Slashdot Mirror
NASA Satellite Stranded
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."
Under the terms of the contract Nasa does not accept delivery of the satellite until it is in its final orbit. If it gets there Nasa will redesignate it TDRS-9.
Who launched the thing? If they can't recover it will Boeing have to take the hit? Not a good year for the airline industry.
Well, NASA has 3 choices Re-entry, Retrieve and Relauch, or Repair.
The first choice, Re-entry, is just to give up on it (in otherwords, send it back into the atmosphere and hope it doens't hit anyone, or hit a target so we get free tacos). I doubt they will do this considering the astronomical (pun somewhat intended) amount of money they would have wasted on the whole thing.
Retrieve and Relaunch is probably unlikey too, because not only do they have to pay to send a shuttle up (although they can just do it on a regularly scheduled mission), but then they have to pay to launch it again. It would be pretty hard, IMHO, to snatch a sattilite, return it to earth, and relauch it without further damaging it. Plus, I'm sure it is more dangerous to land a shuttle with all that extra weight in the cargo area.
That leaves us with repair, the most reasonable option. Send up some guys on the next shuttle mission with Duct Tape (about $1.50 a roll, depending on store and brand). Voila! Problem solved!
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Yes, and depending on which web site you visit, the shuttle has launched up to seven of these tdrs satellites (but I don't know if any were of the same weight as this one). If it can safely launch one, then I have to assume that (ignoring fuel leaks) it can land with one.
Who is going to build the first satellite recovery robot/probe? As more satellites are being launched and seem to fail in orbit ,and/or die of age. Why not make a recovery vehicle that could park satellites in a low orbit and prepare them for service by a shuttle or robot. Obsolete satellites could be prepared for re-entry.
I guess engery is the only limiting factor...
Leaking fuel? As in liquid fuel? Since when can the shuttle carry up payloads with liquid fuel?
Following the Challenger explosion, one of the safety regs imposed was that no payload could have liquid fuel. This required the Galileo team to adjust the launch trajectory for the spacecraft to include 2 slingshots around the inner solar system.
I work in the aerospace industry. It's not NASA that needs convincing. It's President Bush. He has cut funding severely on some NASA programs like the International Space Station, where that the U.S. will not even be keeping its promises to its partners. The Pluto-Kuiper Express and Solar Probe were both cancelled due to his budget. He cut $207 million from the overall budget of NASA's Earth Science program, which uses satellites to study the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. (I worked on one of the satellites associated with that program and the satellite is now mothballed at my company.)
If you want rockets to be used in weapons, elect a Republican President. If you want rockets to be used for space exploration and science, elect a Democrat. Just look at history. It was Kennedy who saw space exploration as a source of national pride. He pushed the Apollo program. It was Nixon who cut Apollo short by three landings and basically gutted NASA. Nixon ignored the recommendatons for Mars explorations made by his own task force. He only agreed to fund the development of the space shuttle because it would "bring the price of going into space down".
Reagan pushed NASA and the shuttle into ever-increasing military roles, launching military satellites and contributing to the "Star Wars" efforts. In addition, the Reagan administration directed NASA to cancel one of its ongoing space science missions (the the International Solar Polar mission), and seriously considered terminating the entire solar system exploration program and transferring the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to some other government agency.
Of course, when the main thrust of an administration is tax cuts for the wealthy, it's not surprising when funding for NASA suffers.
I think the modifications have since been removed. We now have no shuttle capable of launching a Centaur upper stage -- the other was destroyed. I have often wondered if this really is all that dangerous, considering the fact that the hydrazine maneuvering fuel used on many satellites the Shuttle launches is hypergolic, meaning it will ignite on contact with its oxidizer, no spark needed. Hydrogen and oxygen, on the other hand, require an ignition system.
i am a soviet space shuttle