MESSENGER Lines Up for Venus Flyby

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_roo..._02_22_06.html

Status Report: MESSENGER Lines Up for Venus Flyby
February 22, 2006

MESSENGER trajectory correction maneuver 10 (TCM 10) lasted just over
two minutes and adjusted its velocity by about 1.4 meters per second
(4.6 feet per second). The short-duration maneuver placed the
spacecraft
on track for its next major mission event: the first Venus flyby on
October 24, 2006.

Having completed six successful small TCMs that utilized all 17 of the
spacecraft's thrusters, this latest maneuver was the first to rely on
the four B-side thrusters. During this maneuver, the thrusters on the
opposite side of the spacecraft reduced a build-up of angular momentum
due to an unseen force that causes the spacecraft to rotate if left
uncorrected. (This maneuver was only the seventh actual TCM for
MESSENGER; the spacecraft's trajectory was so close to optimal after
TCM
3 and TCM 6 that planned TCMs 4, 7 and 8 weren't necessary.)

Today's maneuver started at 11 a.m. EST; mission controllers at The
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel,
Maryland, verified the start of the maneuver within 11 minutes and 48
seconds, when the first signals indicating spacecraft thruster activity
reached NASA's Deep Space Network tracking station outside Goldstone,
California.

At the start of the maneuver, the spacecraft was 132 million miles (212
million kilometers) from Earth and 83 million miles (133 million
kilometers) from the Sun, speeding around the Sun at 68,163 miles
(109,698 kilometers) per hour.

For graphics of MESSENGER's orientation during the maneuver, visit the
"Trajectory Correction Maneuvers" section of
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_miss...on_design.html.

Earth Flyby Image Gallery Now Online

MESSENGER's Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) acquired spectacular
images during the Earth flyby in August 2005, including a "film" of our
home planet as it receded in the distance. Now, you can browse through
the best of the MDIS flyby frames on the MESSENGER Web site! Visit the
MDIS Earth Flyby gallery at
http://cps.earth.northwestern.edu/MESSENGER_20050802/.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and
Ranging) is a NASA-sponsored scientific investigation of the planet
Mercury, and the first space mission designed to orbit the planet
closest to the Sun. The MESSENGER spacecraft launched on Aug. 3, 2004,
and after flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury will start a yearlong
study
of its target planet in March 2011. Dr. Sean C. Solomon, of the
Carnegie
Institution of Washington, leads the mission as principal investigator.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built and
operates the MESSENGER spacecraft and manages the Discovery-class
mission
for NASA.

baa,
That's rather odd. There's absolutely zero interest in this spendy
mission.

Perhaps that's because both of it's CCD cameras are broken, as in
having worse off DR than common film.

Too bad that it's of no use for Earth-science, of having been of no use
for moon-science, and obviously worthless for anything of
Venus-science. Just for getting better science and terrific images of
reestablishing much of what we already know about Mercury.
-
Brad Guth

bba,
It seems their fancy dancy CCDs (of the very best our moneys could buy
at the time) along with those more so spendy and subsequently terrific
optics w/optional spectrum filters for one of the two cameras are
actually not very good at all. After all folks, from an ideal vantage
point of being fully capable of having imaged Earth along with our moon
as recorded within the same frame, or even of having provided
individual frames using the exact same camera, lens and exposure that
any two-bit PhotoShop could combined into a true to life side by side
look-see, it seems that of whatever fell below the worth of 10% albedo
simply didn't record hardly at all, yet above that threshold it seemed
perfectly fine and dandy. In fact, of individual pixels exceeding much
greater than 75% albedo (such as Venus) seemed to have also been
diminished if not also missing in action. I'd have to say, that's
offering pretty crapy dynamic range.

Therefore, we have thus far obtained those terrific pastel images of
mother Earth, that which a good dosage of PhotoShop can greatly improve
upon the information, but we're pretty much stuck whatever the limited
DR worth of information that we had to start with.

Apparently the typically dark brownish and in places somewhat deep
bluish elements of moon that's somewhat basalt dark and nasty as
perhaps a chunk of carbon/soot covered coal might tend to look, whereas
such the level of 7.5% albedo simply wasn't even there to behold.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built and
operates the MESSENGER spacecraft and manages the Discovery-class
mission for NASA.
Hopefully by the time our spendy MESSENGER gets into orbiting Mercury,
that somehow those defective CCD cameras and of their poorly performing
optics will have been magically corrected.
-
Brad Guth

Brad, did you notice all the new activity regarding Venus since I
posted over a year ago "LIFE ON VENUS".

It's the NASA intelligence operatives on their spook detail monitoring
USENET to counter anyone that figures out the truths they want to keep
covered up.

These USENET newsgroups are fully monitored by assembled teams of
intelligence experts from NASA, so they can negate anyone such as me,
or even you, from spreading the truth by seeing through their lies.

Even the photos that exist of Venus, are probably not Venus.

If they were, when & how did they get through the cloud cover, and why
in those photos were there no clouds? See how they're derelicts at
lying. The best NASA intelligence operatives, are derelicts.

hahaha.....

Brad Guth wrote:
baa,
That's rather odd. There's absolutely zero interest in this spendy
mission.

Perhaps that's because both of it's CCD cameras are broken, as in
having worse off DR than common film.

Too bad that it's of no use for Earth-science, of having been of no use
for moon-science, and obviously worthless for anything of
Venus-science. Just for getting better science and terrific images of
reestablishing much of what we already know about Mercury.
-
Brad Guth

GARTINsux; Even the photos that exist of Venus, are probably not Venus.
If they were, when & how did they get through the cloud cover, and why
in those photos were there no clouds? See how they're derelicts at
lying. The best NASA intelligence operatives, are derelicts.
I tend to believe that such radar imaging was a done deal. There's
sufficient proof-positive that our NSA/CIA--DoD had that capability
and at least at the time there was nothing of Venus that was per say
cloak and dagger or otherwise connected to our mutually perpetrated
cold war, that which had everything to do with those bogus Apollo moon
missions.

Trust me, those were images of Venus. At least the Magellan/SAR method
isn't of what's in question unless you've got some hard-science or
other info that'll suggest we didn't quite have that imaging technology
at the time.

If you'd like to question upon something, stick with questioning those
rather unusually xenon lamp illuminated Apollo EVAs, as their
unfiltered Kodak film recorded what's not of our lunar terrain, but of
what somewhat looks as though a lunar terrain. Unfortunately, those
Kodak moments are so terribly unskewed and/or moderated that it's hard
to say exactly where upon Earth such images were obtained, other than
for certain they weren't as such situated upon that extremely dark and
nasty plus reactive moon that would have somewhat badly skewed such
unfiltered images.

If you'd like more radar imaging history and/or expertise, I'll see
what I can do.

I'll take another look-see at your "LIFE ON VENUS" topic.
-
Brad Guth

GARTINsux,
MESSENGER is simply yet another wag-thy-dog and snooker-thy-humanity
worth of a mission, proving that conditional physics of photons applies
as always, as to having selectively imaged our naked Earth within such
a highly limited DR, except for the matter of fact that it should have
been easily imaged along with numerous other objects that would have
and most certainly should have been recorded within the same frame, and
thereby at the very same CCD scan/exposure, especially on behalf of
having included an honest look-see at our very own dark and nasty moon
as for MESSENGER coming back towards or upon leaving Earth on it's way
to Mercury.

Even via an exact same exposure of just taking an image of our nearby
moon all by itself, which any damn fool could then photoshop into a
side-by-side honestly undistorted and unfiltered or same color spectrum
bandpass of a look-see should have been accomplished.
-
Brad Guth

Brad Guth wrote:
GARTINsux,
MESSENGER is simply yet another wag-thy-dog and snooker-thy-humanity
worth of a mission, proving that conditional physics of photons applies
as always, as to having selectively imaged our naked Earth within such
a highly limited DR, except for the matter of fact that it should have
been easily imaged along with numerous other objects that would have
and most certainly should have been recorded within the same frame, and
thereby at the very same CCD scan/exposure, especially on behalf of
having included an honest look-see at our very own dark and nasty moon
as for MESSENGER coming back towards or upon leaving Earth on it's way
to Mercury.

Even via an exact same exposure of just taking an image of our nearby
moon all by itself, which any damn fool could then photoshop into a
side-by-side honestly undistorted and unfiltered or same color spectrum
bandpass of a look-see should have been accomplished.
-
Brad Guth

Well a couple of questions arise. You say they've "imaged" Earth,
Venus, & so on. How do we know what planet they really imaged, when
they're saying they're feeding us a picture of Venus?

How do we know that they didn't image Earth, and then tell us it was
Venus?

Do you believe personally that there is life on Venus?

Thanks,..

LIBERATOR;
Well a couple of questions arise. You say they've "imaged" Earth,
Venus, & so on. How do we know what planet they really imaged, when
they're saying they're feeding us a picture of Venus?
That's a good point, as well as how do we know this Earth is our home
world?
Just because we're born here doesn't prove that Earth is our natural
home world.

I have no independent proof-positive those images from the Magellan
mission are any more so of Venus than those supposed NASA/Apollo EVA
images are of those images supposedly obtained while situated upon the
surface of our moon. Although, at least the laws of photon physics as
proven by the hard-science of Kodak and therefore I too can quite
easily prove those NASA/Apollo EVA images are bogus. However, I can't
hardly imagine the motives or any other fuzzy logic for the vast
archive of those radar images of 75 m/pixel not being those of Venus.

How do we know that they didn't image Earth, and then tell us it was
Venus?
We have similar SAR images of Earth, some of which obtained by the very
same class of radar imaging instrument and lo and behold, Earth doesn't
look nearly the same, especially of the vast expanse that's water, of
which radar imaging typically depicts water as being recorded as a
nearly zero signal that's usually transfered into GIF format depicted
as black is pretty much a dead give away.

Do you believe personally that there is life on Venus?
From what little I've learned of regular laws of physics, of
extremophile and regular biology and from the best available soft and
hard-science known about Venus, if that were reasonably added in
support of my subjective interpretation of what the primary image has
been telling us, that which I've pointed out for 6+ years as indicating
what's most likely intelligent/artificial, as such I'd have to say YES!
I personally believe there has been and that there's a damn good and
perfectly rational chance there still is other intelligent life on
Venus.

This doesn't represent that such other life is strictly derived from
the original evolutionary process. Though natural evolution is
entirely possible and certainly capable of having adapted to the
existing situation, I tend to favor the imported form of intelligent
other life (aka ETs) as simply going about doing their thing, just
exactly like we'd be doing if we could.

What I'm suggesting is that in addition to uncovering the likes of
extremophiles or perhaps barely heathen status is that we'll have
discovered a little of both being the case, with Venusian locals and
visiting ETs somewhat working the easily available resources for the
better good and benefit of each species that has an established nitch
of existence to hold onto. What I need is a little sharing of the
talents and resources of others that'll help to refine and focus our
best efforts upon achieving the best possible results from the next
missions to Venus. For starters, I'd like to get the VL2-TRACE
platform into it's station-keeping duties as soon as possible.
-
Brad Guth

GARTINsux,
Those thick clouds of Venus are in fact helping to reflect the bulk of
solar energy, thus helping to keep the relative cool of that planet by
day, and otherwise helping to conduct and radiate heat away by night.
The quick moving upper atmosphere is actually performing as a good btu
scrubbing heat-exchanger agent that's helping quite nicely to transfer
and thus extract surplus energy.

The best available IR science we've got to work with is telling us that
roughly 15% more thermal energy is leaving Venus by night than is solar
contributed by day. Venus EXPRESS is soon going to nail that
measurement far better off than anything that'll be obtained by the
MESSENGER flyby.

Therefore, very little of the solar influx contributes to the ongoing
geothermal situation at hand.

As to that other intelligent life on Venus could turn out being
somewhat human like, but my bottom dollar is on the side of the
exoskeletal evolution, along with a mix of whatever's ET worthy. Such
other life on Venus could certainly be on the extra large size, though
not in great numbers.
-
Brad Guth

GARTINsux,
Those thick and complex layered clouds of Venus are in fact of what's
helping to reflect the bulk of solar energy, thus helping to keep the
relative cool of that planet by day, and otherwise helping to conduct
and ultimately radiate the surplus of heat away by night. The quick
moving upper atmosphere is actually performing as a good scrubbing
heat-exchanger agent that's performing quite nicely to transfer and
thus extract surplus energy.

The best available IR science we've got to work with has been telling
us that roughly 15% more thermal energy is leaving Venus by night than
is solar contributed by day. Venus EXPRESS mission is soon going to
nail that measurement far better off than anything that'll be obtained
by the MESSENGER flyby.

Therefore, many researchers are convinced that little of the solar
influx contributes to the ongoing geothermal situation at hand. It's
mostly a geothermal consideration and otherwise terrestrial generated
atmospheric environment that's only partially contributed to by the
solar influx. This represents that Venus has not been within thermal
balance nor is it getting hotter.

As to what I'd consider on behalf of that other intelligent life as
having existed/coexisted on Venus could turn out being somewhat human
like, however my bottom dollar from what my SWAG is suggesting is on
the side of the exoskeletal evolution, along with a mix of whatever's
ET worthy. Such other life on Venus could certainly be on the extra
large size, though not in great numbers.

Those continually opposed to such notions as having been supported by a
terrific radar image, that represents way better imaging authority than
anything else on the table, are those opposed to any other forms of
life, and if at all possible that's including their opposition to all
other forms of life on Earth except for their own, as strictly limited
to their biased infomercial-science and of their conditional laws of
physics.
-
Brad Guth