Hubble Space Telescope is in Trouble

[nivek]

Another one has shut down...

NASA's alien-hunter has gone dark and scientists aren't sure why

NASA's alien-hunting Kepler Space Telescope has suffered another malfunction, with the spacecraft returning to sleep mode just days after it sent information from its latest campaign back to Earth.

"Following a successful return of data from the last observation campaign, the Kepler team commanded the spacecraft into position to begin collecting data for its next campaign," NASA said on its website. "On Friday October 19, during a regularly scheduled spacecraft contact using NASA’s Deep Space Network, the team learned that the spacecraft had transitioned to its no-fuel-use sleep mode. The Kepler team is currently assessing the cause and evaluating possible next steps."

On Oct. 15, NASA was able to download information from it latest observation campaign, Campaign 19, noting it was "monitoring the spacecraft and will provide more information when its status has been fully assessed."

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[APIGuy]

Another one has shut down...

NASA's alien-hunter has gone dark and scientists aren't sure why

N

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Hate that headline. It's a planet hunter. It can't detect life at all.

Also, it's way past its design life, so no surprise if there are failures.

 

[nivek]

Hate that headline. It's a planet hunter. It can't detect life at all.

Also, it's way past its design life, so no surprise if there are failures.

I heard it was getting low on fuel as well...

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[Toroid]

There must be a agenda to prevent NASA from seeing something.

Here's a huge list of the different kinds of telescopes in orbit:
List of space telescopes - Wikipedia


www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyMfII_aKxo

 

[APIGuy]

There must be a agenda to prevent NASA from seeing something.

Here's a huge list of the different kinds of telescopes in orbit:
List of space telescopes - Wikipedia


www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyMfII_aKxo

I disagree. It makes no sense if you think about it, and NASA satellite control teams (I've been on some) do not operate under a veil of secrecy. Everything gets reviewed by lots of people and is carefully verified and well documented.

All the satellites having problems are senior citizens who could have been retired years ago. The kinds of problems they are having are not unusual, and are not the kinds of problems you could get by sneaking in a couple of commands (which you probably can't do).

 

[AD1184]

The Kepler Space Telescope has been plagued by problems for a long time. I was surprised to read here that it was still operating, because last I heard its mission ended after a reaction wheel failure several years ago. Here is what it says about its history in its Wikipedia summary:

"[T]he spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009 [...] The initial planned lifetime was 3.5 years, but greater-than-expected noise in the data, from both the stars and the spacecraft, meant additional time was needed to fulfill all mission goals. Initially, in 2012, the mission was expected to be extended until 2016, but on July 14, 2012, one of the spacecraft's four reaction wheels used for pointing the spacecraft stopped turning, and completing the mission would only be possible if all other reaction wheels remained reliable. Then, on May 11, 2013, a second reaction wheel failed, disabling the collection of science data and threatening the continuation of the mission [...]

On August 15, 2013, NASA announced that they had given up trying to fix the two failed reaction wheels. This meant the current mission needed to be modified, but it did not necessarily mean the end of planet hunting [...]

On November 18, 2013, the K2 "Second Light" proposal was reported. This would include utilizing the disabled Kepler in a way that could detect habitable planets around smaller, dimmer red dwarfs. On May 16, 2014, NASA announced the approval of the K2 extension.

 

[Toroid]

Hubble returns to normal operations after three weeks.
Hubble Space Telescope Returns to Action After Gyroscope Glitch

The Hubble Space Telescope is back.

The iconic scope resumed normal operations Friday (Oct. 26) after a three-week hiatus caused by issues with two orientation-maintaining gyroscopes, NASA officials announced in an update Saturday (Oct. 27).

Hubble's first bounce-back science work, which wrapped up early Saturday morning, involved infrared-light observations of the star-forming galaxy DSF2237B-1-IR with the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, NASA officials added. [The Hubble Space Telescope's Most Amazing Discoveries]

Hubble's troubles began Oct. 5, when a gyro failure sent the telescope into a protective safe mode. Mission team members worked to recruit a backup gyroscope but had trouble doing so, because the gyro returned anomalous readings — specifically, it measured rotation rates that were higher than the actual ones.

"Last week, the operations team commanded Hubble to perform numerous maneuvers, or turns, and switched the gyro between different operational modes, which successfully cleared what was believed to be blockage between components inside the gyro that produced the excessively high rate values," NASA officials wrote in Saturday's update.

Further testing and monitoring showed that the gyro was acting normally, so the mission team brought Hubble back online.

 

[nivek]

They keep dropping out one by one, are we to believe they run out of fuel near the same time is just a coincidence?...

The Dawn spacecraft exploring the asteroid belt has gone dark

Another day, another iconic space mission going dark. On Tuesday, NASA announced that its exoplanet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope had run out of hydrazine fuel, and the craft would be commanded to cease operations. Now, the Dawn spacecraft at the dwarf planet Ceres must face the same fate.

On Wednesday, the spacecraft failed to phone home, and it missed a scheduled connection on Thursday as well. This means that like the Kepler mission, Dawn has run out of hydrazine fuel, which the vehicle needs to orient itself and keep its antennas aligned with Earth. With no fuel, the spacecraft also cannot keep its solar panels turned toward the Sun.

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[AD1184]

They keep dropping out one by one, are we to believe they run out of fuel near the same time is just a coincidence?..

The NASA Kepler team added a FAQ about the mission's fuel situation to its website in March of this year. In it, NASA says

What is the best estimate of when Kepler is going to run out of fuel?
We estimate that Kepler will run out of fuel within several months.

NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft Fuel Status Frequently Asked Questions

So they saw the fuel depletion coming and told the public about it in advance.

What they do not do is elaborate on exactly why the Kepler mission needs fuel to continue. It is fitted with reaction wheels for attitude control, which are powered by solar panels and do not consume propellant. NASA does not explain why the reaction wheel system is inadequate for Kepler to continue observing. There is probably a technical reason, but to anyone who understands what a reaction wheel control system is and who knows that Kepler has one, but is otherwise not intimately familiar with the technical details of the spacecraft, the question remains as to why the thrusters are strictly necessary for the continuation of the mission.

 

[Toroid]

There could be an event(s) known for decades in advance which the PTB don't want documented. The end date of operations for selected space craft could be in this period. I was just reading Revelations 13:16.
Revelation 13 Aramaic Bible in Plain English

 

[pigfarmer]

It does appear something is going on, too many things to be a coincidence as you said, we also have a rover lost on Mars too..,

...

In a new clip that Toroid posted Opportunity went dark because of a massive sandstorm and without the sunlight it can't charge its batteries. Curiosity has a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator and as far as I know is still cooking along. The Mars Odyssey orbiter is still function too.

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."

 

[pigfarmer]

The NASA Kepler team added a FAQ about the mission's fuel situation to its website in March of this year. In it, NASA says

NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft Fuel Status Frequently Asked Questions

So they saw the fuel depletion coming and told the public about it in advance.

What they do not do is elaborate on exactly why the Kepler mission needs fuel to continue. It is fitted with reaction wheels for attitude control, which are powered by solar panels and do not consume propellant. NASA does not explain why the reaction wheel system is inadequate for Kepler to continue observing. There is probably a technical reason, but to anyone who understands what a reaction wheel control system is and who knows that Kepler has one, but is otherwise not intimately familiar with the technical details of the spacecraft, the question remains as to why the thrusters are strictly necessary for the continuation of the mission.

Wiki says "Reaction wheels can rotate a spacecraft only around its center of mass (see torque); they are not capable of moving the spacecraft from one place to another " I assume the thrusters with a finite fuel supply are necessary for occasional orbital adjustments beyond what a reaction wheel can provide. Maybe the use of those reaction wheels extends the fuel supply.

 

[AD1184]

Wiki says "Reaction wheels can rotate a spacecraft only around its center of mass (see torque); they are not capable of moving the spacecraft from one place to another " I assume the thrusters with a finite fuel supply are necessary for occasional orbital adjustments beyond what a reaction wheel can provide. Maybe the use of those reaction wheels extends the fuel supply.

Reaction wheels can only provide rotational and not translational control, correct and as I said above. However, Kepler does not need translational control as it would only ever have had a very modest capability for that with its onboard thrusters and amount of propellant. Where it is currently situated, there is not a lot to choose between nearby areas of space that would have been in reach with its thruster system with full propellant.

For some reason Kepler is dependent on its reaction wheel and thruster systems both for rotational control. They have apparently decided that they cannot even continue to use it with just the reaction wheel system in even a compromised fashion and are packing up the whole venture. It seems somewhat at odds with how NASA normally tries to eke out every last bit of functionality they can out of a spacecraft.

 

[Toroid]

There was a technical glitch with a Pegasus rocket that will launch the ICON satellite. This event could fall into the pattern we've seen.
Technical Glitch Delays Launch of NASA's ICON Satellite on Pegasus Rocket
Ionospheric Connection Explorer - Wikipedia

A NASA mission to loft a satellite from an airplane to probe Earth's atmosphere at the edge of space has been delayed at least one more day due to a glitch with its rocket that was detected just before launch early Wednesday (Nov. 7).

The Stargazer L-1011 carrier plane carrying NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer satellite, or ICON, had already taken off from its staging ground at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station when an issue was detected on the Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket that was to have launched the satellite from the air at 3:05 a.m. EST (0705 GMT). The next launch opportunity for ICON is on Thursday (Nov. 8), NASA officials said.

"NASA and Northrop Grumman scrubbed today's launch of #PegasusXL due to off-nominal data received during the captive carry flight," representatives with Northrop Grumman, which built the rocket, said in a Twitter update after the launch scrub. The L-1011 Stargazer carrier aircraft has returned to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and an investigation into the anomaly will begin soon, they added.

 

[Toroid]

The Wide Field Camera 3 aboard Hubble was shutdown due to a hardware glitch.
https://gizmodo.com/hubble-space-telescope-faces-more-hardware-trouble-1831636773

The Hubble Space Telescope team has temporarily suspended operations of Wide Field Camera 3 following a hardware glitch.

The camera contains redundant electronics in case of an issue, according to the Space Telescope Science Institute, so it will hopefully be fine. Still, this is the second notable hardware problem Hubble’s faced in a few months.

NASA’s Hubble Twitter account first tweeted about the instrument on Tuesday, stating only that there had been a hardware problem. There have been no updates since then.

Hubble contains several instruments designed to record information about the stars, but the Wide Field Camera 3 is perhaps the most well known, because it takes visible-light pictures. Astronauts installed the instrument during Hubble’s final servicing mission in 2009. It replaced the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, the one that produced the famous Pillars of Creation image.

This most recent glitch follows another back in October when a gyroscope, one of six that monitor the telescope’s position and motion, failed. NASA fixed the telescope by essentially restarting it and wiggling it around.

But these glitches combined demonstrate that Hubble is clearly showing its age. The final servicing mission in 2009 was supposed to keep the telescope functioning until 2013, yet five years later it’s still kicking, producing amazing images of the sky. As we’ve reported, Hubble’s scientists hope to keep the telescope operating perhaps until 2025. The James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble’s successor but not replacement, will hopefully launch in 2021.

I asked a spokesperson for the Space Telescope Science Institute, Christine Pulliam, whether the government shutdown will affect the repair. “In a nutshell, the government shutdown should not impact our response to the anomaly with WFC3,” she said. “The primary people we need in the Flight and Science Operations will be available to troubleshoot. A tiger team has already been activated.”

We’ll keep you updated on the status of this issue. Let’s hope the instrument goes back online soon.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qAIGYPHZjE

 

[Toroid]

The Russian space telescope Spektr-R has stopped responding to commands from the ground, but is still transmitting data.
Russia's only space telescope breaks down
Spektr-R - Wikipedia

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmpyZoWr14M