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Yeah, I think this mission was worthy of a cutting edge imaging solution though! As far as transmission windows, well we had download-continuation browser solu

Yeah, I think this mission was worthy of a cutting edge imaging solution though! As far as transmission windows, well we had download-continuation browser solutions back then. Seriously, not to say it's that simple, but this mission solved much harder problems than imaging would seem to pose. Really would be interested in knowing how the imgaging solution selection process went and what the key drivers were.

Xylakant 12y ago
Sure, they certainly have download-continuation deployed, but they also have a lot of data and a very narrow channel and time window - the lander had only battery for 68 hours most of the time the lander is not visible to the orbiter. The problem is not imaging. The lens is certainly magnitudes better than you can see on the pictures, but transmitting all those pixels back to earth is the real problem. TCP kinda gets hard if RTT is approximately one hour.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  68 hours was the lander's initial battery life. The solar panels were to recharge the batteries, and the expected operation was up to 3 months. The expected hard stop is March 2015, when the comet's orbit will take it close enough to the sun that the tech is not expected to survive the heat. Rosetta is also equipped with solar arrays.
sondr3 12y ago
None of the probes has ever used what could be called cutting edge equipment, the science behind it all is cutting edge but you can't put a camera, lenses or processors on a device going into outer space without having done some serious testing. It's just easier to do it with devices and such that have a long track record of working with radiation, incredible cold and so on. I totally know where you're coming from though, having Curiosity or Rosetta be equipped with some serious photographical capabilities would've been awesome. But I doubt any of the firms are going to put any kind of cutting edge imaging solution on them any time soon.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  I hear you, but it's hard to imagine we didn't have better, reliable tech at the time, including hardening for the environment. And, at a minimum, seems they could've developed the tech in concert, and still retained the lower quality camera as a backup.
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  >you can't put a camera, lenses or processors on a device going into outer space without having done some serious testing old timers have been saying this for a very long time, and it took years to convince someone to JUST FUCKING SHOOT A PHONE UP THERE http://www.space.com/21036-space-smartphones-photos-nasa-phonesats.html http://www.space.com/21036-space-smartphones-photos-nasa-pho... Shaun Meehan (almost 100 private satellites currently in orbit, all more or less smartphones in space) talks about this in the podcast: http://www.theamphour.com/220-an-interview-with-shaun-meehan-doctiloquent-dove-deployer/ http://www.theamphour.com/220-an-interview-with-shaun-meehan...
eric_h 12y ago
Cutting edge is always buggy, full stop. If you're sending millions of dollars worth of technology into space for 10 years, you want to be more than reasonably sure it will still work when it gets where it's going. That is simply not something you can be reasonably sure of with "cutting edge" technology.
- unclebucknasty 12y ago
  Well, I didn't literally mean cutting edge as in first one ever made. I just meant best reliable technology of the time, which 10 years ago was certainly much better than what we are seeing.
  - eric_h 12y ago
    best reliable technology capable of withstanding 10 years in ~ absolute zero while being bombarded with radiation? I'm pretty sure they would still need technology that was "best reliable tech" many years before the launch (and had been tested in space).
    - unclebucknasty 12y ago
      I think you may be overestimating the complexity of hardening. It's something we do very well. Consider Hubble, manned missions, and also the probes that have journeyed much farther out than Earth's orbit. Hard to imagine that simply upping the image resolution would pose a major hurdle in that arena. BTW, the solar panels upon which Rosetta relied to make the journey were pretty cutting edge. And Rosetta is the first mission to go beyond the asteroid belt relying only on solar power. Had they failed, the entire mission would have failed.
      - unclebucknasty 12y ago
        More specifically, I should say underestimating our ability to harden. Feel free to downvote this.

Xylakant 12y ago

Sure, they certainly have download-continuation deployed, but they also have a lot of data and a very narrow channel and time window - the lander had only battery for 68 hours most of the time the lander is not visible to the orbiter. The problem is not imaging. The lens is certainly magnitudes better than you can see on the pictures, but transmitting all those pixels back to earth is the real problem. TCP kinda gets hard if RTT is approximately one hour.

unclebucknasty 12y ago
68 hours was the lander's initial battery life. The solar panels were to recharge the batteries, and the expected operation was up to 3 months. The expected hard stop is March 2015, when the comet's orbit will take it close enough to the sun that the tech is not expected to survive the heat. Rosetta is also equipped with solar arrays.

sondr3 12y ago

None of the probes has ever used what could be called cutting edge equipment, the science behind it all is cutting edge but you can't put a camera, lenses or processors on a device going into outer space without having done some serious testing. It's just easier to do it with devices and such that have a long track record of working with radiation, incredible cold and so on. I totally know where you're coming from though, having Curiosity or Rosetta be equipped with some serious photographical capabilities would've been awesome. But I doubt any of the firms are going to put any kind of cutting edge imaging solution on them any time soon.

unclebucknasty 12y ago
I hear you, but it's hard to imagine we didn't have better, reliable tech at the time, including hardening for the environment. And, at a minimum, seems they could've developed the tech in concert, and still retained the lower quality camera as a backup.
rasz_pl 12y ago
>you can't put a camera, lenses or processors on a device going into outer space without having done some serious testing old timers have been saying this for a very long time, and it took years to convince someone to JUST FUCKING SHOOT A PHONE UP THERE http://www.space.com/21036-space-smartphones-photos-nasa-phonesats.html http://www.space.com/21036-space-smartphones-photos-nasa-pho... Shaun Meehan (almost 100 private satellites currently in orbit, all more or less smartphones in space) talks about this in the podcast: http://www.theamphour.com/220-an-interview-with-shaun-meehan-doctiloquent-dove-deployer/ http://www.theamphour.com/220-an-interview-with-shaun-meehan...

eric_h 12y ago

Cutting edge is always buggy, full stop. If you're sending millions of dollars worth of technology into space for 10 years, you want to be more than reasonably sure it will still work when it gets where it's going. That is simply not something you can be reasonably sure of with "cutting edge" technology.

unclebucknasty 12y ago
Well, I didn't literally mean cutting edge as in first one ever made. I just meant best reliable technology of the time, which 10 years ago was certainly much better than what we are seeing.
- eric_h 12y ago
  best reliable technology capable of withstanding 10 years in ~ absolute zero while being bombarded with radiation? I'm pretty sure they would still need technology that was "best reliable tech" many years before the launch (and had been tested in space).
  - unclebucknasty 12y ago
    I think you may be overestimating the complexity of hardening. It's something we do very well. Consider Hubble, manned missions, and also the probes that have journeyed much farther out than Earth's orbit. Hard to imagine that simply upping the image resolution would pose a major hurdle in that arena. BTW, the solar panels upon which Rosetta relied to make the journey were pretty cutting edge. And Rosetta is the first mission to go beyond the asteroid belt relying only on solar power. Had they failed, the entire mission would have failed.
    - unclebucknasty 12y ago
      More specifically, I should say underestimating our ability to harden. Feel free to downvote this.