Talk:Magellan (spacecraft)

Sentence structure

"Weary of rapid shuttle launches, the decision was made to launch Magellan in May, and into an orbit that would require 1 year and 3 months before encountering Venus."

The subject of the sentence is "the decision". The adjective "weary" modifies the subject. However, presumably the decision is not weary. Was NASA weary? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.128.246.32 (talk) 04:07, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Was the destruction intentional?

The article doesn't mention whether the ultimate crash of the probe was intentional. Does anyone know? --Doradus 18:19, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

[1] Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 20:20:42, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

Yes, it was intentional. The main mission was long done, and sending it into the atmosphere was a fitting end. The explorer finally merged with what he was exploring. A fitting end.--Planetary 06:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

There was no mention of the effect of ice cream on the Magellan team.

Spacecraft design

The first line of the Spacecraft design section states "Built largely from spare parts from both the Voyager and Galileo missions, the Magellan spacecraft was 4.6 metres (15.4 feet) long, topped with a 3.7 m (12 ft)." My question is, a 3.7 m what? My guess would be antenna but it would be better if someone who knows for sure could fix it. -Nibios 17:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you guessed right, it's probably the antenna which was a spare from the Voyager program. The high-gain antennas in Voyager probes are 3.7 meters in diameter.130.234.5.137 01:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

First unmanned spacecraft launched by NASA since 1977?

The first line says Magellan was the "first unmanned spacecraft to be launched by NASA since its successful Voyager 1 spacecraft to Jupiter and Saturn in 1977".. I would be inclined to think this means 'first unmanned INTERPLANETARY spacecraft', since there have obviously been numerous other satellites launched by NASA in that period. Random Tree (talk) 19:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought the same, but this is also not the case as Pioneer Venus Orbiter was launched in 1978. I searched through the Category:Years in space exploration, there's not another USA i/p probe (at least in there) 1978-1989, so maybe we should correct the phrase to "first unmanned interplanetary spacecraft to be launched by NASA since its Pioneer Venus Orbiter to Venus in 1978" - Badseed (talk) 22:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for looking that up. That phrasing sounds good to me. Random Tree (talk) 19:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Synthetic aperture radar

The phrase "synthetic aperture radar" is a common noun, even though its abbreviation is SAR. Such things are actually quite common in English, and especially in technical English. For example "central processing unit" is abbreviated CPU, and ribonucleic acid is abbreviated RNA, and instrument landing system is abbreviated ILS.98.67.163.247 (talk) 02:31, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

"Also, synthetic aperture radar is an article in the Wikipedia, and hence this article must link to it because SAR was the key ingredient of the Magellan mission.98.67.163.247 (talk) 02:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Certainly, ILS = the "instrument landing system" in aviation, and we are fellow travelers on that! But - for the last 25 years or so, the nitwits have been using ILS = "integrated logistics systems". This is a mess when we see Help Wanted ads for "ILS Engineers". As an electronics engineer, I could work as an ILS engineer if it had to do with radio electronics, radar, and the like. Next, the ILS was superseded by (or was attempted to be replaced by), the MLS = "microwave landing system". Nowadays, I think that they might use something connected with the GPS = "global positioning system".47.215.188.197 (talk) 02:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

By the way, SAR = "search and rescue", also, and the SARSAT system is a search and rescue system, the International_Cospas-Sarsat_Programme, that utilizes special satellites in orbit. This all got started as a joint program between the U.S.A. and the USSR, with the cooperation of Canada and France. Its headquarters is in Montreal. 47.215.188.197 (talk) 02:26, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Units

The use of the unfamiliar "units" gal and milligal is unnecessary and uncalled for. This is especially true since 1.0 gal equals 0.01 meters per second per second = 0.01 meter/sec^2. Just express everything in terms of meter/sec^2.
All this "unit" is is shifting of the decimal point by two places. The "gal" is as unnecessary as the Angstrom unit, where 10 angstroms = 1.0 nanometer. The "gal" is as unnecessary as the "franklin", where 1.0 franklin = 1.0 statcoulombs, and the statcoulomb is not used very much, anyway.47.215.188.197 (talk) 16:55, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Since gals are commonly used in the relevant scientific literature, they should be used in Wikipedia as well. Ruslik_Zero 20:11, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

That is to the contrary to what is said by the Systeme Internationale, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and so on and so forth. Do you wish to argue with the S.I. and NIST? The next thing that you know, you will be arguing with the ITU.
47.215.188.197 (talk) 06:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified (January 2018)

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Broken table thing

This was preventing the rest of the article from appearing; I don't know how to fix it

Timeline of travel

Date Event 1989-05-04 Space Shuttle vehicle launched at 18:46:59 UTC. 1989-05-05 Spacecraft deployed from Atlantis at 01:06:00 UTC. 1990-08-10   Begin Venus primary mission operations Time Event   1990-08-10 Venus orbital insertion maneuver. 1990-09-15 Begin mapping cycle 1 1991-05-15 Phase stop 1991-05-16   Begin Venus extended mission operations Time Event   1991-05-16 Begin mapping cycle 2 1992-01-24 Begin mapping cycle 3 1992-09-14 Begin mapping cycle 4 1993-05-26 Begin testing aerobraking maneuver to place Magellan into an almost circular orbit. 1993-08-16 Begin mapping cycle 5 1994-04-16 Begin mapping cycle 6 1994-04-16 Begin "Windmill" experiment 1994-10-12 Phase stop 1994-10-13 End of mission. Deorbited into Venusian atmosphere. Loss of contact at 10:05:00 UTC. Dan100 (Talk) 15:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC) References Infobox entry for semimajor axis of orbit I just changed the number here for the orbit semimajor axis to 10470 km from something slightly larger than 7700 km. The old value was clearly a mistake. This new value is not directly attributable to a source; rather, it is the average of periapse and apoapse altitudes from further down in the box, plus the planetary radius of 6050 km. This new number works with the given orbital period and the mass quoted for Venus using Kepler's 3rd Law. A more definitive number and citation need to be found and put here. BSVulturis (talk) 20:59, 2 November 2021 (UTC) For awhile (end of 2020 into the first half of this year) there was an IP address that was vandalizing this and other space articles; you can see what I mean here. A lot of the edits were arbitrary changes to numbers in infoboxes. Most of that user's edits were reverted, but it's possible stuff slipped through the cracks. I'd guess you found one of those that wasn't caught when it was new. Tisnec (talk) 03:00, 3 November 2021 (UTC)