http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j...0TkWD71c3ivjxJg

http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/pdf/program.pdf

This is the direct link to the abstracts page.

Phil

Some fascinating papers here. I am particularly interested by the note in the Mars Orbiter Mission abstract that both moons have already been imaged 'a few times'. It would be interesting to know how Deimos turned out, particularly as (AIUI) none of the current orbiters have orbits that take them anywhere near it. The context almost made it sound as though the data were recovered incidentally, in the course of data gathering directed at the planet. Even so, coverage of Deimos' surface is fairly low-resolution in places, is it not? I wonder if MOM's orbit takes it anywhere near to Deimos on the way out from/in to periapsis?

For answers to the above, check this one out:

http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/pdf/2123.pdf

Phil

This paper says also that MOM's MCC (Marc Colour Camera) has returned "amazing pictures of close encounter with
comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring)", but unfortunately, none are shown.

There are a few more images, including some mosaicked and reprojected into wide maps, in another abstract. Both are print-only, more's the pity.

The last sentence of this abstract reads thus:
"Initial phase data is trusted with only PI teams till the data sets are matured and validated."

If I understand correctly, that means we should not expect to see many images until they are deposited in the PDS archive eventually.

It wasn't clear to me from the abstract whether it was talking about NASA's PDS or an Indian archive that would use the PDS format and structure.

I had in mind there would maybe be some announcement about the selection (or not) of some missions by NASA for further studies, before LPSC. Did I misunderstand something ? Anyone has some news about it ?

Like what? Proposals for the current Discovery AO aren't due until 2/15 and the selection probably won't happen for ~3 months after that. AFAIK, the only AO selection pending is for the Europa instrument investigation, which isn't for a funded flight program at this point.

ESA is expected to announce its down selection of candidates for the M4 Medium class science mission in March

NASA is expected to announce its down selection of candidate instruments for Europa in April

NASA is expected to announce its down selection of candidates for the next Discovery mission in June

And I'm hearing from multiple credible sources that the Europa Clipper status will change for the better on Monday.