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NASA Reconnects With 'Lost' STEREO-B Satellite (businessinsider.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the time-is-ticking dept.

NASA lost contact with its STEREO-B spacecraft twenty-two months ago during a routine 72-hour test. On Sunday, the spacecraft reconnected with NASA roughly 189 million miles away from Earth. While that would seem like a cause for celebration, "the very hard and scary work is just the beginning, says Stereo project scientist Joe Gurman, as the agency has to turn on the computer to learn more about the current state of the spacecraft -- a process that may make the craft lose contact with them again. Slashdot user bongey writes: NASA may have only two minutes or less to fix a STEREO-B satellite before the computer causes it to lose contact again. NASA lost contact with their STEREO-B satellite nearly twenty-two months ago when performing a routine test. NASA scientists are afraid to turn on the computer at this point because it may cause them to lose contact again. A more detailed technical summary can be found here. "We have something like two minutes between when STEREO-B receives the command to boot up one of its computers and when it starts doing what we don't want it to do," Gurman said. Business Insider writes, "Making matters worse, it takes about 20 seconds to send commands to the spacecraft -- a data rate that makes a dial-up modem seem lightning fast."

21 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. What a read. by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the kind of stuff that is truly exciting to an engineer interested in space. A satellite in an uncontrolled spin due to a bad inertial unit, without enough power in its batteries to transmit at full power, a network of deep space communications satellites colliding signals to create constructive interference to boost communications, a plan to point several radio telescopes towards it in the hope to hear something, sweeping the sky with different frequencies and if all else fails point the Hubble at it.

    Combined with the short time window to make things work the only thing missing here is Matt Damon and you got yourself a summer blockbuster.

    1. Re:What a read. by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Tractor beam? Let's just get back to spending our funds on calling in wizards to do magic incantations.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    2. Re:What a read. by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 2

      Don't give Trump these ideas.

      --
      My first program:

      Hell Segmentation fault

    3. Re: What a read. by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you're excited by this, it means you're a loser and need to get out more.

      Says someone who spends his spare time anonymously insulting people on the internet?

    4. Re:What a read. by cdrudge · · Score: 2

      A satellite in an uncontrolled spin due to a bad inertial unit, without enough power in its batteries to transmit at full power, a network of deep space communications satellites colliding signals to create constructive interference to boost communications, a plan to point several radio telescopes towards it in the hope to hear something, sweeping the sky with different frequencies and if all else fails point the Hubble at it.

      Still not as difficult of a process as preventing the Windows 10 upgrade from automatically happening.

    5. Re:What a read. by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Yes, it is inconceivable to anyone who knows basic Physics. Just because X is possible doesn't make Y possible.

      Said by every physicist ever. Don't you know physics? Light is a particle not a wave! Gravity waves exist, wait no they are impossible, woopse turns out someone discovered them and I was right in the first place (though Einstein didn't live to change his mind a second time).

      I know basic physics, that's why I don't discount anything as being physically impossible.

    6. Re:What a read. by Iamthecheese · · Score: 2

      ahem

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
  2. Man up, NASA. by SeaFox · · Score: 2

    NASA lost contact with their STEREO-B satellite nearly twenty-two months ago when performing a routine test. NASA scientists are afraid to turn on the computer at this point because it may cause them to lose contact again.

    What's the point of being able to talk to it if they can't turn it on and actually do stuff with it?
    If they thought they lost it 22 months ago, they have nothing further to lose if it goes away again now.

    1. Re:Man up, NASA. by crimson+tsunami · · Score: 2

      So that $50 you found down the back of the couch, you're going to give to me right? Since you already lost it anyway, you have nothing to lose...

    2. Re:Man up, NASA. by jittles · · Score: 3, Funny

      What's the point of being able to talk to it if they can't turn it on and actually do stuff with it?

      Hmmm. Are you talking about the satellite at this point, or the inability for Slashdotters to seal the deal with women?

    3. Re:Man up, NASA. by bigpat · · Score: 4, Informative

      NASA lost contact with their STEREO-B satellite nearly twenty-two months ago when performing a routine test. NASA scientists are afraid to turn on the computer at this point because it may cause them to lose contact again.

      What's the point of being able to talk to it if they can't turn it on and actually do stuff with it?
      If they thought they lost it 22 months ago, they have nothing further to lose if it goes away again now.

      Reading the article helps determine what the point is...

      Seems the point is that they want to try to see if there is something they can do to point the satellite at the Sun in the 1 to 2 minutes they think they might have before the startup of the computer drains the battery and they have to wait another 6 months until the battery randomly charges up as it gets sunlight on its solar panels at the wrong angles. The sensor that keeps the satellite pointed at the sun failed, but maybe they can keep it pointed at the sun by sending commands from Earth and then they can better assess the health of the systems with more time.

      Based on the article its seems they might have just enough time to give it some commands to point toward the sun and then hopefully the battery starts charging up again so they have more time to work with before it powers down.

    4. Re:Man up, NASA. by bigpat · · Score: 2

      To be fair the article summary above makes it sound like a computer glitch, so if you just went with the slashdot summary and quote I can understand the confusion. From the article it indicated that there was a sensor malfunction (not necessarily a computer malfunction) which means it couldn't autonomously point itself at the sun anymore. Leading to the solar panels not getting enough direct sunlight and thus draining the battery. The computer startup just means it will then consume power more quickly than the solar panels can produce it at the wrong angle to the sun and the battery will drain in a couple minutes again and the computer will automatically shutdown.

      Really all we are talking about is whether the computer can boot up quickly enough and whether they can send something like:

      1010 Fire thruster X for 23 milliseconds
      1020 wait 500 milliseconds
      1030 Fire thruster y for 22 milliseconds

      (My BASIC is a little rusty though ;)

      Assuming they know a precise orientation of the craft when they send the commands they should be able to at least point the craft more towards the sun. Maybe not 100% optimally, but enough to get net power to the computer and maybe begin to charge up the battery. Of course without more information from the computer they probably don't know much about the state of the systems. It could just not work if there are more malfunctions, so there is substantial unknown risk mitigated by the fact that they have already lost the use of the probe so they have everything to gain from the success of a best attempt.

      This is all about observation, timing, communication, making some educated guesses, keeping the execution simple to keep it within the estimated window of opportunity and a lot of triple checked math to come up with the correct numbers to send based on all the available information.

  3. Solar studies essential, for Climate and more. by robbak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You have to be trolling.

    Knowledge of what the Sun is doing is essential for anything we do in space, including studying the weather and climate, because solar radiation is dangerous to equipment as well as people. And down here on earth - someday there is going to be a solar storm such as happened in 1859, which set telegraph cables sparking across the planet. Today, such a thing would fry our phone and electric systems if we can't predict it with the certainty needed to, literally, shut down and disconnect our electricity and copper communication networks while it passes by.

    And of course, while it is CO and methane that are driving climate change, the heat it traps comes from the Sun, so good knowledge of what the Sun is doing is needed to understand our measurements of temperature.

    --
    Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
  4. Commands turning satellite computer on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    F2 F2 F2 F2 F2 F2 F2 F2 F2 F2 F2 F2

    Dammit!

  5. Re:Need to turn it on to find out what's going on by Ivoch · · Score: 3, Informative

    Considering it's over 300 million kilometers away from earth, I doubt the scenario you and the GPs are describing can happen, considering it takes over 16 minutes for a signal to reach it ;)

    The 20 seconds cited in TFS/TFA are most likely the result of the small bandwidth they can work with due to the computer not being booted up or something - because for example the "BIOS" can only receiver commands at 1kb/s or something.

  6. Re: Safe mode? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 3, Funny

    They couldn't find the goddam recovery CD.

  7. Re: Safe mode? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    I blame systemd.

  8. Re: Safe mode? by stealth_finger · · Score: 3, Funny

    They couldn't find the goddam recovery CD.

    Isn't the recovery disc on voyager?

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  9. News For Nerds? by jittles · · Score: 2

    Why is this even on Slashdot? It sounds like it belongs on the Missed Connections page of Craigslist or something like that?

  10. 427 Kbps max theoretical, but ILO at low power ... by raymorris · · Score: 2

    > most likely the result of the small bandwidth they can work with due to the computer not being booted up or something - because for example the "BIOS" can only receiver commands at 1kb/s or something

    That, or since it's low on power, the data rate is much lower than max. (That's to be expected, over long distances, lower power signals need to be slower.)

    The transceiver is capable of up to 427 Kbps or 720 Kbps, depending on the source you read.
    http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/im...
    http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/sp...

    As you said, it's entirely possible that the main computer can do that data rate, but the IPMI/DRAC/ILO is far slower, or the lack of available power dictates a slow rate.

  11. Re:Data rate or transmission delay? by buchner.johannes · · Score: 2

    You are correct. 189 million miles (from TFA) is 17 light minutes. The STEREO satellites are positioned opposite Earth from the Sun http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa....

    --
    NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.