Yes but not BST which is 1 hour ahead at the moment.

I think one of the best places to check for updates will be Emily's Blog

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000527/

She's been at the ESOC

But she will not be able to post in real time.

There isn't wireless Internet access in the big room where the show is taking place, so I won't be able to post as frequently as I sometimes have on critical mission events. Instead, I'll take notes on what happens and when things get quiet I'll run back to the press room to post.

So I guess the most up to date information on the web should be the scrolling news bar on VEX home page.

EDIT :
Main engine burn has begun !

Actually Emily posted the information before the VEX home page.

Good Luck VEX!

Don't know how much can be read into it, but at least the webcam at ESOC shows a green board on the screen:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEMN3Y274OD_0.html

We seem to have re-acquisition of the s-band signal. No confirmation yet on success but events are following the plan.

Emily: The main engine has shut down exactly on time!

Also from Emily's report :

Also, another useful tidbit this morning, is that Venus Express Project Scientist Håkan Svedhem reported on when the first images are expected: about 48 hours after VOI. They will be released to the public, the program moderator said, on April 13 after 4:00 p.m., I presume she meant Central Euroupean Summer Time, or 14:00 UTC

VEX in orbit !

Weird , nothing at spaceflightnow.com They only seem interested in NASA missions now.

I think they are waiting for the press comference and HGA data in a few minutes from now to see if the spacecraft is healthy.

hurray! telemetry recieved!
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000536/

edit: and..

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEMZ7QNFGLE_0.html

Is anyone getting the streaming video of the press conference> I;m getting zip..

Im using BBC Online...The briefing doesnt seem to have started yet.

Now says its staring 10am GMT/11 BST

My sound is cutting out.......have they actually said anything about its condition yet? lol


That was like some terrible oscar acceptance speech !!

Emily has been busy. Almost the whole PC is already transcribed on the blog:
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000537/

The PC ran only a few minutes late on the ESA stream, but otherwise the PR of this event was pretty bad. The quickest source of information was still Emily, even though she was runnin back and forth to the mission control and the press room! ESA should employ her for live event reporting :-P

I really enjoyed reading about Mars on this website but I must send out a big thanks to all you posters and members of UnmannedSpaceflight as well as the fantastic blog of Emily,
you guys have given this Venus event fantastic coverage

spaceflightnow caught up...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/venusexpress/060411voi.html

This is great news - congratulations to ESA (and thanks to Emily for detailed news from VOI and the PC).

Now we can look forward to seeing the first images two days from now. It's rather strange that with the exception of 50-100 Galileo images and a few from Cassini these will be the first spacecraft images from this closest neighbor obtained using a modern camera system.

Damn smart is VEX! congratulations to the team! Also to Emily for the updated posting.

Rodolfo

N° 13-2006 – Paris, 11 April 2006

Europe Scores New Planetary Success:
link

Changed to a link - seriously, hundreds of lines ot text in a forum post doesnt make a lot of sense when you can just link to it with the pictures in situ etc. - Doug

So has the VEX PFS fixed itself then?

I don't think so - IIRC they were going to try the PFS cover again some time after VOI. That text just looks like a copy/paste job into the press release...

...and my congrats to ESA on the successes of VEX & MEX too! Now I think I'll go get some TEX-MEX for lunch

Let me add my kudos to ESA and their fantastic job. Time to dust off the old Venus books!

Podcast ESA.

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/es..._into_orbit.mp4

There's a bit more from two abstracts from the Fall 2005 AGU meeting on just what they hope to do with VIRTIS where surface observations are concerned:

http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&...P33A-0227"

http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&...P33A-0225"

Also, Noam Izenberg's presentation to last November's VEXAG meeting on the observations MESSENGER will make during its second Venus flyby ( http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/Nov2005/MESSENGER_VEXAG.pdf ) includes, on page 8, a description of a possible attempt to mkake similar observations of surface composition

And don't forget VMC....



Venus Monitoring Camera abstract

The images are not rediculously small...they are framelets....they were never intended to be stand alone images, but rather combined into panoramic 360 degree images. With early 90s technology, as edstrick said, this instrument did a very good job given the data rate/mass/power use constraints. It would have been better to have few images with less compression had both channels been received (with only one received, we would have horrible holes in the mosaics). But this is simply a result of Titan providing a lower contrast environment than expected.

That very nice (and pictorial) document on the DISR photos from last year's Titan Conference which I mentioned down in one of the Titan threads yesterday says that we did manage to get three "almost complete" mosaics, as opposed to the 10 hoped for.

Venus Express has reached final orbit:

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM33O8ATME_index_0.html

Wait until June 4, 2006 when Venus Express start to collect observations from Venus. Now it is undergoing the switching on every 7 scientific instruments.

Until beginning of June, Venus Express will continue its ‘orbit commissioning phase’, started on 22 April this year. "The spacecraft instruments are now being switched on one by one for detailed checking, which we will continue until mid May. Then we will operate them all together or in groups" said Don McCoy, Venus Express Project Manager. "This allows simultaneous observations of phenomena to be tested, to be ready when Venus Express’ nominal science phase begins on 4 June 2006," he concluded.

Venus Express will live for only 2 days !

While Venus Express is expected to spend about 15 months studying its cloud-covered target, the mission will span only two of the world’s exceedingly long days.

Rodolfo

I hear the ESA has a scientific probe in orbit around Venus. Anyone else heard that? I wonder what it's doing? Do you think it might send back pictures? Maybe we will get to see them!

Yes, I hear they plan daily releases of pics, a la MER. (Venusian days.)

Maybe, the most-well informed is of Emily with her blog at http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/venus_express/
However, the news is still cold dated May 9, 2006 as the most recent ones. I am afraid that the time will be cronometred as venusian day as Lyford is smelling!

Rodolfo

Sounds like the French pushed the choice of Debussy.

'Until beginning of June, Venus Express will continue its ‘orbit commissioning phase’, started on 22 April this year. "The spacecraft instruments are now being switched on one by one for detailed checking, which we will continue until mid May. Then we will operate them all together or in groups" said Don McCoy, Venus Express Project Manager. "This allows simultaneous observations of phenomena to be tested, to be ready when Venus Express’ nominal science phase begins on 4 June 2006," he concluded.'

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM33O8ATME_index_0.html

What did you want ESA to do before? Draws?...
Let's be patient and hope for some news on the following days...They'll appear...
I hope...

I was hoping for some images from SMART-1. Now there are somewhere around 20 total images...
ESA PR stinks...

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