Wednesday, January 28, 2009

SBAG presentations posted

The Small Bodies Assessment Group (which advises NASA on priorities for studying these bodies) had its first meeting in January. The presentations were posted today at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jan2009/presentations/

This was the first meeting of this group, and the presentations generally appear to be updates on missions, perhaps as a way of bringing everyone up to speed. There were some interesting tidbits that I'll comment on when I get further on revising a paper for publication (my real job). In the meantime, you can read:

An update to the New Horizon's mission that includes an a map showing expected imaging resolutions across the face of Pluto.

A nice update on the Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres with a summary of expected scientific measurements and results from a study that supports the theory that Ceres may be layered and one of the layers may contain significant ice.


A summary of the proposed Argo mission to Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune/Triton, and one or more Kuiper Belt Objects. This is hands down my favorite mission for selection launch in the late twenty teens, in part because Triton is one of my favorite worlds. (I didn't spot anything new in this presentation from past Argo presentations to other advisory boards.)


There are also several more updates on specific issues.

Have fun!

1 comment:

  1. Just discovered your blog a couple of days ago and I really like it! This Argo probe sounds really interesting, probably because I am just so fascinated in general with the Uranian and Neptunian systems that any plan to revisit either of them automatically looks good to me.

    It will be interesting to see if the Flagship will be Jupiter or Saturn. I wish there were enough money available to do both, but that's just not going to be in the cards...

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