review of a proposal for a Cassini Extended Extended Mission (XXM) concluded today. The review board's comments and questions indicated that they were quite impressed with the science, science team, and technical presentations, and that they understood and appreciated the XXM plans, rationale, and concerns. Within a month the final review board report should be available and some time after that a final decision is expected from NASA Headquarters."

They were only quite impressed? smile.gif



Hi all,
If there was an announcement on XXM funding, I've missed it. The above goes back to February - does anybody know when a decision can be expected on a go/no-go for the XXM?


ngunn
Anybody know when a decision is to be reached on this? There seems to be a lot of Cassini news today, and the tour highlights for all of 2010 appearing on the Cassini website did make me wonder if something could be happening.
john_s
We hope to know more after the President's 2011 NASA budget is released in early February. However it's very unlikely that the plug will be pulled with only a few month's notice, so it's a pretty good bet (but with no guarantees) that the current 2010 flight plan will be executed as currently planned.

John

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