Thanks. It's worth noting that no NASA employees were involved with this. The team is composed of Johns Hopkins University faculty and staff, and contractor personnel from Honeywell, Orbital Sciences, Computer Sciences Corp., Interface Control Systems, and a few other places. The initial idea to try using the magnetic torquers has to be credited to the senior Attitude Control System Engineer, an Orbital Sciences guy. Since the spacecraft had not been designed for this sort of application, it was a tricky thing to make the mods.
Lots of really bright and dedicated people (including a certain FUSEnerd who's posted a few things here) were involved in making this happen. We're still feeling our way along, as we learn to operate with the new attitude control system.
*wave* Hi Bryce. Yeah, it's not just Berkeley either. Bowie State University took over control of SAMPEX back in 99, and Colorado has a couple of missions that are run out of the various labs there. Of course, JHU APL has a bunch of missions. What makes FUSE unique among the university run missions is that it's the only Explorer class mission being run out of an academic department.
Bill G.
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Thanks. It's worth noting that no NASA employees were involved with this. The team is composed of Johns Hopkins University faculty and staff, and contractor personnel from Honeywell, Orbital Sciences, Computer Sciences Corp., Interface Control Systems, and a few other places. The initial idea to try using the magnetic torquers has to be credited to the senior Attitude Control System Engineer, an Orbital Sciences guy. Since the spacecraft had not been designed for this sort of application, it was a tricky thing to make the mods.
Lots of really bright and dedicated people (including a certain FUSEnerd who's posted a few things here) were involved in making this happen. We're still feeling our way along, as we learn to operate with the new attitude control system.
*wave* Hi Bryce. Yeah, it's not just Berkeley either. Bowie State University took over control of SAMPEX back in 99, and Colorado has a couple of missions that are run out of the various labs there. Of course, JHU APL has a bunch of missions. What makes FUSE unique among the university run missions is that it's the only Explorer class mission being run out of an academic department. Bill G.