Black Boxes for Spacecrafts

karvind writes "NewScientist is running story about NASA's plan to put small, heat-resistant black boxes that will transmit data back to Earth when future space probes break up during re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere. NASA will work with Aerospace Corporation to develop black boxes called Reentry Breakup Recorders (REBRs) weighing just 1 kilogram and spanning less than 30 centimetres."

Comments

Re:Good luck finding it

[nakly]

They've already thought of that. From the article:

The heat from the craft's explosion would trigger the boxes to detach - perhaps by melting the adhesive that fixes them to the CEV. Then, as they fall to Earth, the boxes would transmit their data, obviating any need to retrieve them later.

The plural of 'craft'

[tagish]

is 'craft', not 'crafts' :)

Re:"When" they break up?

[Anonymous Coward]

For unmanned stuff, the goal is when, not if. You want this stuff to breakup on reentry so fewer (and smaller) pieces reach the ground, possibly causing damage.