NASA Loses Contact With Comet Explorer

linuxwrangler writes: "According to this article in the SF Chronicle, NASA lost contact with the Comet Nucleus Tour ('Contour') satellite just after firing engines to boost it out of orbit. The spacecraft was launched July 3 with the mission to probe comet Encke in 2003, Schwassman-Wachmann 3 in 2006 and perhaps d'Arrest in 2008. NASA is calculating possible trajectories in an attempt to search for and contact the probe. Let's hope they regain contact/control. This sounded like a cool project." Liquor adds: "The BBC has a report that indicates that the launch window for the $159M spacecraft closes tomorrow. If it hasn't successfully fired the engine by then, it can't make the planned mission."

Comments

This is why I see...

[C0LDFusion]

...that NASA should be eliminated. Not only are the Space Admins stifling free-market efforts towards space, but they are also bungling fools who mess up English to Metric conversions and throw satellites into space without thoughts towards back-up comm methods. I mean, shite, dude, even Amateur Radio guys know that if you're dealing with something important, you have a second method of communication.

If, back after we landed on the moon, we switched to subsidizing private Space Exploration rather than feeding mega-Trillions to NASA, we'd already have our colonies on the damned moon, and we'd probable have it for alot less than what NASA's blown on the Space Shuttle program alone.

From the Apollo 1 to Apollo 13 to Challenger to this day, NASA's proven itself to be an organization that is all too self-aware of their job security.