From: henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.science,alt.sci.planetary
Subject: Re: Ganymede magnetic field questions
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 01:38:59 GMT

In article <806u8p$kgo$1@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu>,
John Rehling <rehling@cs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>...From the EO
>homepage, it does not appear, though, that it will have instruments
>that probe magnetic/radiation environments.

One possible reason for this is that it removes any need to make the
spacecraft "magnetically clean".  Fields-and-particles instruments got
thrown off SOHO for the same reason:  eliminating that requirement made it
considerably easier to build the spacecraft.  (This was especially true
for SOHO, mind you, because it's got a bunch of complex optical
instruments full of precision machinery and moving parts, and making it
all magnetically clean would have added a lot of constraints.)
--
The space program reminds me        |  Henry Spencer   henry@spsystems.net
of a government agency.  -Jim Baen  |      (aka henry@zoo.toronto.edu)