Author Topic: NASA - Europa Clipper updates and discussion  (Read 389633 times)

Offline Blackstar

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #920 on: 10/16/2024 10:24 am »
I have been informed by somebody who has access that EC is doing okay.

Offline LouScheffer

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #921 on: 10/16/2024 01:56 pm »
I have been informed by somebody who has access that EC is doing okay.
Thank you so much for checking.  Of course OK is just one bit of information.  It could mean "everything is nominal", or "we're already on the contingency backups and hoping to complete the mission",  or any number of other possibilities.

There's a pretty severe bottleneck between 50K bits/sec to the ground, and 1 bit every two days (through a side channel) to the public.  That's a ratio of 8.6 *billion* to 1.   Surely EC can do better.

Offline LouScheffer

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #922 on: 10/16/2024 02:03 pm »
Searching for info, I found this from a "Brendan Miller" on X, who describes himself as "Link Controller @ NASA JPL Deep Space Communication Complex, Canberra Australia. All my posts are my opinions & not those of my employer or related institutions"
Quote
Another day successfully supporting @EuropaClipper via DSS55! Clipper was commanded out of it’s thermal roll during this pass
So that's good news, but we should not be scraping for info like this.

Offline deadman1204

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #923 on: 10/16/2024 02:44 pm »
It is possible that people are spoiled by a few missions that priorities constant communication.
We are not "owned" second by second updates of whats happening. I'd much rather they spend their time checkout out the space craft than sitting in a media event where they get asked mostly vapid questions that any google search could answer.

Offline ShinodaChan

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #924 on: 10/16/2024 03:10 pm »
There's reason to both sides here:

1. NASA and JPL should be more transparent and forthcoming with such a crucial project. In particular, I agree with complaints re: the lack of a post-launch conference.
2. Speculation and fearmongering will get us nowhere.

The onus is on NASA to officially declare that all is well, but some of y'all need to step back and do something else if you're worrying to the point of needless suspicion.

Offline redliox

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #925 on: 10/16/2024 03:52 pm »
Safe to say we’re all very anxious for news on the new flag…err…clipper ship 😉
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Offline Blackstar

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #926 on: 10/16/2024 03:57 pm »
I'm getting extremely bad vibes about this.   I'm afraid the data, interpreted in the obvious way, would mean the mission is lost.   This would result in instant recriminations, making it even harder, if still possible, to recover the mission.  So until they've tried everything humanly possible, they are deferring the announcement.

I've never hoped so hard in my life that I am wrong.
Doesn't it get exhausting pretending there are conspiracies around every corner? You know, jwst can see through your roof right? Maybe THEY are watching now...


I think you can let up a little bit. I'm not prone to conspiracy theories (I think Oswald acted alone and there are no aliens at Area 51), but I was getting very worried after 24 hours. Look at JPL's Twitter feed and you will see that they regularly tweeted updates, sometimes, a few a day, right up to the launch, and yet here we are two days after the launch and the JPL Twitter feed has not updated since the launch. That seems really odd.

I don't think it is too much to expect a spacecraft status update after the launch of a $5 billion mission.

Online jpo234

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #927 on: 10/16/2024 05:29 pm »
« Last Edit: 10/16/2024 05:30 pm by jpo234 »
You want to be inspired by things. You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great. That's what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It's about believing in the future and believing the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than being out there among the stars.

Offline rsdavis9

Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #928 on: 10/16/2024 06:12 pm »
Here is a conspiracy theory(anti).
Who ever was doing the tweeting prelaunch had time on their hands.
Now post launch data and science and engineering is happening at greatly accelerated pace and that person is now very busy.
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Offline vjkane

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #929 on: 10/16/2024 06:48 pm »
Has anyone looked to see when post launch updates were posted for other major nasa and jpl missions?
I think that if there was a catastrophic problem, there would be a statement. Losing a mission and saying nothing for days would be interpreted as a cover up.

Offline rdale

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #930 on: 10/16/2024 07:04 pm »
My personal suspicion

Can you explain what that's based on?

Offline meekGee

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #931 on: 10/16/2024 07:18 pm »
My personal suspicion is that EC had some sort of near-death experience.  So JPL could not tweet "Everything is OK" and did not want to tweet "We may have just flushed $5 billion down the toilet".   We shall see.
Yup and there's nothing conspiratorial about it.  There's always a post launch press party, and frequent tweets to capture as much of the limelight before the long coast phase.

Something here was off, and it's either the spacecraft or the PR department.  Nobody's calling it yet  but it's ok to wonder.
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Offline LouScheffer

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #932 on: 10/16/2024 08:31 pm »
My personal suspicion
Can you explain what that's based on?
Sure.  Science (especially big science) relies on good publicity.   It's the key to funding, and to personal satisfaction - would not you want the world to know how well you did after you spend twenty years of long hours making it work? It's hard to overstate how strong this desire is, for someone who has the ambition to direct a multi-billion dollar project, and has spent the best decades of their life doing so. If the project is going well there is basically zero chance they will not announce, especially while the excitement is high from the launch.

The only reason I can see for silence is that something is *not* going well, and the publicity would not be good.  In this case you wait until (in the best case) you've recovered from the boo-boo.  And in the worst case, at least you can postpone the bad news until the spotlight on the project is not so bright.

Offline matthewkantar

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #933 on: 10/16/2024 08:38 pm »
Apologies for contorted metaphors, but nature abhors an information vacuum. If there is no official word, A full range of folk, from working scientists to the tinfoil hat brigade will fill the void. 

Shirking an obvious (if not legally mandated) duty to keep the tax payers and interested enthusiasts world wide up to date on a monumental project at a pivotal moment is dumb.

Offline DaveS

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #934 on: 10/16/2024 08:38 pm »
Something here was off, and it's either the spacecraft or the PR department.
In my own personal experience, it's NASA's Public Affairs Office that's off, not the spacecraft. I have repeatedly tried to contact them about long standing issues with their official Image and Video Library (images.nasa.gov) and have gotten nothing back. This is something that has been an issue for years now (first attempt was in 2020). This stands in stark contrast to how things were during the shuttle era, when I regularly contacted them about various things and always heard back within a couple of days.

Remember how we had fight just to get regular status updates on the Artemis 1 WDRs when they had issues getting the Core Stage loaded?
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Offline sdsds

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #935 on: 10/16/2024 08:47 pm »
The only reason I can see for silence is that something is *not* going well, and the publicity would not be good.

The other plausible reason is that someone simply dropped the ball on public relations.

Maybe there was a key PR person who coincidentally became ill at the time of launch, and no one was designated as their backup. Or maybe there were two different people, one responsible for pre-launch PR and the other responsible for post-launch PR, and the two simply have different ideas about how to do the job.

They certainly seem to have missed a public relations and education opportunity. What percent of the US population even know a flagship science mission was just launched?
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Offline Blackstar

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #936 on: 10/16/2024 10:20 pm »
In my own personal experience, it's NASA's Public Affairs Office that's off, not the spacecraft. I have

The problem is that NASA delegates this stuff to JPL (and the mission), and in the past, JPL has been very good at providing updates. I'm rather stunned by how little they are producing now. I'm going to mention it to some of them when I see them.

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #937 on: 10/16/2024 10:43 pm »
In my own personal experience, it's NASA's Public Affairs Office that's off, not the spacecraft. I have

The problem is that NASA delegates this stuff to JPL (and the mission), and in the past, JPL has been very good at providing updates. I'm rather stunned by how little they are producing now. I'm going to mention it to some of them when I see them.

The lower level of public information for Perseverance as opposed Curosity is also note worthy.  Part of a trend?
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline Herb Schaltegger

Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #938 on: 10/16/2024 10:59 pm »
At times like this, it's worth recalling that back in February, JPL announced workforce reductions of around 530 people, plus another 40 or so contractors, due to budget reductions. Perhaps among those deemed most expendable and let go were some of the staff responsible for PR and social media outreach.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-workforce-update/
« Last Edit: 10/16/2024 11:00 pm by Herb Schaltegger »
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Offline Dalhousie

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Re: NASA - Europa Clipper updates
« Reply #939 on: 10/17/2024 02:39 am »
At times like this, it's worth recalling that back in February, JPL announced workforce reductions of around 530 people, plus another 40 or so contractors, due to budget reductions. Perhaps among those deemed most expendable and let go were some of the staff responsible for PR and social media outreach.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-workforce-update/

That is what I was thinking also
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

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