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Paolo
I thought it was time to start a new thread on Stardust's flyby of Tempel 1, the first time a comet receives a second visit from a spacecraft one perihelion later.
There was an interesting story about this on Spaceflight now recently http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1012/23stardustnext/
note that the flyby will be around 23.30 eastern time on 14 February, so thinking in GMT it will not happen on Valentine's day.
Stardust should have started imaging Tempel 1 twice weekly in mid-December, but there is nothing yet on the mission site http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
see also http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/m...tatus10_q4.html for updates on the mission status
ElkGroveDan
QUOTE (Paolo @ Dec 28 2010, 05:46 AM) *
Stardust, which is about the size of an office desk, has a modest propulsion system.

Ladies and gentleman we have a new never-seen-before unit of measure of volume, the "office desk."
Stu
Hmmm. Now, is that an office desk in its naked, uncluttered state, or one that's covered in post-Christmas stuff? 'Cos if they're going to base their measurements on mine then that's going to seriously mess up any calculations, you know..?

Click to view attachment

unsure.gif



djellison
It's not that small really - http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/sc.html - if my desk was that big, I wouldn't fit in my cube anymore smile.gif

I'm changing the thread title to be more appropriate.
centsworth_II
QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Dec 28 2010, 08:56 AM) *
Ladies and gentleman we have a new never-seen-before unit of measure of volume, the "office desk."

We've come a long way since the early days when only a breadbox was available as a unit of measure! laugh.gif
ZLD
Right, it's more the size of an outhouse. That doesn't seem an appropriate unit of size either though...

I'm really glad they are able to start doing more intricate extended missions like this and Deep Impact. 2011 appears to possibly be the most productuctive year for astronomy in some time. Should be quite exciting.
elakdawalla
I think that the Web outreach for this encounter is going to be less than the mission would like it to be because of unavoidable timing problems. It's a small team and everybody who's involved in Stardust was also involved in Deep Impact/Hartley 2 -- same science team, same outreach folks. They were spread too thin to do much advance work on Stardust -- and then there were the holidays. I know they are scrambling now to get their website prepared for the flyby but I don't think we can expect a whole lot of advance information.
JohnVV
QUOTE
Now, is that an office desk in its naked, uncluttered state

that is because the clutter was " EXTERMINATE , EXTERRRRAAAMINATEEE... "

the "desk" ????
well is it bigger than " fill in ...the blank "

some of the young folk here might have never seen a bread box
nor have had the "bread person" deliver house to house
orieies bakery ( i think it's name was ) delivered when i was a young kid
ups
I hope this thing is bigger than my office desk or we aren't going to get much science back.

smile.gif
djellison
The spacecraft bus is basically 6ft x 2ft x 2ft - and the high gain antena is just short of 2ft across. This is a small, light (<400kg all up), cheap spacecraft.... but it's still not a desk biggrin.gif
nprev
Surely some imagemage will shortly produce a faux movie poster for "Attack Of The Spacedesks"...but not post it on this thread! tongue.gif
elakdawalla
In the hopes of dragging this thread back to some actual discussion of the Stardust mission, I thought I'd post this somewhat worrying mission status update from December 15:
QUOTE
The spacecraft experience another safe mode entry on Thursday, December 9. The next communications pass was scheduled for Friday morning, and the team was able to establish communications quickly with the help of the DSN personnel, and a health check revealed all the subsystems were healthy and operating normally. The playback of all available data – command history logs, error logs, lower DRAM dump, etc. – was started. Safe mode entry was completed on Saturday, December 11, getting the spacecraft back under the control of the background sequence, easing communications during the planned DSN tracks. The data showed that this safe mode entry was caused by a MEEB (Memory Error External Bus) event. This a phenomenon observed on other spacecraft using this processor and memory architecture. It is caused by a latch-up of a redundant memory address register that causes the memory checking software to check a region of memory never used before and encountering many uncorrectable errors due to this. In response, the system is rebooted, and the reboot process then checks and corrects these new memory addresses and the system continues operating. The analyses performed on other missions have concluded that the standard response to a MEEB is a cold boot that resets the memory address registers to the original values. A tiger team was convened to help the project address this latest event in light of the two other recent safe mode entries. The tiger team has concluded its work and concurs with the project plan to perform a cold boot on side B to prepare the spacecraft for the upcoming comet flyby. This reboot is currently planned for January 4, 2011. Until then, the spacecraft will be acquiring optical navigation image sets twice a week.
According to an earlier update, Stardust should have acquired its first optical navigation images of Tempel 1 on December 16.
tedstryk
Ugh.
nprev
On the plus side this sounds like a well-understood fault state (esp. because it appears that there is some heritage with this system), and they are taking preventative actions well before the flyby.

Just gotta keep her together for another 3 months or so...go Stardust-NExT!
volcanopele
Quick question: is the rotation of Temple 1 understood well enough that the mission planner's can ensure that the DI impact site will be on the comet's sunlit side when Stardust-NExT flies by?
Decepticon
QUOTE (volcanopele @ Dec 29 2010, 09:58 PM) *
Quick question: is the rotation of Temple 1 understood well enough that the mission planners can ensure that the DI impact site will be on the comet's sunlit side when Stardust-NExT flies by?



According to this yes. http://www.sdnext.org/mission/pdfs/SD_NEXT_Fctsht.pdf
stevesliva
QUOTE (nprev @ Dec 29 2010, 08:32 PM) *
On the plus side this sounds like a well-understood fault state (esp. because it appears that there is some heritage with this system), and they are taking preventative actions well before the flyby.


Yeah, just a bit flip. Somewhat amusing that it was an error with the error-checking, if I read that right.
djellison
Actually - I would urge caution on the crater observation. It's a goal, but it's not a certainty. The mag-curve of the nucleus is double bumped, and using the shape model you can match it very well in both bumps - so basically, we may get the crater, or we may not.

If we get it - awesome. If we don't - we get to map the other side of the Nucleus which is also awesome.
JohnVV
QUOTE
somewhat worrying mission status update

?? i would not use "somewhat worrying" it looks like a normal everyday address allocation bug

At least it is not a BSOD

QUOTE
It is caused by a latch-up of a redundant memory address register

sounds like a raid 1 set up
stevesliva
QUOTE (JohnVV @ Dec 30 2010, 12:35 AM) *
sounds like a raid 1 set up


Yeah, pretty much. Sounds like they're comparing addresses with completely redundant memory words. Sucks when one of the address registers goes haywire.
Phil Stooke
"It's a small team and everybody who's involved in Stardust was also involved in Deep Impact/Hartley 2 -- same science team, same outreach folks."

That's where UMSF comes in...

Phil
Astro0
That's where UMSF comes in...
Hey, anything we can do to help smile.gif They know we're watching, ready and willing to lend a hand.

Just thought about the fact that it was 7 years ago today that Stardust encountered comet Wild2 and now here we are, 42 days from the encounter with Tempel1. I remember it as a hectic time at the Canberra DSN, we were prime for the comet encounter and 24 hours later, prime for MER Spirit's landing. smile.gif
Paolo
a new status update. stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/mission_status11_q1.html
it turns out the comet is still too faint to be visible in OpNav images
CJSF
QUOTE (Paolo @ Jan 7 2011, 07:49 AM) *
a new status update. stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/mission_status11_q1.html
it turns out the comet is still too faint to be visible in OpNav images


And it says they have lower fuel reserves than expected. I'm really excited about this encounter. It also mentioned the cold boot due to the "MEEB" restored the memory to its factory default. Does this mean they lost any patches or updates to the memory or memory management that were uploaded to the craft since launch?

CJSF
stevesliva
No updates for awhile, but this RSS feed may point to updates in that status page:
http://feedity.com/rss.aspx/nasa-gov/UVRWW1ZV
Paolo
a new status update http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/m...tatus11_q1.html
comet still not in sight

QUOTE
January 19, 2011
The spacecraft continues to operate as expected and all subsystems are healthy on approach to comet Tempel 1. This week the spacecraft started to tip back and forth to the imaging attitude in order to fix the Navcam mirror in a position that results in less scattered light reaching the CCD. This strategy has resulted in much lower background noise. The comet has not yet been detected in the images, and may not be detected for another week yet. The team continues to prepare for the Tempel 1 flyby by completing the tests of the encounter sequences.
elakdawalla
Thanks for keeping an eye on that site, Paolo!
Hungry4info
Stardust has located Tempel 1.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?rele...elease_2011-029
ZLD
Heres a slightly cleaned up version:
Click to view attachment

You can just barely make out a slight crescent and the shape of Tempel 1.
djellison
That's just the coma - not the nucleus itself. Stardust's Navcam is 3.5 deg FOV, so we wont resolve the nucleus until very near close approach.
ngunn
Hey Doug - good to see factual contributions on many threads all in a bit of a rush. Did they give you a day off?

Seriously, glad you're still on the case.
djellison
Probably my busiest day on lab yet smile.gif I find myself tweeting, facebooking and foruming the most, when I'm busiest - it's counterintuitive, but that's how it goes smile.gif
stevesliva
http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/m...tatus11_q1.html

Updated with TCM information.
Explorer1
They said they were running low even before the maneuver, and another 300 grams spent, any estimates on how much is left?
djellison
The estimates of how much they had / needed included TCM's such as this.
Explorer1
I realize that. I should've made that more clear in my post but I was just curious about how much will be left after the flyby; purely academic of course.
stevesliva
QUOTE
February 3, 2011
The spacecraft is healthy and continues to operate as expected. A trajectory correction maneuver, TCM 31, was executed at 21:00 UTC on Monday, January 31. This 2.6 m/s maneuver adjusted the spacecraft trajectory for the desired flyby point of comet Tempel 1 on February 14. This was the first maneuver based on ground and optical navigation data. The spacecraft continues to acquire daily optical navigation image sets. The next planned maneuver will be executed on Monday, February 7, at 23:00 UTC. This maneuver will be based on a data cut-off on February 2. The spacecraft will turn to the final comet approach orientation, with the +x side of the spacecraft facing the comet direction. Right after the TCM on February 7, the spacecraft will begin imaging the comet every 2 hours as it continues its approach for the flyby. These images will provide optical navigation data as well as frequent comet monitoring, and will be used to design the final approach maneuver that will be executed on February 12, two days before the flyby.
Gsnorgathon
NASA Hosting Events for Valentine's Night Comet Encounter - details of media stuff for everyone's favorite Valentine's Day activity (or post-, depending on your time zone). Interestingly, there's no mention of spotting the Deep Impact crater; I'd guess it's considered unlikely enough that they don't want to get everyone's hopes up. Probably of most interest is that the first 5 images are expected to show up between midnight and 1:30 A.M. Pacific Time.
Hungry4info
The comet's rotation isn't known well enough to know if said crater will be visible to the spacecraft during flyby.
djellison
They have made a simulated light curve based on DI data, and have an actual light curve based on Hubble imagery. From that - there is a correlation, but also there's another correlation at 180 deg from that, just not quite as strong.

Thus - they targetted to get the nucleus on approach ( http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May07/stardust-NExT.jpg ) but it's not certain that they'll see it. It's not quite 50/50 - probably slightly better odds than that.

Of course, the comet may have changed so much over the past 5 years that we can't even tell if we're looking at the same side or not smile.gif

A Stardust NExT 'Live' module will be on Eyes on the Solar System before Monday night ( http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes ) including a nucleus shape file with a map showing the expected crater, and the un-seen terrain. Yours truly will be demoing it during the first of the NASA TV broadcasts from JPL on the night of the flyby ph34r.gif
Phil Stooke
Something to think about - this is a panel from my LPSC poster. Maps of Tempel 1 and Wild 2.

Phil

Click to view attachment
MahFL
Stardust NExT 'Live' module is up and running on Eyes on the Solar System.
dilo
Great maps, Phil... for sure you will soon update left one!
ElkGroveDan
closer.......
Astro0
Don't forget to login to the Eyes on the Solar System for Stardust-NExT LIVE!
It's a great browser based simulation using realtime, real data for the encounter.
Watch Stardust as it glides past Tempel-1. COOL! cool.gif

Click to view attachment

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes/

Psst! I think someone very close to the Forum had something to do with it. Shhhh. laugh.gif
djellison
I've heard that someone might be demoing it live, twice, on the first NASA TV broadcast tomorrow evening, and that there might be a frickin great big camera on top of his console staring him in the face. ph34r.gif

(and if I do say so myself, the C/A looks really awesome in EotSS - took some work by a very very clever programmer called Jon to get the camera to flip from periscope to off periscope. He's actually programmed the spacecraft to do faux-auto-nav based on the provided trajecgories for Stardust and Tempel 1. Plus - our 3D guy, haivng produced a BEAUTIFUL Stardust spacecraft, went and created a brailliant Tempel 1 complete with stuff seen by Deep Impact ( grey ) stuff not seen ( blue ) and the hoped-for crater ( red target )

If I do say so myself, it's fairly cool.

Oh and don't - whatever you do - look at the tutorials page.
ElkGroveDan
Don't have any chocolate the night before. Never fails the day you are going to be on television ...
MahFL
What time does the NASA tv coverage start ?
Astro0
Of course "what time?" depends on where you live on our worldwide forum.

The schedule is always available on the NASA website...or just a Google query away.
MahFL
I know, just being lazy, also I don't actually frequent the nasa site much, and would have had to guess where the tv schedule was......

Bottom line is it's on too late for me....I need to be zzzzzzzzz at 11:30 EST. Oh well.
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