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Deep Space One Mission Comes To An End

Posted by Hemos on from the playing-taps dept.

jfoust writes "NASA's Deep Space One mission will officially end this week, according to published reports. The spacecraft was launched over three years ago to test advanced technologies like ion drives and, despite the failure of its star tracker, was able to make a successful flyby of the comet Borrelly in September. The project tried to extend the mission by several months to fly by an asteroid, but could not coax the funding needed for the mission extension out of NASA. There's a short summary about the mission's end at spacetoday.net, and more details from the AP and the JPL Universe employee newspaper."

6 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. I'm a bit ignorant, but... by Wire+Tap · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ... one of the articles reads that they can't keep the project in operation for another year due to the failure to appropriate the several million dollars necessary from NASA. I wonder: what do they need _that_ much money for? Aside from the people to work on the project (how many does it really take?) and the transmission capabilities (how much power can it comsume?) what other _real_ costs are there?

    I am not too experienced in this area, but I often wonder why it costs so much to keep something like this going.

    --

    Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.

  2. Funding? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cannot coax the funding out of Nasa?
    What funding?
    How do you need "funding" to send signals to an already launched, 30year spacecraft? Just press the keys!
    Seriously, if you can't "fund" it, give me the docs and I'll do the damn mission! And I bet there are many, more qualified people, who would do the same.

    1. Re:Funding? by redcliffe · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What needs to be formed is an alliance of amateur space enthusiast's who will petition to be "given" NASA/JPL's abandoned probes, and will then control them and analyse data. It would be great for school students, they could get the chance to operate a real live space probe, or work on live data. They would need to build a small tracking network, but there are a large number of big amateur radio dishes around the world anyway, so just extend what's already being done. Sure you won't be able to listen to and control something as far out Voyager but for nearby stuff it would work.

  3. Remote Control by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How much is it to buy a DS1 remote control? I would love to have that for Christmas. Maybe they should auction off control of it.

    "Cool, look ma! I got my very own deep space probe!"
    "That's nice dear..."

  4. Question about XIPS engines by Tsar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The ion drive aboard the DS1 broke several records with its stellar (literally) tortiose-vs-hare performance. Does anyone know if this technology has any potential for being adapted to the ISS? Due to friction with the upper atmosphere, ISS is constantly losing altitude, necessitating frequent boosts using the Shuttle or a Progress vehicle to keep it on station (pardon the weak pun). A constantly-updated graph of its altitude variations is hosted on Heavens-Above.

    Anyway, does anyone know if ion engines of the type used on DS1 would be effective in allowing the ISS to maintain altitude, or could they at least reduce its rate of orbital decay enough to justify the power expenditure?

  5. Suitable mission end by JimPooley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They should point it out of the solar system and turn the ion drive on. Just let it go...

    --

    "Information wants to be paid"