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SOHO Is Back

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the found-in-space dept.

c4tp's friend writes "Space.com reports that SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) is back and almost fully operational. The satellite should be able to transmit 98% of the data it was able to transport before an electric motor stuck disabling its high gain attenae in June (covered by Slashdot). The fix includes a 180 degree rotation of SOHO and use of another satellite dish transmitting the information via the Deep Space Network. SOHO will be out of order for about nine to sixteen days every three months."

4 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Deja vu? by pen · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It looks like SOHO was already "nearly back in business in 1998...

    Regardless of administrative crap, here are some nice shots of our by far biggest source of life energy!

  2. Long distance repairs by FTL · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It continually amazes me what ground control can do with damaged hardware. Galileo had an LED (part of the tape drive) which had burned out; but they managed to repair it. Voyager 2 had its entire OS replaced from half way across the solar system. A space telescope with a dead tracking system was revived using software to watch stars using the main camera. Sats with dead gyroscopes have been reactivated using jury-rigged torquer bars which interact with Earth's magnetic field. One communications sat used the Moon as an unscheduled slingshot to get it into the correct orbit after its main booster failed.

    So don't laugh when one of these upgrades goes wrong. Like one of the Vikings which was accidentally sent the command "switch off your reciever" while on the surface of Mars (it is still there, patiently waiting for the next order).

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  3. Re:Deep Space Network by confused+one · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Actually it's kind of misleading. They're using the low gain antenna now which, using the original uplink, was only capable of low bandwidth. Basically, it was for sending control commands, etc; not for transmitting back the images and other data. By using the big antennas in the deep space network, they increase the sensitivity on this end; and, they've worked out an algorithm (uploaded to the SOHO) which allows them to transmit the data collected back to Earth, using the low gain antenna for higher bandwidth.

    I bet the electrical engineers and software people missed a few nights sleep working this out...

  4. SOHO: Operational or scientific? by marcel-jan.nl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem with SOHO is, that everyone has grown rather dependent on, what originally was a scientific, not an operational mission. It has now become a single point of failure in the gathering of important space weather forecasting data.

    Space.com recently had an article about this. Without the constant stream of SOHO data, "it isn't too far off the mark that our forecasting methodology would revert back to the way it was many years ago," Joseph Kunches Chief, Space Weather Operations at the Space Environment Center told SPACE.com. "So without it for a little while...well, you keep your fingers crossed. You hope the Sun doesn't know," he said.