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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."
Does anybody know what self correcting mechanisms to contact NASA or meet the launch window, or anything else, that the probe has?
They find it collecting dust samples on Mars.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Twas Lockheed that made the error, not NASA.
And how is NASA stifling private competition? Seems like there's more private space companies now than there ever has been.
Privatizing everything is not the solution.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
They usually get it right. The news loves to make a massive deal about their screwups, but all of these things are high-risk.
With paper-thin budgets thanks to our damn legislators, they do what they can with what they have...but space is not cheap, and mistakes happen when you try to "do it cheap".
Space travel is much, much more complex. It's amazing that we manage to do it at all. And, on balance, NASA is doing very well, in particular given the limited resources they are getting.
Privatize it? That's just brilliant! Let the likes of Enron, Worldcom, and US Airways run it! Corporate robbber barons care only about grabbing money. They would take every cent of the space agency's budget as their salaries and bonuses, then would lay everyone off, file bankruptcy, and laugh all the way to the bank. Greedy businessmen destroy everything they touch. Consider what could happen to your parents or grandparents if Social Security were privatized. The Social Security Corporation would piss it all away grabbing fat salaries, and speculating in stock like Enron, Worldcom, and Imclone. Some things are way too important to leave to greedy businessmen.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
First, money subsidizing a private company is really the worst of both worlds. Private space companies can and do survive on their own.
Second, you seem unaware of all the space companies out there that move things into space. I'm thinking of at least SeaLaunch and Orbital. There are others.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Here's the latest press release from the CONTOUR people, which can be found here:
CONTOUR: Latest News
August 16, 2002 -- 1 p.m. (EDT)
Search for CONTOUR Continues
Mission operators continue to listen for a signal from CONTOUR.
Using its 34-meter antennas, NASA's Deep Space Network stations are scanning the spacecraft's expected path beyond Earth's orbit, attempting to pick up radio signals from CONTOUR's transmitters. The CONTOUR team is also awaiting feedback from several NASA-sponsored and other optical and radar sites that have been searching the skies for signs of the spacecraft.
CONTOUR's STAR 30 solid-propellant rocket motor was programmed to ignite at 4:49 a.m. EDT on Aug 15, boosting the spacecraft out of an Earth parking orbit and onto a trajectory to encounter two comets over the next four years. The spacecraft was too low for DSN antennas to track it during the burn - about 140 miles (225 kilometers) above the Indian Ocean - and the CONTOUR mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory expected to regain contact about 45 minutes later to confirm the burn. No signal was received, and the team has been working through plans to find the craft along the predicted trajectories for a successful burn.
CONTOUR's onboard computer was carrying a command that, starting at 6 a.m. EDT today, would have turned the spacecraft and pointed another of its four antennas toward Earth. So far, however, no signal has been received.
CONTOUR, a Discovery-class mission to explore the nucleus of comets, was built and managed by the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., for NASA. Additional information about CONTOUR is available on the Internet at: http://www.contour2002.org.
They aimed a telescope at the position where it is expected to be, and they found what appears to be TWO moving spots instead of one.
j pg
Not a good sign.
Here is an image that appears to be a positive/negative overlay to help seperate star images from moving things:
http://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/Jeff/contour.
There are 4 streaks here because there are two sets of positive/negative plates overlapped I am speculating.
Table-ized A.I.