Helium Depleted, Herschel Space Telescope Mission Ends

AmiMoJo writes "The billion-euro Herschel observatory has run out of the liquid helium needed to keep its instruments and detectors at their ultra-low functioning temperature. This equipment has now warmed, meaning the telescope cannot see the sky. Its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments made it the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space, but astronomers always knew the helium store onboard would be a time-limiting factor." Reader etash points to a collection of some infrared imagery that Herschel collected.

Comments

Orbital pickup truck

[mabhatter654]

If only we had a plan for recurring orbital missions... A "space pickup" that would launch on a regular basis to make pit stops for things like extra helium.

To think how many multi-decade projects like this will "rot on the vine".

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[Megane]

It has been nearly 45 years since we first went to the Moon.

We only went there because of a super stretch effort that went to the limits of our technology and budgets. It was an anomaly in the progression of space exploration, and the extreme effort involved probably even set us back by a couple of decades. We are currently on a more normal progression of space exploration, with the possible exception that we (the western world, as opposed to the Chinese) may bypass the moon this time around because we've already been there and it's not really very interesting.

Actually, I'm surprised that we've sent hardly any robotic missions to the moon in the past 45 years. There's a lot less need for humans when communication delays are only a few seconds, and maybe we could find out something interesting enough to want to go back there.

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Ages" system refers to "cutting edge" technology - the technology used to kill each other. Given this, I don't think we ever really entered the space age. Silicon age is more descriptive of current weapons.

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[Runaway1956]

We pissed away more than two decades with that stupid ass "space plane" thing. It's like America said, "Well, we were the first on the moon - we'll never beat that, so we'll just give up now. Oh - launch that space plane thingy occasionally, to give lip service to exploration and research."

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[MightyYar]

I have to disagree. Just last night I was marveling at how we have rovers cruising around mars, orbiters and probes strewn all over the place, and how the technology is now at hand to create "tugboats" for asteroids. Maybe manned missions have been disappointing, but robotic missions are amazing too.

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[Anonymous Coward]

It was not really an anomaly, it has happened time and time again.
Columbus might have 'found' the Americas for Europe, but people had voyaged there by ship many years prior. There was quite a large gap between when knowledge of the Americas and the ability to get there and back was established and when full exploration and settlement/trade happened.
The same thing also happened with Euro-China trade, with Rome and the northern areas of Europe and the British/Irish isles.
Same with ocean floor exploration, Antarctica, etc.
Even the same happened in many ways in computers. There is a very large gap between Babbage and the WW2 code breakers in Briton, and then again between early isolated computer systems in government and business and the computer revolution of the 70's/80's.

Often, due to obsession, singular mental ability, or politics some frontier is found physical or knowledge wise, is 'conquered' and then promptly forgotten about until there is better reason for further exploration or utilization.

There always seems to be a gap of a a generation at least between the frontier being 'conquered' and the frontier being mastered and becoming simply part of the larger world.
See where we went to space, and now as our first astronauts reach the end of their life we now have private space companies selling tickets to the wealthy for joy rides and the actual prospect of a private moon mission.

We are doing exactly the same thing as always.

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[demonlapin]

At the time of Apollo, the program was consuming half the IC manufacturing capacity of the entire world. The ships were essentially all one-off constructions built by hand. Go read How Apollo Flew to the Moon. Yes, the physics of it were understood. Yes, as experience showed, we had all the technological pieces to make it happen, in much the same way that we almost certainly could conduct a manned mission to Mars if we really wanted to. But doing so required an enormous amount of blood and treasure.

Salvage Rights

[jdigriz]

SpaceX should go after it and salvage it robotically for use as a solar thermal concentrator. 3.5M mirrors that are already in space don't exactly grow on trees. A simple high-efficiency Ion engine (Dawn-class)and a robonaut should be able to handle the job. They can then lease the asset to Planetary Resources or whoever wants to do industrial experiments. Doesn't have to be quick. Cheap and slow is the way to go here.

Re:Worked for 4 years.

[tgd]

I doubt that's the main reason why the shuttle flies upside down. The bottom of the shuttle is also black, while the top is white. From a simple light-absorption-radiation point of view, this configuration would lead to heating of the shuttle as a whole. The heat shield is designed to shield from heat conduction due to superheated compressed air in contact with the shuttle during reentry. Shielding from radiative heating makes use of reflective surfaces like what satellites are coated in.

It seems the shuttle would fly upside down to aid in radio communication with the earth, allow viewing of the earth through the windows (a human concern, but still an important one), and to protect the shuttle from earthbound debris (though I'd think the heat shield is the last thing you'd want to damage before attempting reentry).

Your doubt is misplaced -- that is precisely why it flew that way. The shuttle's radiators were on the inside of the cargo bay doors. The shuttle had a limited time, once on orbit, to get positioned and get the doors open because of the heat build-up.

Re:A bit of irony there.

[JBMcB]

The main problem is the vast majority of the universe is empty, and the vast majority of the helium in the universe is millions of degrees hot.