Space news: Cassini and JUICE

[nanila]

Hear ye, hear ye: on the evening of Tuesday 10 October, you can come to Imperial College London and meet some Cassini scientists and engineers. Well, OK, one engineer (that would be me). Imperial are hosting a Fringe event titled “A Space Odyssey” in celebration of the Cassini end of mission, and there are lots of things to see, including me reminiscing about Cassini operations whilst waving around tiny magnetometers, and do, including making your own thin film paper spacecraft. Read all about what's on offer here.

Book yourself a free ticket here.

If you come along, you can see this beauty without all the reflective glare:

Image of the 1/25 scale Cassini model in its newly procured perspex box for display at the Fringe.

In other space news, ESA have conducted a helicopter test on the radar boom that will be on the JUICE spacecraft, to ensure that it will be able to penetrate Ganymede’s ice crust. You can read about, and watch a video of, the tests here. (Synopsis: Big Metal Box and Poles get waved over fields in Germany, serious-faced blokes on the ground don’t seem to find anything funny about this, pfft.)

Comments

[hilarita]

That does sound amazingly cool :)
Alas, it is the start of term, and my calendar is full of Stuff, so I hope you have excellent fun doing it, but I won't be able to come.
I'm not sure why all the people are so srs - you get to go in a field and Play With Stuff! I guess I tend to think this is more exciting than it is, because the most exciting thing we can prototype is in a data centre somewhere, and once you've seen one data centre, you've pretty much seen them all.

[nanila]

Aw, that's a shame! There are some other Cassini-specific events that this is timed around, so there was no way to move it to a less academic-term-inconvenient time, sadly.

I wish they seemed more excited about flying their big box and poles around the fields! It's not every day you get to hire a helicopter to, let's face it, play with your giant science toys.

[cosmolinguist]

Wish I could see your talk! Things are always in London. :(

[nanila]

Ah, thanks! Yes, they very often are in London. For us that's kind of unavoidable, being based at ICL.

[tree_and_leaf]

Damn. Am in Croatia. (I probably couldn't have got down to London anyway, but still!)

[nanila]

Well, Croatia is a pretty nice alternative! I've been to Dubrovnik and Mljet, but not the "big" cities. Have you been before?

[tree_and_leaf]

I have not. We're doing a cruise in a motor yacht round the south Dalmatian islands, starting and ending in Dubrovnik, and then taking the train home with breaks in Munich and Paris. I'm very excited!

[nanila]

That sounds delightful. I hope you have a wonderful time!

[purplecthulhu]

I'll also be there with a scale model of Herschel and an infrared camera so that you can see the heat!

[silveradept]

I am disappointed, being across the pond, that I do not get to partake in this.

[nanila]

Aw, me too. I will wave my arms around enthusiastically (which I'm told I do a lot when I'm speaking) in your direction. :)

[mysterysquid]

Sounds cool. Stoopid non-existence of teleportation. :P

[nanila]

It should be good fun! Sorry there's no teleportation access to the event. :P