Here's the profile from the ESA newsrelease:

That's as good as it gets for now. Most of the monitoring instruments on the probe will be used to get a compositional profile for the atmosphere.

If you're really interested in tracking the probes descent, go here. The acoustic radar blips can be converted into a profile by taking the speed of light (unless you are going to argue that the speed of light isn't the same on Titan).

Really?

I posted the Mars Exploration Rovers Entry, Descent, and Landing Trajectory Analysis last week. This document shows the predicted EDL values and the actual values they've been able to reconstruct so far.

There are 16 reconstructed values for Spirit, of which only 1 value was outside the predicted range. There are 15 reconstructed values for Opportunity, of which 3 were out of range. Two of those three were only slightly over predicted.

Here is what the authors say:
Further on:

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Jerry,
Just in case you do not know, 3-σ is +/- 0.15%! If you want to argue with that, you are truely quibbling!

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T. Anderson

Astronomy, this is absolutely unbelievable! Thank YOU =D> Is this real time? If it is, do you know what this means? There is a sudden, dramatic increase in the rate 25 seconds into the playback. After this, the pinging rate continues to accelerate right up to the end. If the "sudden increase" was when the small, fast descent parachute deployed, the second parachute was only deployed for 38 seconds! It should have been deployed for for at least 109 km, and the rate of descent should have been at a nearly constant 5 m/s for at least 36 minutes, (from 109km) not 38 second! And these bleeps are clearly accelerating at a non-linear rate!

If this interpretation is correct, Huygens figured out she was descending much too fast, calculated when to deploy the small parachute and released third and final parachute at about 140 meters. This is the rapid sequence 12.5 seconds into this series as the main chute tethers away from Huygens, and then springs taunt again. The main parachute stays on for another 12.5 seconds, and you can tell because the time between the radar pulses is measurably slower while the both the main and final parachute are deployed. Then the main parachute is jettisoned, at an altitude of only about 100 meters. From a descent rate of near 0.1m/s, Huygens plunged, accelerating rapidly for the last 38 seconds to a final velocity of 4.5m/s.

Obviously we need someone other than jerry to interpret this data before anyone will believe it. I get to be wrong, as always, because I am left guessing at two critical parameters: Is this real time, and does it mark the entire descent of the small parachute?

The caption says this is during 'the last few kilometers', and the events at 12.5 seconds and 25 seconds are clearly what would be expected if a second parachute is deployed, releasing the main parachute onto a drag line. (The time between pulses from 12.5 to 25 seconds is slower than during the first 12 seconds, indicating the presence of both parachutes.) Then the main parachute is cut, and Huygens falls 'almost' like a rock.

It would certainly explain the orange rocks, because you can have a lot of iron in a moon as dense as Mars!

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

I'm not sure, i think i read this was puzzeld together of a lot of smaller clips, i might be wrong though

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It means that you are apparently not interested enough of the mission to even check things yourself.
You are asking if ~1min audio clip is real time recording of an event that took ~1.5 hours? :roll:
And all the fuss about the parachutes is just as "accurate".
The proper order of doing things is : Read, Think, Post. You seem to have forgotten the first two.

...Not when you are trying to put together a scientific interpretation of NASA or ESA release data. They did not include in the posting the Doppler frequency, the angle of the radar relative to the ground, the time signature ect ect ect:

So I am stuck with 'the last few kilometers' and the fact that it is continuous (the acoustic data was spliced together), and includes the termination sequence on landing. Since they were expecting to impact at ~5m/s, a seventy second sequence should correspond to the last ~400 meters, not several kilometers. So I am stuck asking if anyone can confirm it is real time, but even more so, does anyone have a better or different interpretation?

FWIW, I spent more than three hours trying to piece that together, and an hour on the phone with other physicists.

Yes you did, thank you and I combed through that data last week looking for something, anything that would allow me to estimate the acceleration of gravity on Mars - and every one of the parameters that would be useful to this end are missing from the paper! Including all the mach numbers, the heating rate (vr prediction) the peak stagnation pressure, total heat load, altitude at which the heat sheild jetisoned, dynamic pressure, sensed acceleration, and time from entry or parachute deployment to 'bouncedown'

How long does it take to reconstruct the peak pressure and sensed acceleration? How long does it take a rocket scientist to pinpoint the time of landfall? Are they camping on this data because, like the Viking data, they cannot recreate a plausible physical scenario?

(Although the time of landing would be a constraining parameter for estimating the gravity of Mars, for Huygens, the time of landfall is almost meaninless, since the second parachute was a timed, or programmed release after the deployment of the first parachute.)

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

So you have Lunatik's and John T's phone numbers?

OK, that's enough. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.

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...We just figured out the little blip at the first was the 'Front shield' being deployed. In the sequence, this occurs just before the final parachute deployment. The probe appeared to have been falling much faster just before the shield was released - there appears to be some echos bouncing off the shield as it falls. So either the time in this radar sequence has gaps in it, or the ending sequence was very tightly compressed.

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

OK, How do you only get half the data, and all of the principle components? I can understand half resolution, but an intermittant sequence that captures all the key elements, including the ending?

...Or did Huygens fall twice as fast as expected, and return half as many images because the mission had to be terminated early? The science teams could not image the scenario I have painted, so now I have to speculate again: Huygens fell fast, reaching the surface in half the expected time, but at ~200 meters, Huygens knew she was in trouble and completed the termination sequence early. Since everything was retransmitted, and they did not believe the radar - thought it was garbled, the ground troops think that they don't have a real time line...But they did recognize the sounds of the mission touch down sequence, and declared victory, simply guessing at the termination time. Possible? It is a dam good thing we have the Earth based Doppler data to help sort this all out!

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

They are "camping" on the data becase it's their data. Those who conceived, designed, built and paid for the mission expect to get first shot at the data! NASA's policy is that all data is propietary for one year. After that, even if the data is released, there is no requirement that NASA put it on the public pages.

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Ummm... no. Not even close. If you had done any actual research on the probe, you would have found out that one of the two communications channels had failed due to a programming error. As such, ESA had only received half of the total amount of data they were expecting. They received all the important bits because most of the data was set to be broadcast on both channels. That has absolutely nothing to do with the probe's rate of descent.

[quote="Jerry"]And now I have the PROOF! This rather large set of pictures is worth waiting for, if you have high speed: Look at the folder labeled "CAMTOP"

The very first image in the folder is the pano, meaning panoramic. This was suppose to be the first picture taken after the final 3 meter parachute deployed at 110-140 kilometers, it is the panoramic picture, but it is the same picture as almost two thirds of the images recorded on on the surface of Titan: The most important set of orange pebbles ever photographed. You have to look at it carefully - My wife picked it out - the panarama was not a panarama because the camera could not spin on the tether - It was firmly on the surface of Titan.

When the Panorama Picture was taken, Huygens was already on the ground because the law of gravity is wrong. It took the probe on the order of one hour to completely traverse the atmosphere, The 30 meter parachute jettisoning the heat shield less than 200 meters above the surface. Huygens spent thirty eight seconds descending on the 10 meter parachute, then took the panaramic photograph that was suppose to be taken while swiveling on a parachute at 100 kilometers, and then took 400-600 pictures of the same rocks, because the camera logic said it was still descending.

A new era in physics will finally emerged =D> Thank you Huygens, thank you Cassini, no thank you, ESA administrators who are still mumbling about lost data, who did not know how to interpret the data, so they made a bad guess about the time Huygens hit the moon, and dampe the spirit about the marvelous performance of their wonderful craft! -

Edited for Politeness

.

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

I wish that were true, but if you look in the reference I posted above, you will fine the full thousand images - True 650 of them are on the ground, but that is because Huygens spent twice as much of the allotted time for the mission sitting on the ground as she did in the air.

I do not understand the mentality of the ESA - I can understand why they might be embarrassed and confused - but they must be honest.

And for any of you conspiracy theorists out there: This is why you are wrong: No agency with any depth or size can pull off a misdirection of the truth of any magnitude - the ground-based Doppler data will prove this in spades, just as the panoramic pictures of the ground, that were suppose to be taken just after the last parachute deployed at ~100km, and the Doppler data historically recording this sequence live - already have.

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jwj

If you always believe what you already know, you can't learn anything - Liz

I wish I had the energy to headbutt the wall.

This definitely belongs in Against the Mainstream!

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

Actually there are 367 raw images. You've downloaded the set of data in which the pictures from the 3 cameras have been seperated (as the filename mentions) by the guy who's hosting them on that site.

I'm pretty sure this isn't correct. The panoramic is simply a composite.

Tether? Maybe you can point out where the tether is? Huygens

No, the picture taken from above was not the one you're referring to. It was this one: http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/...d/Picture3.jpg

That's not what happened either. It's not a good idea to jump to conclusions like this.