Grand Finale prep

[nanila]

[Deliberately low-resolution screenshot of my desktop with the short form of one of the design runs.]

Today I submitted, for my line manager's scrutiny, the final set of pointing designs that I will ever do for the Cassini spacecraft. These commands will execute in late August/early September.

Pointing design has been one of my favourite instrument operations tasks for ten years. I am quite sad that it's leaving my repertoire.

(I would be going off to have a whisky now, but since the toddler came home today after four explody nappies due to a gastrointestinal bug that's doing the rounds at nursery, I will instead be trying to get some other work done as he's banned from the nursery for 48 hours. And thus is melancholy tempered by necessity.)

Comments

[davidgillon]

Sigh, yes, I can see that.

OTOH it's exiting with a grand flourish.

WRT whisky, I think that explodey toddlers provides even greater justification!

[nanila]

It will be a grand flourish and with some fantastic science. Looking forward to being in LA for it. :)

[davidgillon]

Ooh, envy!

[cosmolinguist]

Aw, Cassini. <3 I know I'm not a scientist or anybody working on it but it's the longest mission I can remember following since it took off and for a whole I seemed to kind of measure time in it: when it got to Saturn I was first visiting the UK, and it made me reflect on how much my life had changed since it left Earth. And it's made Enceladus be my favorite moon. And I am sad it's ending. I was even sad about Rosetta and this is way worse.

[nanila]

Rosetta was kind of a quick-burn compared to Cassini. I mean yes, it took ages to get to the comet, but the main mission was in the headlines for a mere couple of years. Cassini, OTOH, has been in the public consciousness for a very long time. And we certainly won't be going back to Saturn for at least a decade or so, while another comet or asteroid mission is quite likely to happen much sooner.

[ironed_orchid]

Perhaps a toast is in order once the children are in bed.

[nanila]

I can't remember now if I did manage a toast - I think I might have gone with a cup of herb tea to settle the nerves instead!

[wohali]

So cool. I'm sorry I joined your DW so late in the mission; I would have loved to have followed along in real-time for more detail for longer.

[nanila]

It's rare for me to post so specifically about anything in my job, so I'm not sure you missed much that isn't public domain!

[calissa]

*hugs*

[nanila]

*hugs back* Thank you.

[silveradept]

To the mission's successful conclusion. And all the hopefully very useful data that it obtained.

[nanila]

Thank you. I'm hopeful that there will be a plethora of fascinating new insights that come from the proximal orbit data. :)

[silveradept]

Yes.

Although, with all the space data at this point, it makes me wish someone would hurry up and figure out FTL drives already.

[lurkingcat]

Oh, Cassini. So sad that it's nearly at an end but it's a glorious achievement.

(You should totally have that whiskey.)

[nanila]

It is rather glorious, I must agree.

No whisky tonight, but very likely tomorrow...

[quoththeravyn]

That looks... so familiar. And I'm sorry the mission is coming to an end. It's been quite the ride.

At one point early in my present operations role, my then-boss said that some day, somebody in this group, perhaps one of us at this table right now, will be staring into a computer monitor saying, "Well, damn. That's the mission then." I sincerely hope to be long retired before that day comes.

It's been a day of recovery from a safe mode (not all that deep, but all day) whilst waiting 14 hrs for them to fix whatever's up with the DSN. Odd mix of the familiar and hurry up and wait programmatic stuff, working around the DSN schedule (so 5am and 10pm the same day). The cat likes things to happen at the same time every day, kthxbai. It's not happening today.

Anyway, onward to Juice!

[nanila]

:) I thought you might have a rather personal understanding of this post.

Glad to hear about the recovery, and I feel you on the (im)patient waiting involved!

Onward to JUICE indeed. Hard to believe it's already been almost five years since mission selection.

[quoththeravyn]

Aaand then we had another pointing error and another day-long recovery effort. I'm totally fried. And I'm also really stupid when beeped out of the deepest part of my sleep cycle. They should hire parents of young children to do this... (well, formerly young children).

How the time flies when you're having fun :-) There are people I knew who went out on paternity leave, oh, not so very long ago. The kids are now in college. Eeple.

[davidgillon]

My programmes tend to come in fleets, not singletons, but this has made me reflect that at some point some of the aircraft I've worked on will go the way of the dodo. There's a fair chance 777 and Eurofighter will outlive me* but Tornado theoretically leaves RAF service next year, and it was RAF (and Saudi, wince) specific bits I gave several years of my life to.

*Not that I'm exactly decrepit, but some aircraft are ridiculously long-lived - the B-52 is a 1940s design.