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What's up in the solar system in April 2012
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/30 02:27 CDT
Welcome to my monthly roundup of the activities of our intrepid robotic emissaries across the solar system! I count 16 spacecraft that are actively performing 13 scientific missions at Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Vesta, Saturn, and at the edge of the heliosphere.
Dawn Journal: Saluting the Sun
Posted by Marc Rayman on 2012/03/29 05:19 CDT
On April 18, Dawn will attain its greatest separation yet from Earth, nearly 520 million kilometers (323 million miles) or more than 3.47 astronomical units (AU). Well beyond Mars, fewer than a dozen spacecraft have ever operated so far from Earth. At this extraordinary range, Dawn will be nearly 1,400 times farther than the average distance to the Moon (and 1,300 times farther than the greatest distance attained by Apollo astronauts 42 years ago). The deep-space ship will be well over one million times farther from Earth than the International Space Station and Tiangong-1.
What's up in the solar system in March 2012
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/27 02:53 CDT
This month will see GRAIL begin its science mission measuring the Moon's gravity field. MESSENGER will complete its primary mission at Mercury, celebrating its one-Earth-year-in-orbit anniversary with a big data release, and immediately begin work on its one-year extended mission. Mars will pass its solstice, ushering in warmer days for Opportunity. Coincidentally, this month will see Jupiter's southern winter solstice, too, though there are no spacecraft there to notice it. Out at Saturn, Cassini will have two encounters with Enceladus this month, one of them distant, one of them at 74 kilometers altitude.
Venus Express star trackers recovered
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/09 07:18 CST
Just a quick note because I didn't want to let the weekend go by without telling people that Venus Express' star trackers are back online.
Good news, bad news: GRAIL science underway, Venus Express suffers storm damage
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/08 06:54 CST
Two brief mission updates. First, the good news: NASA announced yesterday that the twin GRAIL spacecraft have begun the science phase of the mission, transmitting precisely timed signals to each other in order to map the Moon's gravity field. The bad news: according to ESA, since the recent solar storm passed Venus, both of Venus Express' star trackers are suddenly unable to detect stars.
Posted by A.J.S. Rayl on 2012/02/29 10:24 CST
There's no hail or snow or sleet, though it is the depth of winter at Meridiani Planum and a cold unimaginable to us has gripped the landscape.
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