24-October-2006, 07:34 PM
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Vulcan Administrator
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Greenbelt, MD
Posts: 26,026
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Ms. Emily is back!:
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000744/
Quote:
Venus is almost exactly on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth. This geometry is known as conjunction, and when it happens, a spacecraft at Venus can't readily communicate with Earth for a few weeks. Coincidentally, Mars is also in solar conjunction right now. Anyway, the MESSENGER mission planners want to be very sure they get the flyby to work perfectly, and doing the first Venus flyby during conjunction is risky enough already without adding more risk by trying to operate the spacecraft for science at the same time. They'll have a second chance for Venus science at the next flyby, scheduled for next June.
However, Brad Thomson did remark last week after witnessing a MESSENGER press conference that MESSENGER mission P.I. Sean Solomon might possibly have a little bit of something planned for this flyby. I can understand why they might not want to talk about this beforehand, but I'll be watching the website after the flyby is (I hope) successfully completed to see if they managed to get tricky!
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