ESA flubs Titan Landing show

Ioannis wrote:

[snip]
Just so happens to be the instrument responsible for the imaging. :-P


I'll take your word for it, but the end result counts :-P

And lest I forget: Wasn't a good chunk of the technology NASA used for
the moon landing taken from, ...ahem,...certain famous German scientific
figures postworldwar, of, let's say, less than trustworthy causes and
characters, before the US army got them? :-)
--
I. N. G. --- http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/jgal/

Pierre Vandevennne wrote:

You are 100% right Ken. Somewhat understandable as it is, in a
way, our major "first first" and everyone around wants a piece
of the fame.

Our "first first" was really Giotto. Memory is short, unfortunately,
and ESA isn't good at pointing out its previous successes (let alone
the present ones)...

Steven

Ken:
After watching the event on NASA TV, I'd have to say that I somewhat agree
with the analysis.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05g.html

The landing was a great achievement for ESA. They simply don't have the
kind of experience with this sort of dog and pony show that the U.S.
has. We're young and petulant, want everything Now! and, in general are
as much concerned with style as with substance. I'm sure that ESA will
hear these criticisms and improve their performance during future
successes.

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:48:53 -0600, "Ken" wrote:

After watching the event on NASA TV, I'd have to say that I somewhat agree
with the analysis.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05g.html


Another reason why the American studio and media system continues to
take a larger and larger share of the World's audience.
-Rich

which acounts for ABC News not saying a word or a pic last night
here in the US of A ?



Steven Van Impe wrote:

Ken wrote:

After watching the event on NASA TV, I'd have to say that I
somewhat agree with the analysis.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05g.html

So, for you the headline is that ESA did a bad job with the broadcast
(and oh yeah, they landed on Titan as well)? I agree completely that
the PR on this mission could have been a lot better, but we _did_ land
a probe on a moon of Saturn!

ESA is largely governed by politicians, so it's only natural that we
do our best to please them. In the US, Space missions are made or
broken by the television audience, so NASA does their best to please
the media. A live broadcast of the Huygens decent would get next to no
attention on any European tv channel. There's no reason for ESA to
prioritize live broadcasts. It's sad, and I wish it were different,
but that's how it is.

Regards,
Steven

You've been watching CSI-Walmart too long!



Ken wrote:

After watching the event on NASA TV, I'd have to say that I somewhat agree
with the analysis.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05g.html

--
Michael A. Barlow
"John Steinberg" wrote in message
...
Ioannis wrote:

Ditto! And in terms of computational complexity (accuracy
notwithstanding!!!), timed event prediction and gravitational expertise,
the ESA is ahead of everybody now, by, say, what, the ratio between the
distance to Titan, and the distance to Mars? :-)

*Cough* Kudos to the ESA and Huygens -- which among its six instruments
is one developed at the University of Arizona, USA.

Just so happens to be the instrument responsible for the imaging. :-P

--
-John Steinberg
email: lid
Go Gang Green!

Out of curiosity, who built the failed radio equipment? didn't one
channel die too early?

The radio didn't fail, but a design oversight nearly cost them the
Huygens mission. ESA engineers failed to take the proper doppler shifts
into account when designing and spec-ing the transmitter in Huygens.
With the original orbit, the Huygens probe would have transmitted data,
but the frequency would be shifted too much for the receiver in Cassini
to capture it. They ended up altering Cassini's orbit and the Titan
encounter schedule to minimize Doppler shift during the data
transmissions. Looks like it worked.

Michael Barlow wrote:

from

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/cassin...15science.html

As it turned out, Cassini never listened to channel A because of a software
commanding error. The receiver on the orbiter was never commanded to turn
on, according to officials with the European Space Agency.

"We should remember we're human and we should learn lessons, so I will
institute an ESA inquiry on how the command came to be missing," David
Southwood, director of science for the European Space Agency, told reporters
today. "I'm not going to say any more about that, I'm not going to speculate
(about blame)."

In an obvious reference to NASA and earlier news reports, he did say "there
have been some erroneous messages implicating one of the other space
agencies involved. No. It's an ESA responsibility."

According to published reports, an ESA official said earlier that the
missing command was part of a software load developed by ESA for the Huygens
mission and that it was executed by Cassini as delivered.

"There isn't any doubt that the command was missing," Southwood said today.
"But I'm not going to say any more because the point of an inquiry is to
find out. We will certainly have NASA representation on the inquiry, but I
don't want to make a big thing about it."

"Tim Killian" wrote in message
...
The radio didn't fail, but a design oversight nearly cost them the Huygens
mission. ESA engineers failed to take the proper doppler shifts into
account when designing and spec-ing the transmitter in Huygens. With the
original orbit, the Huygens probe would have transmitted data, but the
frequency would be shifted too much for the receiver in Cassini to capture
it. They ended up altering Cassini's orbit and the Titan encounter
schedule to minimize Doppler shift during the data transmissions. Looks
like it worked.

Michael Barlow wrote:

ESA did (and are still doing) a terrible job getting this information
out to the web. Agree with all of the posts here wholeheartedly.