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.