Ground-based and Venus Express Coordinated Campaign
Publication date: 16 August 2008
Authors: Lellouch, E. and Witasse, O.
Journal: Planetary and Space Science
Volume: 56
Issue: 10
Page: 1317-1319
Year: 2008
Copyright: Elsevier
Beyond their intrinsic interest, ground-based observations have proven their usefulness in supporting spacecraft observations of Solar System bodies. Probably the most spectacular illustration ever was provided during the descent of the Huygens Probe on Titan, when the radio astronomy segment detected the "channel A" carrier signal from Huygens and allowed the recovery of the Doppler Wind Experiment that had been compromised by the failure of the corresponding Cassini channel (Lebreton et al., 2005). Furthermore, ground-based science observations performed during or around the Huygens mission provided new, complementary information on Titan's atmosphere and surface, helping to put the Huygens observations into context (Witasse et al., 2006). Another example of a successful ground-based campaign is the Deep Impact event, when numerous Earth-based and Earth-orbiting observatories monitored comet 9P/Tempel 1 when it was hit by the impactor (Meech et al., 2005).
- The remainder of the abstract is truncated -
Link to publication