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.

Worked for 4 years.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

They knew at some point helium will be gone and the telescope will become useless. It ran for four years more or less. Not as bad as the summary made it sound like.

They are in deep space, so they have an infinite sink at nearly zero deg kelvin. It should be possible to design a closed circuit cooling system that just uses energy from solar panels to pump the refrigerant. But in space applications the weight of such a system of compressors, radiators and pumps might prove to be prohibitive. Still feel sad such a fine piece of machinery is rotting away. Well, may be a better design next time.

Re:Worked for 4 years.

[mmcxii]

Another problem with the system you mention is that heat doesn't radiate away efficiently in space. While such a system may be possible I'm sure that the up-time of the scope would suffer greatly from it.

Do we have any thermal dynamic geeks here with something a bit more insightful?

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[mrsquid0]

The Earth-Sun L2 point is out of reach with the old Space Shuttle, but the original point is a good one. It is too bad that we do not have the capability to repair and restock the consumables on spacecraft in the inner Solar System. It has been nearly 45 years since we first went to the Moon. We should be able to move around in our band of the Solar System by now.

Re:Duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

They did think about that.

But it's a million and a half kilometres away. A robotic service ship to catch and refill it after four years would cost more than just sending up a second, newer-generation telescope.

Re:Salvage Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you're so adorable. Keep chomping away at the sci-fi. "robonaut"! So Cute!

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but just remember, then he crushed his head. :)

Re:Orbital pickup truck

[advocate_one]

or from NASA apologists trying to excuse the stagnation there since the ISS and STS ate up the budget for real exploration

no it bloody didn't... what ate up the budget for anything is the monstrous amount being spent on fancy weapons and research into killing people more efficiently...