JimO has dropped a hint over at the Uninhabitable Zone that we should keep a look out at the ESA website re: marsis today.

First one to spot it gets a metaphoricaly deployed marsbar


Doug

Green light for the deployment of the second MARSIS boom

See http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMSL01DU8E_0.html

Metaphorical Mars Bar - DEPLOYED

Doug

UGH! C'MON ESA!! There's still another boom to deploy even after this one too! Jeez at this rate we may as well just wait for SHARAD...

Actually, that third boom -- which is only about 6 meters long -- is considerably less important; its purpose is to filter out some of the interference from irregularities in the ground surface, and they can start doing radar sounding (albeit with less sensitivity) even before they deploy it.

Any news? The time frame was from 13 to 21 june.

Not really. As far as I understand MARSIS and SHARAD complement each other. MARSIS can penetrate deeper but SHARAD has higher resolution.

The deployment command has been given and ESOC is analyzing now the data

According to this BBC report, "Controllers should know whether the operation was a success by tomorrow."

Fingers crossed!

So far everything shows that it was succesful

Elias - where are you getting your information? I can't see anything on the sites I visit.

From the ESA website:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMT1T1DU8E_0.html

16 June 2005
The second 20-metre antenna boom of the MARSIS instrument on board Mars Express was successfully – and smoothly – deployed, confirmed today by the ground team at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre.

The command to deploy the second MARSIS boom was given to the spacecraft at 13:30 CEST on 13 June 2005.

Break out the champagne!

Excellent news. Can't wait for the first results.

Still curious to find the source of Elias' information however, as it was not posted on the ESA site when I looked earlier.

Sometimes people just know things. They might be friends with someone on a mission team, they might be actually part of a mission team, they might just swop emails with someone on the inside, all SORTS of sources of information.

I've found it usually best just to enjoy the information and not poke to hard to find where it comes from

Doug

How long should it take them to collect enough data from MARSIS that is good enough to release? The wait has been killing me for releasing just pictures from Smart 1...

Maycm hi,

I just work with one of the experiment teams of Mars Express (ASPERA-3) and usually know some information ahead of press releases (or information that is not in the press releases). MARSIS deployment is important for some operations with ASPERA, so we wre all monitoring the progress of the deployment. My institute is also involved with MARSIS, and I have information from within the team that participates in the experiment.

http://www.mps.mpg.de/en/projekte/mars-express/aspera3/

http://www.mps.mpg.de/en/projekte/mars-express/marsis/

Marsis data will consist of single "passes", much like the long "noodles" of imaging data from the color camera.

Assuning they're in a good orbit *NOW* for surface sounding (periapsis well in the dark on the nightside) You can expect possibly some cruddy data at first (maybe a weeks worth) as they adjust their "best guess" instrument sensativity and whatever parameters. Magellan Venus Radar Mapper data expected to need to do that... turned out the first pass of data was just fine. Go Figure.

The data may look a lot like bottom imaging sonar data, with a hummocky-to-flat profile of the terrain more or less exactly under the groundtrack, intruded by topographic features off the groundtrack but topographically higher and closer to the spacecraft. As the incidence angle moves off directly under the spacecraft, you'll get crude synthetic aperture radar type images, rapidly decreasing in brightness as you go away from the groundtrack. Superimposed on the topographic profile of the groundtrack in less rugged areas should be visible reflections from below the surface in some spots, time-delayed and thus "deeper" in the image.

I've tried googling for Apollo 17 lunar sounder images with no results in 10 min searching. This link to SHARAD instrument design for Recon Orbiter has a sketch of subsurface features from sounder data, but not a true image.

http://geodynamics.wustl.edu/phillips/rjp_.../Seu_SHARAD.pdf

Cool - thanks! I guess this just confirms that the best place to find information on MARSIS is.....here!

The best place to find information about anything is here!

Indeed.

New memebers!

I love this board also. It only gets better!




I can't wait to see the headlines! WATER ON MARS! again...

Don't count your ducks before they're hatched, Decepticon. There is a very real possibility that -- given the high iron content of Mars' crust -- neither radar sounder will be able to probe more than a few meters into it.

As for when the data will be ready: even in the best case, we'll have a long wait. "Nature" has an article below on the extreme difficulties of properly interpreting subsurface radar sounder data even under optimal conditions; the Apollo 17 team practically went nuts. Remember that patience is a virtue...

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...objectid=37206#

From the 16 July ESA report posted by Philip, above:

The third boom deployment, not considered critical because of its orientation and shorter length, will take place on 17 June 2005.

Any news on whether this deployment is complete?

Third boom deployed!

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/d...deployment.html

Where's my Mars bar?

MARSIS is indeed finally ready to roll, and in fact has already carried out its first transmission test, will start doing data gathering tests on Thursday, and start its actual official science gathering on July 4:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMEV82DU8E_0.html

Now, of course, we're about to find out whether it can penetrate Mars' iron-rich crust...

We also have what appears to be good news where the problem with the OSIRIS cameras on Rosetta are concerned. (See Doug's Rosetta thread below.)

I second that !

ESA's 22 June press release said:

"On 4 July, when the commissioning operations end, MARSIS will start its nominal science observations."

Does anyone know if commissioning was successful and has ended? Have science observations indeed commenced? Any indications as to how everything is working up there?

Phillip:

We'll probably get a bland half-statement in a month or two - ESA seems to have taken some old Novosti Press Agency copy writers on to offer 'advice' on the promulgation of facts to the waiting world!

Why are they *so* sluggish?

Bob Shaw

I think it's a cultural thing. The ESA managers and administrators seem to have this idea that the general public not only has zero interest in the results of planetary probes, we also are far too stupid to understand any of the data they develop.

We need to figure out how to knock those condescending idiots off of their high horses...



-the other Doug

They're Olympian Eurocrats. What do you expect!

I (at least) expect ESA to provide the taxpayer with the information that WE made possible for them to find out.

Will they ever learn ?

I started a thread about ESA's Press and Public Outreach 'ability' here
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1117

What I may do is put together a more verbose questionare about ESA - compile the findings, perhaps get the BBC behind me ( they'll pick up on anything like that ) and present to ESA saying "look - you're not pulling your weight - we dont mind paying taxes for ESA - infact we do it gladly - but you HAVE to spend a little bit of that telling us what you're up to!"

Doug

Part of the problem does seem to be the peculiar legal problems produced by the multinational nature of the ESA. According to one insider's account in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, the infamous initially incomprehensible photos of Halley produced by Giotto -- which infuriated Margaret Thatcher into virtually pulling Britain out of the ESA -- were DELIBERATELY made incomprehensible in their initial display, so that the camera's principal investigator would have total control of the initial interpretation of the experiment's data!

Can anyone quote or point to legal documentation that states that the ESA PIs have the power to *deliberately* withhold results from the taxpayers of the European Union who paid for their results? If not, then the PIs are guilty of deliberate sabotage of data released to those who pay their salaries.

Revolution in the air? I think maybe that's the direction this needs to go... After all, the French can tell you about what happens to effete Imperialists who demand that anything new belongs to THEM -- I think they fought a revolution to kill off that kind of mind-set a few hundred years ago.

So did the Americans, actually.

Too bad the Americans seem to be the only ones who get the idea...

-the other Doug

Now to be fair - they're with-holding nothing. It all gets dumped into ESA's version of the PDS eventually.

They're with-holding no more so than say, Mini-TES or the MOC teams

They ARE bad at Public Outreach - and I'm trying to put together a paper to explain what and why the public should expect from them.

In terms of Data Disclosure, they're no worse than NASA and infact, some MEX stuff was available publicly in a period 5x faster than some Cassini stuff.

Just because One instrument set on Cassini, and the 10 Cameras on each MER get dumped online fairly rapidly doesnt mean that that's the agency wide policy.

ESA is lagging - yes - but it's still doing it's part w.r.t. proper raw data.

JAXA however, is the worst of the lot

Doug

Simply put, when will we see any data?

Or does ESA wanna do a " Special Press Conference "

So it seems. To be fair though, JAXA hasn't, um, had much to release in a long time. Perhaps thins will improve if Hyabusa iss at least somewhat successful.

Like everybody else, I love the instant release we are getting now... but it is the exception, not the rule. Most scientists or their institutions basically own their data - like the old glass plates in an observatory archive, or say medical or geological research data.

NASA was created with a mandate to distribute its data as widely as possible, and serves as a model for doing this which others are now following - like, say, the Human Genome Project which I think is freely available or will be.

But even so, NASA long held to the policy that the poor schmucks who spend hours in committees designing instruments and planning observations should get first crack at the data. The public release via NSSDC came after 6 or 12 months. That's frustrating but not unreasonable. The anomaly is the instant release of data from MER and Cassini (and even more frustrating is the nincompoo - I mean misinfomed persons on certain other sites - who STILL think NASA is withholding if the images are two days late being released!)

ESA will release the data, in fact they have started - I've just recently learned how to get MEX images from their archive. So I know it's frustrating but I wouldn't be storming the Bastille right away. Doug is right about JAXA but to be honest they've never had much to release before. PDS's Small Bodies Node is getting set to receive the Hayabusa data by the look of it, so I think it will be available through PDS eventually. And that's where the Stardust and Deep Impact data will be too - Stardust is in it now for evaluation purposes.

Phil

One excellent NASA data outlet is the MODIS stuff on Aqua and Terra..
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

It makes excellent viewing.

Also - ESA have always done a great job with SOHO imagery as well

I was pleased with the THEMIS team on Odyssey - they chuck their data out much more quickly than MSSS with MOC - 3 month chunks instead of 6 months chunks.

I look forward to seing how the HiRISE team manage things - and if it will integrate all the imagery from MRO

Doug

I think that the releases are a good compromise. Although we might find some surface feature ourselves or perhaps spot a new moon in the ring images, due to the jpeg factor and autostretch, and the lack of a PDS label and therefore important information, scientific analysis of the instantly-released raw images is impeded, giving the scientists first crack. Thus, we get to go along for the ride with the MERs and Cassini, share the excitement, and get cool views as we go, but the scientists still reap a benefit from being on the team and the hard work they put in. Otherwise, they would be constantly scooped by scientists not on spacecraft teams who could spend all their time analyzing the data! Not much motivation for good scientists to be on instrument teams! I think this might be the new standard for NASA missions other than quick flybies like Deep Impact.

I have a tought on this topic:

"Mars Express radar ready to work

22 June 2005
ESA PR 34-2005. MARSIS, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding on board ESA’s Mars Express orbiter, is now fully deployed, has undergone its first check-out and is ready to start operations around the Red Planet.
...


For more information contact:

Fred Jansen
ESA, Mars Express Mission Manager
E-mail: fjansen @ rssd.esa.int

Agustin Chicarro
ESA, Mars Express Project Scientist
E-Mail : agustin.chicarro @ esa.int

ESA Media Relations Division
Tel. :+33(0)1.53.69.7155
Fax : +33(0)1.53.69.7690 "

Does anyone have ever asked to above contact for new information about the results of MARSIS? I seems that they have not yet released that info.

Rodolfo

Rodolfo, few hours ago italian television showed first data from Marsis, in the form of a false color "image". As usual, journalist explaination was extremely approximate but it seems that that, until now, they didn't detect water, at least in the explored region...
The Mars Express and ESA site do not mention this new.

Dilo, good to hear that. As the MARSIS is employing a new technology with subsurface sonar and so the ESA is still holding much that information in order to digest well enough the collected data before going to public broadcast.

Take some patience...

Rodolfo

Short report on New Scientist.

http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/d...yptic-data.html

Much ado about nothing. There is nothing new in this article The title is totally misleading too

Not completely vacuous -- the article does confirm that MARSIS is technically working as planned, which they've confirmed by extracting surface topography data out of it. Very good news in itself. But it was always known that its data will take a LONG time to analyze properly; subsurface radar sounding data contains huge numbers of inerfering factors that must be carefully extracted. (It took a couple of years even to properly analyze Apollo 17's data on the much less complex lunar subsurface. See the "Nature" article at http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...objectid=37206# . Patience, children.

Could I offer my emerging new teeth as an excuse for the impatience dad ?
There is nothing on ESA's site about Marsis yet.
On the other hand, I am watching the SS docking to the ISS live right now.
I could say there is a contrast somewhere, but I'm too young to tell

I have just trawled once again all sites which in the past had something, anything, about Marsis, but no luck. In the past I also sent a couple of gentle, constructively worded messages into the ESA "contact us" box (black hole?). Apparently without connecting to the Ivory Tower. Trying harder, I also alerted the redactions of two European astronomy magazines as well as a well-known Dutch astronomy science journalist / writer to try their contacts inside ESA but again - no news.

Enough is enough, whatever the Europeans find it almost doesn't matter anymore as far as I am concerned, the one-and-only chance to connect with us and millions more and share in the step-by-step discovery of trying something really new has been lost.

Well done ESA!

Anyone here who can chear me up?

Is the ESA chair Mr.Southwood a member here? Hurry guys, in a few days the MRO will be en route and then at least we'll be on the front row once again and ESA wll be relegated to the backpages - even if they find Lake Vostok. Granted, it may take a year or more to get results ("patience children!") but that did not deter projects like Gravity Probe-B to take us along for a very interesting ride. I even went back to the library to read up on Albert E.

ESA has really lifted there Nose with this mission.

Very upsetting to say the least.






The next time JPL is a couple of days late with RAW images, I just need to remember this fiascal.

Well, 3 possibilities...

1. Major discovery right off the bat - in that case, they may be preparing for a big announcement.

2. The usual - "Who cares about the low-life public?"

3. Something isn't working right, and they are trying to hide it.

My money is on number 2. And if it doesn't find anything remarkable, watch them "discover" that Mars has ice caps at both poles and the south one is smaller, that the Hellas area is a basin, or that Tharsis is a bulge. I was more sympathetic when the Soviets made outrageous claims about their accomplishments - I mean, the Soviet gov't was quite the propaganda machine, and the scientists who didn't want to take a permanent vacation to Siberia certainly would go along. But there is no excuse...slow release of data I can deal with - it is the claiming of great discoveries of things that have been long known. Even the Smart-1 detection detection of Calcium on the moon. True, it was the first detection from orbit...but it had been detected on the surface many times before at the Apollo and Luna sites. So while it is great that they can now map the distribution more, I suppose, since they sent an instrument that can detect it, it isn't any great surprise that they found it - it was already known to be there.