NASA Finds, Fixes Small Glitch in LADEE Moon Probe

Friday's moon-bound NASA launch from Wallops Island went well, but, says NBC News, "[H]ours after the 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 GMT) liftoff, NASA officials reported that the spacecraft's reaction wheels — which spin to position and stabilize LADEE in space without using precious thruster fuel — unexpectedly shut down. By Saturday afternoon, the glitch had been traced to safety limits programmed into LADEE before launch to protect the reaction wheel system, NASA officials said. Those fault protection limits caused LADEE to switch off its reaction wheels shortly after powering them up, according to a mission status update. Engineers have since disabled the safety limits causing the glitch and taking extra care in restoring the fault-protection protocols."

Re:wheels...

[confused one]

ok, here's a challenge for you... design a flywheel based guidance system. make it redundant. make it work in the most inhospitable environment known to man -- space. hard vacuum. reactive ions (free ionic oxygen). radiation. operating temperature range -200 degF to 200 degF. The only cooling option for your motors and electronics is via a liquid loop and a large radiator. power is limited to a few tens of watts from a solar panel. You have to design it so it works for a decade without maintenance or repairs. good luck.

Re:wheels...

[Nivag064]

Most of the world uses Celsius (for science, Kelvin is okay) - isn't it about time the USA caught up?

I learnt MKSA (metric) units primarily from an American Physics textbook almost 50 years ago when I was at high school. I was brought up using the Imperial system - being in the England until I arrived in NZ when I was 12.

The metric system is so much easier to use, why are Americans so backward???