tag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376Sauntering Vaguely DownwardInto the land of lowered expectationsMad Scientess2018-09-29T20:08:35Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376:1195764Day 270/365: Cassini Badges, not bumpf2018-09-27T21:39:47Z2018-09-29T20:08:35Ztravel man: Ljubljanaarchivalpublic8<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/3m1yS0" title="20180925_132221"><img src="https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1907/44225019154_4db6845699.jpg" width="411" height="500" alt="20180925_132221"></a><br /><br />My soon-to-be-retired line manager brought me a final crop of Cassini memorabilia. Pictured are badges, produced by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, commemorating the following events along Cassini’s journey to Saturn:<br /><br /><ol><li>The first Venus flyby (April 26, 1998)<br /><li>The second Venus flyby (June 24, 1999)<br /><li>Earth swingby (August 18, 1999)<br /><li>The Jupiter flyby (December 30, 2000)</li></li></li></li></ol><br /><br />The lithograph is of some very old promotional artwork, also produced by JPL.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=nanila&ditemid=1195764" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376:1105153Cassini End of Mission events, Part 4 of ?2017-09-15T23:17:27Z2017-09-15T23:19:37Znoexhaustedpublic23<span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://emelbe.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://emelbe.dreamwidth.org/'><b>emelbe</b></a></span> and I set our alarms for 02:30 and 02:35 respectively, just to be sure we got up in time to walk over to Caltech for the end of mission. We dressed and poured coffee into ourselves, made sure we had our badges, and got out the door in plenty of time to arrive before 04:00, the official start of the event and NASA TV coverage.<br /><br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nanila/36435935573" title="20170915_115359"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4389/36435935573_6f69e14e98_z.jpg" width="640" height="361" alt="20170915_115359"></a><br />Walking up to Beckman Auditorium (aka the wedding cake) from the south.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://nanila.dreamwidth.org/1105153.html#cutid1">As it happened.</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=nanila&ditemid=1105153" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376:1105066Cassini End of Mission events, Part 3 of ?2017-09-15T19:55:21Z2017-09-15T19:57:10Zpublic8Thursday was meant to be a quiet day, since we all knew we had to be up and at Caltech by 4 AM for the thing we’d all been preparing for: the actual end of mission.<br /><br />In reality, there were some impromptu science meetings at Caltech, one of which I attended in the morning. I slipped out just before noon, because I had someone to meet.<br /><br />I headed down from Beckman to South Mudd to see my former JPL postdoctoral supervisor, from back in those heady days when I was still a lab scientist, for lunch. I hadn’t seen him since 2006. I eventually remembered where his Caltech office was. I could’ve found the JPL one much more easily, but it would have required me to check in and get a badge, which seemed a lot of faff for lunch. Besides, there are nicer places to eat in Pasadena. Once in the correct corridor, I spotted his technician hovering outside the door, plus another UK person from the physical chemistry community whom I’d never met but knows the bloke pretty well. There were lots of smiles and hugs, and we decided to head down to a restaurant over on Lake Street.<br /><br />We had a very pleasant hour of conversation, reminiscing and catching up. I had a shock on hearing that their children, whom I remembered as children or young teenagers, were now grown up and had careers of their own. Of course I knew that would have happened in the intervening decade-plus, but it’s not until you actually speak together about these things that they’re driven home to you. They were equally shocked on learning that Humuhumu has started school - and has a younger sibling! The bloke and I had been remiss in our communication, clearly. We talked of science, of course, and of politics and its effects on research direction, and of our worries about the future due to Brexit and the current US administration.<br /><br />I am still kicking myself for forgetting to take a photo. You must instead picture me with a group of men: one starting to disappear into the frailty of old age, peering out earnestly from large-framed glasses, one solid and grey-haired and mostly silent with twinkling blue eyes, and one cheeky-grinned middle-aged bear of a chap with a shock of brown hair and a beard. All sitting together in a booth of a Japanese restaurant, eagerly shoveling the contents of bento boxes into our faces, occasionally bursting into roars of laughter while cheesy ‘90s music played in the background.<br /><br />We parted with promises not to let another eleven years pass before we met again. I was left with the warm glow you get from (re)connecting with friendly, kind, intelligent people. It was a lovely way to buffer against the excitement and strain of what was to come on Friday morning.<br /><br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/zCRqSC" title="20170914_214801"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4400/37104891321_b581e726a6_z.jpg" width="480" height="640" alt="20170914_214801"></a><br />Chilling out in my JPL t-shirt before the end of mission.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=nanila&ditemid=1105066" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376:1104522Cassini End of Mission events, Part 2 of ?2017-09-14T16:05:50Z2017-09-14T21:57:35Zaccomplishedpublic30On Wednesday morning, <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://emelbe.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://emelbe.dreamwidth.org/'><b>emelbe</b></a></span> and I saddled up and drove over to the Jet Propulsion Lab for a tour. We put her trusty sat nav on, and I noticed that instead of a car, the little icon was an x-wing. She turned the audio on. “Driven well you have,” said Yoda. “In a quarter of a mile, turn left. It is your destiny.” <br /><br />It was decided that it was fitting for Yoda to be allowed to direct us to JPL.<br /><br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/59s800" title="20170913_171945"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4387/36816355500_488e53bdf1_z.jpg" width="640" height="360" alt="20170913_171945"></a><br />JPL tour badge with Curiosity on the front. We got to keep these.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://nanila.dreamwidth.org/1104522.html#cutid1">Tour, with side trips down memory lane</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=nanila&ditemid=1104522" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376:1104180Cassini End of Mission events, Part 1 of ?2017-09-13T02:31:20Z2017-09-14T15:10:38Zfighting sleeppublic53I flew into Los Angeles on the Sunday before the last-while-Cassini-is-still-in-orbit-around-Saturn Project Science Group meeting began. I was feeling dodgy when I got up at 6 AM, but I napped in the taxi and took some ibuprofen, and hoped that the feeling would go away.<br /><br />It did not.<br /><br />I made sure my usual mobile pharmacy (ibuprofen, paracetamol, Rennie) was stocked in my rucksack before I boarded the plane, and was glad I'd done so about three hours into the flight when my fever started spiking. I alternated ibuprofen and paracetamol every two hours. The flight attendants kindly granted all of my requests for cold water/cans of ginger ale, which were frequent. It was one of the most miserable long-haul flights I've ever had.<br /><br />I spent nearly all of Monday in bed apart from a brief foray out to get a hot Thai curry into my belly for lunch. This paid off on Tuesday, and I was able to spend half a day at Caltech to dial into the penultimate operations meeting. (There will be one more after the crash, but obviously we’ll no longer have an instrument status to report.) I was excited about this, because I had been saving up something for a very long time.<br /><br /><span class="cut-wrapper"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b class="cut-open">( </b><b class="cut-text"><a href="https://nanila.dreamwidth.org/1104180.html#cutid1">In fine fettle was the other option</a></b><b class="cut-close"> )</b></span><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div><br /><br /><i>to be continued</i><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=nanila&ditemid=1104180" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376:1103193Apparently this was Mission Sticker Week.2017-09-08T20:56:46Z2017-09-08T20:57:08Zchildren whuffling in their sleepa gratuitous icon postpublic13First, I received my Cassini Grand Finale stickers from the delightful <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://www.instagram.com/marka_design'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png' alt='[instagram.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='https://www.instagram.com/marka_design'><b>marka_design</b></a></span>. I put one of them on my 15th and final Cassini lab notebook, and I plan to put the other on my laptop and take a photo of it when I'm at the end-of-mission events next week.<br /><br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/b6XmDW" title="IMG_20170907_142354_265"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4372/36275923603_d58b5758d1_z.jpg" width="640" height="640" alt="IMG_20170907_142354_265"></a><br />My red lab notebook with one of the Cassini stickers.<br /><br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/69ZDB0" title="IMG_20170907_142354_264"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4391/36900743886_0daa1c78eb_z.jpg" width="640" height="640" alt="IMG_20170907_142354_264"></a><br />A photo of a page of ops checks (deliberately blurred) in my lab notebook, with the focus on the two Cassini stickers as received.<br /><br />There was a JUICE meeting at my institute this week. It was not for our instrument team, but for another that we work closely with. They convinced the project scientist to attend. He gave us an informative and exciting presentation, but most importantly, he brought a small stack of the very first official ESA mission stickers. I actually didn't snaffle one because I went off with my counterpart on the other team for an hour and a half splinter meeting. However, the PI from their team kindly saved us each a sticker.<br /><br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/8R8yGA" title="IMG_20170908_151017_871"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4333/37105952555_fcc473c8e3_z.jpg" width="640" height="640" alt="IMG_20170908_151017_871"></a><br />The first official JUICE mission sticker, showing Jupiter, the Galilean moons and the JUICE spacecraft. This will go straight onto my new laptop when I receive it. It seems oddly fitting to be retiring one laptop and beginning to use another right at the end of the Cassini mission.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=nanila&ditemid=1103193" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-04-24:119376:1097708Friday’s Unscientific Space Post2017-08-04T12:02:57Z2017-08-04T12:04:47Zshingo nakamura - crystallumlaurels to rest uponpublic29August is, apparently, the season for Certificates of Appreciation in spacecraft engineering!<br /><br />First up is the one for Solar Orbiter.<br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/8q582z" title="IMG_20170726_181743_360"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4323/35791852280_f4c3c845f5_z.jpg" width="640" height="640" alt="IMG_20170726_181743_360"></a><br />This has an image of the spacecraft approaching the Sun in the upper right corner. It reads, “This certificate recognises the significant contribution of [nanila] to the development of the magnetometer instrument on the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. In recognition of this contribution, your name will be carried within the memory of the magnetometer instrument on its voyage to explore the Sun and the inner solar system.” It’s signed by the instrument PI (Principal Investigator) and instrument manager (my fantastic colleague and labmate Helen).<br /><br />My name’s going to the Sun! (TBH I’m glad it’s just name. It’s a bit...lethal-radiation-y out there.)<br /><br />Second is the one from Rosetta.<br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/Z553en" title="IMG_20170802_151404_097"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4331/36167528392_956f1a13f5_z.jpg" width="640" height="640" alt="IMG_20170802_151404_097"></a><br />This as, as its backdrop, a stunning close-up image of Comet 67P taken by the OSIRIS instrument. There’s a sketched Rosetta spacecraft in the upper left corner, and a sketched Philae in the lower right. It reads, “European Space Agency presents this certificate to [nanila] in recognition of your outstanding contribution to the ESA Rosetta Mission.” It’s signed by the Director of Science at ESA, the Rosetta Mission Manager and the Rosetta Project Scientist.<br /><br />Finally, here’s an old one from the Cluster and Double Star anniversaries.<br /><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/nanila/P2e8Y0" title="20170804_125725"><img src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4354/36198381162_267c37ed91_z.jpg" width="639" height="640" alt="20170804_125725"></a><br />This one has an image of the Sun and the Earth (not to scale), as well as the Earth’s magnetic field in blue. The four Cluster spacecraft are in formation at the bottom right and the two Double Star spacecraft are closer to the Earth. Also not to scale (“These are small and those are far away”).<br /><br />The certificate reads “Cluster 15th and Double Star 10th anniversary. ESA and NSSC present this certificate to [nanila] in recognition of your outstanding contribution to the Cluster and Double Star missions.” It’s signed by the Chinese National Space Science Center director, the Cluster & Double Star project scientist and the Director of Science & Robotic Exploration at the European Space Agency.<br /><br />The Cluster mission is now in its 17th year since the commissioning phase ended and still going strong. The Double Star spacecraft are no longer operational.<br /><br />I’ve worked on the Cluster mission since 2006.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=nanila&ditemid=1097708" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments