Titan Flyby 10/26/04 - As it happens

[backspace]

Raw images updated at the main Cassini page.<br /><br />http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-list.cfm?StartRow=1&cacheQ=1&browseLatest=1&storedQ=649687

 

[thechemist]

thanks backspace !<br /><br />Any idea on what this image shows ?<br /><br />http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=25997<br /><br />If these are not artifacts, I am amazed !!!<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>I feel better than James Brown.</em> </div>

 

[silylene old]

<i>But Ganymede doesn't have an (significant) atmosphere. Here you can clearly see bright clouds. </i><br /><br />agreed, of course. But the features imaged at 933 nm supposedly penetrated the clouds and we are hopefully seeing primarily the surface, with just a few clouds above (such as the bright ones at the pole). I am just noting that the (supposed) surface looks like Ganymede. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>

 

[backspace]

Agreed- I saw that image and was equally as puzzled. From the look of it, I'd say it was radiation of some sort hitting the CCD. The patterns are odd, concentric, form strange geometric patterns in coherent areas... <br /><br />I am fairly sure these aren't artifacts caused by dust, since we've seen at various magnifications exactly what those look like. <br /><br />If it was noise in the signal, there's NO WAY it would form patterns that look like an eerie ghostly circuit board.<br /><br />In fact, it's that resemblance that makes me think this is some sort of radiation - be it magnetic, electrical, or alpha or beta or gamma - interacting with the CCD somehow. You can look at that and either imagine the various silicon tunnels in the camera or go out to left field and see heiroglyphics transmitted by a silicate form of the Aztecs.. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[trockner]

Is ANYONE watching NASA-TV right now? I thought QuickTime Player would do the trick (and I'm leery of RealPlayer10).<br /><br />Flybys are the most exciting...but so fleeting. <br /><br />Already there're shouts in cyberspace that the dark areas are, in fact, liquid oceans of some sort of hydrocarbons !<br /><br />Just HOW CLOSE is Cassini going to eventually approach Titan anyway in the next 2 or 3 years or so?<img src="/images/icons/shocked.gif" /><br /><br />I'm almost feeling like I did as a kid on the Night Before Christmas!

 

[Leovinus]

You'll know when you reach the limit when the dish burns off. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[decepticon]

Don't forget about the other Moons. <br /><br />I hope Cassini takes a few pics since this orbit is much slower than Orbit Insertion.

 

[imran10]

The press conference announcing the science results will start at 12 pm EDT on NASA TV. Stay tuned.

 

[viper101]

Really interesting story on the Huguyens probe:<br /><br />http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/oct04/1004titan.html

 

[trockner]

Im not sure if Cassini has the capability to slew the camera platform to compensate for high-speed fly-bys. I seem to vaguely remember that congressional troglodytes cut that out of the budget.<img src="/images/icons/mad.gif" />

 

[remcook]

that's right. Cassini has to turn itself to do that

 

[trockner]

bad news then......I hope Cassini can do the trick with gyros rather than impulse thrusters...otherwise resolution will suffer.

 

[larper]

I seem to recall that Cassini doesn't even have CMGs or Reaction Wheels. All attitude changes are accomplished using fuel.<br /><br />Do I have that right? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Vote </font><font color="#3366ff">Libertarian</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Yes, Cassini can slew itself using control moment gyros. That is in fact its primary mode of attitude control for these situations, I believe. So it should be capable of compensating for motion to a fairly high degree. One of the drawbacks, of course, is that it cannot communicate with Earth while it takes pictures. But it's a small price to pay. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[larper]

Hmm. The Cassini site does indicate that the spacecraft has RWs. I thought I had heard or read somewhere that as the spacecraft design changed, they desided that it would have no moving parts to make it as simple and robust as possible. I thought that include the removal of RWs as well.<br /><br />Originally, the spacecraft was to have an independently pointable scan platform, and wasn't it even to have a spinning section and an inertial section? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Vote </font><font color="#3366ff">Libertarian</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[Aetius]

Hey, I'm just glad it didn't have Galileo's high-gain antenna design.

 

[alexblackwell]

<i>Originally, the spacecraft was to have an independently pointable scan platform, and wasn't it even to have a spinning section and an inertial section?</i><br /><br />No, the Cassini orbiter, even the early iterations derived from the Mariner Mark II design (CRAF/Cassini), has always been a total three-axis stabilized spacecraft. Note that the Mariner Mark II designs had <i>two</i> scan platforms on deployable booms that were baselined for each spacecraft: a high-precision <i>scan</i> platform and a low-precision <i>pointing</i> platform (on Cassini, the latter was to be replaced by a turntable and a ram-direction platform). As you alluded to, the scan platforms were eliminated for cost and complexity reasons, as was the proposed steerable medium gain antenna (MGA) proposed for Cassini, which would have also relayed data from Huygens. This task will now be done through the Huygens radio relay hardware mounted on Cassini's high gain antenna (HGA).