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NASA Satellite Stranded

Posted by michael on from the earth-to-major-tom dept.

Account 10 writes: "BBC News has a story about one of NASA's newest and most sophisticated satellites. Launched a couple of weeks ago, it was supposed to have moved itself up into the correct orbit . Once there, one of its roles would be to route data between the ISS, other satellites and the ground as aprt of the TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) project. However a fuel tank is leaking and it cannot reach its orbit. One suggestion is that it maneuver itself into an orbit where the shuttle can reach and rescue it - to repair it and send it on its way, or bring it home to be launched again."

6 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Will Boeing take the $825m hit? by evil_one · · Score: 2, Informative

    Um, Boeing isn't part of the arline industry, it's part of the areospace industry. The airline industry is the one that actually ferries people & goods around on the airplanes.

    --
    Desperation is a stinky cologne
  2. Older rescue by Account+10 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is the story of the successful rescue of an Intelsat after it failed to seperate from its rocket and got stuck in a low orbit. It took 6 tries over 3 days for the shuttle crew to catch it.

    The TDRS satellite has a similar mass to the Intelsat

  3. Shuttle rescue unlikely by Jonathan+McDowell · · Score: 3, Informative
    As I pointed out in my newsletter JSR on Friday (before the BBC story, I note :-)) it's unlikely that they will try a Shuttle rescue because it would take more fuel to get down to a Shuttle orbit than to get up to GEO, given where it is now. All the previous rescues involved satellites in much lower orbit. Oh, and as a side note to the poster who commented on the post-Challenger regulations, it's only liquid hydrogen that the Shuttle won't deal with in the payload bay, there have been plenty of payloads since then which have had hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide on board, which is what the BSS-601 satellites like TDRS-I carry.

    I draw slashdot's attention to the fact that the story was originally broken by Keith Cowing's excellent NASA Watch web page. I expect that they will get the bird to GEO, although Space Command doesn't seem to have issued any new orbital data for it in several days.

  4. Re:liquid fuel? by bogasity · · Score: 2, Informative

    TDRS HIJ were designed for launch on an Atlas in order to reduce launch expenses. Also, none of the articles I have read yet have indicated that TDRS I is leaking fuel. There are many other failures that could lead to a lack of fuel flow from one the tanks - a pinched line, failure of the pressurization system, bad bladder inside the tank, etc. If you read Boeing's statement, they have confidence they can resolve the problem. After seeing Hughes (now Boeing) engineers slingshot a satellite around the moon a couple times to get it to a geosync orbit, I wouldn't underestimate what they can do in this case.

  5. Re:Cost of Repairs vs. Relaunch vs. Reentry by adminispheroid · · Score: 3, Informative
    Well, NASA has 3 choices Re-entry, Retrieve and Relauch, or Repair.

    I fear this post has missed an essential point -- as the article makes clear, this isn't NASA's problem, it's Boeing's problem. NASA doesn't pay for the thing and doesn't own it until it's in the right orbit.

  6. Re:liquid fuel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    No the regs are not relaxed. The shuttle is a poor, old-fashioned and costly technology for launching satelites. Ariane (avanced technology but suffering from a somewhat shaky start) will steal this market from the shuttle for sure.