Flaviu Rogojan

JANUARY 12 2005 13:47:08.574
LAUNCH PAD 17B, KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA, USA. 



Deep Impact was lauched on January 12, 2005 with a mission to study comet Tempel-1. 

Six months later, on July 4, 2005, our little space probe met with the comet and launched a 375kg copper weight towards the comet's core. The resulting impact was carefully photographed by the space probe, and by studying the data, scientists back on earth made significant progress in understanding the composition of comets. 

The space probe's mission was a success and our little space robot felt very proud. 

But his work isn’t over. The mission team and navigators of NASA’s Discovery Program have many ideas to keep our friend busy for the next few years. He is asked to observe six different stars in order to confirm the motion of planets orbiting them. He takes images and data of Earth, the moon and Mars. This data helps to confirm the existence of water on the moon. He uses gravity assists to boost his speed and approach another well known comet, comet Hartley 2, on November 4 2010. This provides scientists with even more close up images of comets.  


_
2011

With enough fuel supplies and everything going so well for the last six years, the mission team asks him to visit a near-earth asteroid, called 163249 2002 GT

This asteroid, the scientists say, is considered a Potentially Hazardous Object; it will pass close to Earth, within 0.05 AU.  

They send the coordinates, and he calculates that it will take some years to get there. 9 years

Estimated date of arrival: January 4 2020

A surrealist biography of Ernst Wilhelm Tempel (1821-1889). 


Tempel was an amateur astronomer who discovered the short-period comet 9P/1867 G1 on the night of April 3, 1867. He calculated and predicted its return, and was happy to see the comet 9P again in 1873 and 1879 as it approached the sun and the earth in its orbit.  

Tempel was finally recognized as an astronomer by the scientific community after discovering a few more comets, but not without controversy. He and other astronomers of his time expected the return of comet 9P in 1885, but it was nowhere to be found.

After weeks of searching and observations, astronomers considered 9P hopelessly lost. Tempel died in 1889, never again to see this comet. Photographic attempts in 1898 and 1905 failed to recover the comet, and astronomers surmised that it must have disintegrated.  

The comet, now called Tempel-1, was rediscovered in 1967 when British astronomer Brian G. Marsden performed precise calculations of the comet's orbit, finally taking into account Jupiter's perturbations. Its orbit passed too close to Jupiter in 1881, lengthening the comet’s orbital period by up to one year. Two further close approaches changed the orbit again until it reached its present-day state. Its orbital period is currently 5.515 years.  


Image: Litograph from the book 'Maximiliana or the Illegal Practice of Astronomy' (1964) by Max Ernst and Iliazd

Named after Galileo Galilei, who observed them in December 1609, the Galilean moons are the four largest moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Out of the four, three inner moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede — are in a 4:2:1 orbital resonance with each other. For every orbit of Io, Europa orbits precisely twice. And for every orbit of Europa, Ganymede orbits precisely twice. 

Before precise clocks and timekeeping devices and long before GPS satellites, it was very difficult to precisely determine one's position on the globe east to west. By calculating the difference in local time and timezone, together with astronomical observations one could know their position on the globe precisely, but determining longitude required knowledge of the exact time of each observation synchronized to the time at a reference longitude. With no means of long distance communication and imprecise clocks this was an impossible task.

Galileo's description of the orbits of Jupiter's moons was the first universal clock to solve the infamous longitude problem. This reliable clock could easily be observed from any point on Earth. The times of the eclipses of the moons could be precisely calculated in advance and compared with local observations on site to determine the local time and hence longitude. 

The space probe looks at his clock and counts away the hours, minutes, seconds. He never loses enthusiasm; his engineering does not truly allow him to feel boredom. He is just as curious and eager to visit a new asteroid as he was two years ago.  
  
  
His clock ticks away ten times every second. The NASA scientists who installed the time-keeping module knew the importance of precision on his missions. A clock that counted by  seconds would have been too imprecise.  
  
Counting by tenths of a second is one order of magnitude more precise.  
  
  
The space probe looks at his clock and counts away the hours, minutes, seconds, tenths of seconds.  
  
  
The space probe looks at his clock and counts away the hours, minutes, seconds, tenths of seconds. 

Today his clock tells him something rather strange.  
  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
  
Midnight  
  
  
12 AM sharp  
  
0 seconds  
  
0 tenths of seconds  
  
  
Utterly confused. He checks again.  
  
  
January 1 2000  
  
  
Midnight  
  
  
January 1 2000  
  
  
Midnight  
  
  
The on-board computer is panicking, all precise calculations cease to make  sense, the star-trackers lose any point of reference. What should he do? Maybe contact Earth? The last position he knew Earth to be  is thirteen years in the future now. Where would it exist now? How does it even make sense? According to his clock, he will only be born five years in the future from now, so where is he now?  
  
  
Overwhelmed. His computer resets. His mind goes blank. Maybe it was a bad dream, a glitch, a small error?  
  
  
Moments later he wakes up. He looks at his clock.  
  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
  
Midnight  
  
  
12 AM sharp  
  
0 seconds  
  
0 tenths of seconds  
  
  
Overwhelmed. His computer resets. His mind goes blank. He goes to sleep.  
  
When he wakes up he looks at his clock.  
  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
  
Midnight  
  
  
12 AM sharp  
  
No seconds  
  
No tenths of seconds  
  
  
Overwhelmed. His computer resets.  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
It’s January 1 2000  
  
  
Ticking ten times a second, the number of elapsed ticks rapidly grows. The robot’s timekeeping module stores each tick in memory as a 32-bit binary number. This is the same storage system as most computers back on Earth.  
  
But those count seconds. Our robot needs precision. He counts ten times for every second.  
  
  
4,294,967,295  
Four billion two hundred ninety-four million nine hundred sixty-seven thousand two hundred ninety-five. This number is the maximum value that can be expressed as a 32-bit binary number. If these are seconds, then these many seconds add up to more than 136 years.  
  
Counting in tenths, they add up to precisely 13 years, 8 months, 11 days, 38 minutes, and 49 seconds.  
  
  
August 11, 2013, 00:38:49  
  
  
Unix time ticks on,  
  
Silent seconds never still,  
  
  
  
On Monday August 15 2013, scientists on Earth receive no answer from our comet-hunting friend. They urgently try contacting him, using different radio wavelengths, targeting different antennas on the robot’s body, sending distress signals. But after considerable effort transmitting low-level hardware commands, the scientists determine that there are no other plausible scenarios under which they can recover command and control of the robot.  
  
NASA declares the probe lost in September. The mission ends. No further contact will be made.  
  
  
  
But still, the robot is orbiting the sun.  
  
Still looking at his clock . It’s January 1 2000. Midnight  
  
  
Reaching that number causes a new reset every time. His computer turns on and off rhythmically as it orbits around the date on the faulty clock. His antenna no longer points to Earth, wherever that is. But he will be orbiting around the sun for many thousands of years to come. Orbiting in time.  
  
  
This new reset cycle is now the rhythm of his breathing. The reboot sequence becomes the new algorithm, and his perspective of the world shifts along with it. As each sensor and instrument flickers on an off repeatedly, he gains a new perspective, a new mission. He begins to develop. He begins to change, even to feel. His over-engineered body parts are built to last decades. The sun shines on his wing-like solar panels, he now enjoys the warmth. No more need to measure and log energy output per time. No more reports either.  
  
  
Losing track of time feels liberating. No destination, no progress, no surveying, no mapping, no colonizing, no space.  

  
  
The earth people are nothing to worry about anyway now. It’s midnight after all.  
  
  
January 1 2000.  
  
  
Clock strikes twelve, panic, joy.  
  
Y2K lurks in the code  
  
  
  
Jupiter's moons dance,  
  
Timekeepers for ships at sea,  
  
He floats on.

Does a robot’s death make it, somehow, feel more “human” to us? Based on the real-life story of a space probe NASA lost contact with in 2013, this story blends scientific fact and speculative fiction to imagine the probe's current existence and newfound life cycles in orbit.

AUGUST 24 1609 17:02:44.230 
PALAZZO DUCALE, REPUBLIC OF VENICE



The alleged draft of a letter written by Galileo Galilei in August 1609 to Leonardo Donato, doge of Venice, detailing the usefulness of the telescope, a new invention at the time. 

On the lower part of the letter he noted his first observations of the planet Jupiter and four of Jupiter's moons. 

JULY 03 2005 06:58:08.125
RA = 203.9080 DEC = 27.4170 TW= 133.5328



This image of Deep Impact's impactor probe was taken by the mission's flyby spacecraft, after the two separated at 2:07 a.m. Eastern time, July 3. The impactor is scheduled to collide with comet Tempel 1 at 1:52 a.m. Eastern time, July 4. The impactor can be seen at the center of the image.


Photo: NASA/JPL/KSC, 2005

Drawing of Saturn from Ernst Wilhelm Tempel's diary.

A surrealist biography of Ernst Wilhelm Tempel (1821-1889). 

JUNE 27 2002 09:53:16.017
BALL AEROSPACE, BOULDER, COLORADO, USA

The Deep Impact space probe is seen in this photograph, his instruments are being tested and calibrated by the engineer in the background. His two telescope eyes look directly into the camera. 

Photo: NASA/JPL/KSC, 2005