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NASA Satellite Un-stranded

Posted by michael on from the get-out-and-push dept.

Ronnie Coote writes "In March, a previous article mentioned that NASA's latest Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (used for communications between Shuttle, Space Station, ground, etc) had been stranded in a low orbit due to fuel leaking from its tanks. Well, thanks to the hard work of Boeing and NASA boffins, it's now reached geostationary orbit and "expected to fulfill its contractually required 15-year service life". More details from Boeing."

2 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Technically how? by lommer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I want to know is how did they acomplish all of this? I mean, reprogramming electrical circuits are one thing to reroute and fix remotely, but how do you fix a valve-blockage from several thousand km away!?

    My only thought was that they somehow had a completely redundant backup valve and pipe system in anticipation of this exact problem. But when going into space, every gram costs $ so I highly doubt that this was the case. Kudos to them for first figuring out what was wrong in the first place, and then actually being able to do something about it. But really... how the hell did they do that?!

    1. Re:Technically how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Almost all spacecraft built have extra plumbing to reroute around stuff like this. Its a hard lesson learned over the years. You always have redundant thrusters, cross-configurable piping between your fuel tanks and your thrusters. Whenever you fly a new type of thruster you always have the old reliable model on-board as well.

      You are correct that every gram costs $$, but not planning for contingency situations costs even more.