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289 Articles

Voyager 1 Issue Tracked Down To Defective Memory Chip

April 6, 2024 by 52 Comments

After more than forty-six years all of us are likely to feel the wear of time, and Voyager 1 is no different. Following months of harrowing troubleshooting as the far-flung spacecraft stopped returning sensible data, NASA engineers now feel confident that they have tracked down the cause for the problem: a single defective memory chip. Why this particular chip failed is unknown, but possibilities range from wear and tear to an energetic particle hitting it and disrupting its operation.

We’ve covered the Voyager 1 troubleshooting saga so far, with the initial garbled responses attributed to a range of systems, but narrowed down to the Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), which prepares data for transmission by the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). Based on a recent ‘poke’ command that returned a memory dump engineers concluded that the approximately 3% of corrupted data fit with this one memory chip, opening the possibility of a workaround.

Recently NASA engineers have also been working on patching up the firmware in both Voyager spacecraft, against the background of the dwindling energy produced by the radioisotope generators that have kept both spacecraft powered and warm, even in the cold, dark depths of Deep Space far beyond the light of our Sun.

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Makes It To The Lunar Surface In US Return After Half A Century

February 23, 2024 by 57 Comments

Intuitive Machines’ first mission (IM-1) featuring the Nova-C Odysseus lunar lander was launched on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 on February 15th, 2024, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS). Targeting a landing site near the lunar south pole, it was supposed to use its onboard laser range finders to help it navigate safely for a soft touchdown on the lunar surface. Unfortunately, it was this component that was found to have malfunctioned as the spacecraft was already in lunar orbit. Fortunately, there was a workaround. By using one of the NASA payloads on the lander, the Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL), the mission could continue.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the use of the NDL as a fallback option was considered before launch, and since its functionality overlaps with that of the primary laser range finders of Nova-C, it was pressed into service with a new configuration uploaded by IM operators back on Earth before Nova-C committed to a landing burn. Then, on February 22nd, the spacecraft began its descent to the surface, which also involved the Eaglecam payload that was designed to be released before snapping a self-portrait of the lander as it descended.

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Measuring Trees Via Satellite Actually Takes A Great Deal Of Field Work

February 20, 2024 by 11 Comments

Figuring out what the Earth’s climate is going to do at any given point is a difficult task. To know how it will react to given events, you need to know what you’re working with. This requires an accurate model of everything from ocean currents to atmospheric heat absorption and the chemical and literal behavior of everything from cattle to humans to trees.

In the latter regard, scientists need to know how many trees we have to properly model the climate. This is key, as trees play a major role in the carbon cycle by turning carbon dioxide into oxygen plus wood. But how do you count trees at a continental scale? You’ll probably want to get yourself a nice satellite to do the job.

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They Want To Put A Telescope In A Crater On The Moon

February 6, 2024 by 30 Comments

When we first developed telescopes, we started using them on the ground. Humanity was yet to master powered flight, you see, to say nothing of going beyond into space. As technology developed, we realized that putting a telescope up on a satellite might be useful, since it would get rid of all that horrible distortion from that pesky old atmosphere. We also developed radio telescopes, when we realized there were electromagnetic signals beyond visible light that were of great interest to us.

Now, NASA’s dreaming even bigger. What if it could build a big radio telescope up on the Moon?

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The Past, Present, And Future Of Inflatable Space Habitats

January 30, 2024 by 24 Comments

Recently, a prototype inflatable space station module built by Sierra Space exploded violently on a test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. Under normal circumstances, this would be a bad thing. But in this case, Sierra was looking forward to blowing up their handiwork. In fact, there was some disappointment when it failed to explode during a previous test run.

LIFE Module Burst Test

That’s because the team at Sierra was looking to find the ultimate bust pressure of their 8.2 meter (26.9 foot) diameter Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) module — a real-world demonstration of just how much air could be pumped into the expanding structure before it buckled. NASA recommended they shoot for just under 61 PSI, which would be four times the expected operational pressure for a crewed habitat module.

By the time the full-scale LIFE prototype ripped itself apart, it had an internal pressure of 77 PSI. The results so far seem extremely promising, but Sierra will need to repeat the test at least two more times to be sure their materials and construction techniques can withstand the rigors of spaceflight.

Sierra is a targeting no earlier than 2026 for an in-space test, but even if they nail the date (always a dubious prospect for cutting edge aerospace projects), they’ll still be about 20 years late to the party. Despite how futuristic the idea of inflatable space stations may seem, NASA first started experimenting with the concept of expandable habitat modules back in the 1990s, and there were practical examples being launched into orbit by the early 2000s.

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Ingenuity May Be Grounded, But Its Legacy Will Be Grand

January 30, 2024 by 11 Comments

[Eric Berger] has a thoughtful and detailed article explaining why Ingenuity, NASA’s small helicopter on Mars, was probably far more revolutionary than many realize, and has a legacy to grant the future of off-world exploration that is already being felt.

Ingenuity was recently grounded due to rotor damage, having already performed far beyond the scope of its original mission. The damage, visible by way of a shadow from one of the rotors, might not look like much at first glance, but flying in the vanishingly-thin atmosphere of Mars requires the 1.18 meter (3.9 foot) carbon fiber blades to spin at very high speeds — meaning even minor rotor damage could be devastating.

Perseverance and Ingenuity pose for a selfie on Mars.

[Eric] points out a lot that is deeply interesting and influential about Ingenuity. Not only is successful powered flight on another planet a real Wright brothers moment, but how Ingenuity came to be validates a profoundly different engineering approach for NASA.

To work in the space industry is to be constrained by mass. But even so, Ingenuity‘s creators had a mere four pounds to work with. That’s for rotors, hardware, electronics, batteries, solar panel — all of it. NASA’s lightest computer module alone weighed a pound, so engineers had no choice but to depart from the usual NASA way of doing things to get it done at all. Not everyone  at NASA was on board. But Ingenuity worked, and it worked wonderfully.

Powered flight opens new doors, and not just for support roles like navigation planning. There’s real science that can be done if powered flight is on the table. For example, [Eric] points out that inaccessible terrain such as the Valles Marineris canyon on Mars is doubtlessly scientifically fascinating, but at 4,000 km long and up to 7 km deep, rover-based exploration is not an option.