NASA Universe-Watching Satellite Losing Its Cool 153
coondoggie writes "NASA this week said its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE satellite is heating up — not a good thing when your primary mission instrument needs to be kept cold to work. According to NASA, WISE has two coolant tanks that keep the spacecraft's normal operating temperature at 12 Kelvin (minus 438 degrees Fahrenheit). The outer, secondary tank is now depleted, causing the temperature to increase. One of WISE's infrared detectors, the longest-wavelength band most sensitive to heat, stopped producing useful data once the telescope warmed to 31 Kelvin (minus 404 degrees Fahrenheit)."
Orbit (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
(no i did not RTFA)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
depends on whether the primary source of the offending heat is internal or external.
(no i did not RTFA)
A real shame there. You didn't even read the summary. It's not really a source of offending heat that's the issue so much as a lack of proper cooling. The outer, secondary cooling tank is depleted. The primary one is still functional but apparently it's not enough to keep it at optimal temperature.
Re: (Score:1)
It's not really a source of offending heat that's the issue so much as a lack of proper cooling.
Yeah, and it's not the fall that kills you, it's the short, sudden stop at the end.
A real shame there. You didn't even read the summary.
It's really a shame you don't understand that there's no difference between the two. Hint: If you don't have heating, you don't need cooling.
Re: (Score:1)
There's a neat thing in logic... the knowledge to know the things you can change, accepting the things you cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Hint: If you don't have heating, you don't need cooling.
Logically very true, but given that this is a satellite whose purpose is to collect sensor data then the heat generation must be assumed. Heat is a given byproduct of running the sensors. NASA could solve the problem very quickly by just shutting down the sensors. But that defeats the purpose of putting the thing into space in the first place.
Though the GP might have been better informed by reading the article, but the point was valid. The problem is not that the spacecraft is generating more heat than
Re: (Score:2)
It's not really a source of offending heat that's the issue so much as a lack of proper cooling.
Yeah, and it's not the fall that kills you, it's the short, sudden stop at the end.
A real shame there. You didn't even read the summary.
It's really a shame you don't understand that there's no difference between the two. Hint: If you don't have heating, you don't need cooling.
You're drawing some irrelevant conclusions there. You're absolutely correct that if you don't have heating you don't need cooling, but there is heat and cooling is necessary because of it.
They're using solid hydrogen to achieve the optimum operating temperature. NASA was only able to include a limited amount of it and one of the tanks is now empty; that is the problem. Hopefully this clears things up for you.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You're drawing some irrelevant conclusions there. You're absolutely correct that if you don't have heating you don't need cooling, but there is heat and cooling is necessary because of it.
You are being a toolbag here, because I said nothing about cooling not being required, nor heating not occurring. In fact, if you read between the lines slightly, you can see that I believe that heating is occurring and that cooling is necessary, because my comment makes no sense otherwise. Kind of like yours.
They're using solid hydrogen to achieve the optimum operating temperature. NASA was only able to include a limited amount of it and one of the tanks is now empty; that is the problem. Hopefully this clears things up for you.
I knew all of this before I even commented. Hopefully you go fuck yourself.
Re: (Score:2)
To be honest, I don't believe you've said much of anything. We can debate about what you meant to say or implied all day long but you're just taking things further off track.
That aside, I think it's great that NASA has been successful with this project and I can't wait to see the pictures.
Re: (Score:2)
While it may not have been his point, his quote from the summary indicating that the outer cooling tank depleted first would seem to indicate that chances are the heat source is external to the device (aka the sun). Also engineers aren't stupid - if a device needs to be kept cool with a non-renewable coolant, they'll probably try to use a power source like solar panels that generate less heat than something like an RPG. The heat put out by whatever electronics are used for image capture, processing and tran
Re: (Score:2)
Which tank is dead doesn't matter, his question is focused on where the heat the tanks are combating /comes/ from. Is it solar radiation warming it, or the device itself (ie, electrical waste heat or something).
It's a real shame you didn't even think the post through before you fired off a snippy reply.
Also, "It's not really a source of offending heat that's the issue so much as a lack of proper cooling." - this doesn't even make sense. Read it again - if offending heat isn't an issue, then why is proper co
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is why SOFIA rocks! (Score:2)
No need for a disposable satellite if you want to do IR astronomy. It flies in the tropopause above the atmospheric water vapor so the sky is transparent. There's no need to worry about running out of cryogen. Just keep enough for the mission on the plane, and refill with each landing.
Aliens (Score:2)
I'll bet it's because of the alien heating lasers. They don't want us to see too much/far.
It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the article it says that the solid hydrogen was expected to disappear about 10 months after launch, and it was launched in Dec 2009. Now it's 8/10.
What's so remarkable about something being used up that was designed to be used up?
Nothing to see here, move along!
--PM
Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:5, Informative)
NASA said WISE completed its primary mission, a full scan of the entire sky in infrared light, on July 17, 2010.
Sounds like a non-issue there.
Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe we've just become accustomed to NASA missions far exceeding [wikipedia.org] their expected duration [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
This. Keep pushing the bar higher (I'm looking at you Spirit and Opportunity), and when something fails when we predicted, we're disappointed it didn't last longer. Us humans are hard to please.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that this satellite relies on consumable coolant to operate. When the coolant it brought along is gone, it can no longer gather useful data (internal thermal noise becomes greater than the light they are trying to detect). Nothing they could have done would have changed that fact, there's no other way to keep a satellite at those kinds of temperatures. Even so, if I know NASA they'll find a way to re-appropriate this satellite for another mission and it will remain useful for quite some
Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you saying the consumables on board were consumed on schedule, as designed and as expected? STOP THE PRESSES!
NASA's problem is that Spirit and Opportunity lasted so ridiculously long past their stated mission that merely exceeding expectations by a reasonable engineering design factor now looks like newsworthy incompetence.
They should have ended that mission on time by nuking them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:5, Insightful)
Dead on. Furthermore, it IS still working on a secondary bonus mission since all but the longest wavelength is still working great. Apparently, NASA is not olny expected to extend it's missions well beyond their designed endpoint, they are expected to do so with no degradation whatsoever.
I guess at this rate, they'll be given a big rubber band, a sack lunch and a scuba tank for their budget and instructed to carry out a manned moon mission.
Re: (Score:1)
As long as they used the rubber band to strap around the writing arms of all of the Congresscritters so they'd stop mucking up the mission objectives or specifying that the lunch has to consist solely of corn grown in their district, I bet they could do it with just the sack lunch and SCUBA tank.
Re: (Score:2)
Ironically, a spectacular failure every now and then might help.
It makes sense. Congress, like most of us better understand that we have experience with.
Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA's problem is that Spirit and Opportunity lasted so ridiculously long past their stated mission that merely exceeding expectations by a reasonable engineering design factor now looks like newsworthy incompetence.
It's not just the rovers. Despite some genuinely newsworthy fuckups, when NASA gets it right -- which is most of the time -- they usually do a stellar job, pun intended. A fair number of NASA probes have lasted decades beyond their primary mission and continue to produce useful data. Voyager I, for example, is still transmitting thirty-three years after its launch.
Some people have just got to have their government incompetence stories even when the government is being unbelievably competent.
Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:4, Funny)
Some people have just got to have their government incompetence stories even when the government is being unbelievably competent.
The government is so incompetent, they can't even fail right!
Low Production Numbers (Score:2)
That's mostly a function of how they operate. When you're only going to produce one or two of a particularly complex device that you can't touch after it starts working, it's generally either going to work great (because you spent a whole lot of time making sure everything was perfect) or fail completely (because you missed that one impor
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule (Score:5, Funny)
PR Dept: We haven't said anything for a while. What's new?
Scientist: Nothing happening really - we're not even getting much from WISE now
PR Dept: What? No WISE?
Scientist: Exactly, it's coming to the planned end of usefulness and heating up
PR Dept: [hitting speeddial] Is that the New York Times? One of our satellites is about to explode...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But when you have rovers that end up lasting 30x their expected lifetime, you expect more from a bottle of hydrogen.
Besides, this is in outer space. You would think that keeping things cold would be easy. Guess not.
Time for a classic... (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enfn9PL5htQ [youtube.com]
What to do (Score:4, Insightful)
The primary tank is still running, and now will do a
It appears, to the uninformed such as myself, that this satellite was meant to have a life of about 2 years. The good news is that it accomplished its primary mission. The bad news is that the NASA boys either didn't plan accordingly to cool it properly for its second run, or it was a hopeful objective.
Re:What to do (Score:4, Informative)
The primary mission was to map the whole sky once. They left themselves some reserves in case of problems, so they were expecting to be able to do a second partial map, but we covered their success [slashdot.org] when it happened back in July. So, this is news, but not a surprise. You can find more details on their site [nasa.gov].
Re: (Score:2)
The secondary objective was just a hopeful one along the lines of as long as it's up there and still partially functioning after completing it's mission, it would be a shame to just switch it off.
I blame global warming... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
WHY is this labelled offtopic... it's supposed to be FUNNY!
Laugh dammit, it's a joke!
Christ.
Fahrenheit... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The nice thing is that at 12 degrees, to a layman it doesn't really matter if you are talking Rankine or Kelvin...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Laymen don't understand thermodynamics at any temperature. It's not about temperature, it's about pretending there's a problem and engaging people's antagonistic streak towards government, which they also don't understand at any temperature.
Re: (Score:2)
True. Also it seems elitism functions at a variety of temperatures.
Re: (Score:2)
But it prefers warmth, light breezes, and endless beaches of sugary sand.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, first, we're getting the money back. And second, root canal is a whole lot more painful, if lighter on the pocket. You can in fact lose every nickel you ever had and several hundred thousand more and not feel a thing. So equating financial loss with physical pain is never an apt simile.
But thanks for proving my point.
Re: (Score:1)
Or, if you live too far of the Mason Dixon line, Fahrenheit, for that matter. 12F is cold enough to kill a thin-blooded southerner as dead as 100F would do to thick-blooded me. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Kelvin isn't a measure of degree, it is a unit. You say 12 Kelvin, not 12 degrees Kelvin.
[Pedant mode off]
Re: (Score:2)
LOL, yeah but that made my sentence awkward...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
As Planned (Score:1, Informative)
It finished the first pass a month ago and will be doing another pass as it heats up to check for differences since the last pass.
The new infrared data provided by WISE should be approximately 1000 times more sensitive than previous data.
Any chance of parking it in the shade? (Score:2)
Is it possible to change its orbit so it's constantly in the umbra of something? The earth, the moon, IIS, anything?
Not much is "constant" in orbit (Score:2)
Any other place that you "park it" will end up revolving into view of the Sun. Sorry. I didn't design this system.
Re: (Score:2)
No, and even if there was such a place, WISE does not have the fuel to go anywhere (except down).
Re: (Score:2)
Is it possible to change its orbit so it's constantly in the umbra of something? The earth, the moon, IIS, anything?
Rocket scientists are so stupid sometimes... why would they have opted to launch heavy and nonreplentishable coolant into space rather than it's own light-weight unfoldable heat resistant umbrella umbra, that would forever give it a tiny eclipse of the Sun to remain cool in?
How I keep things cold (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
but can you do anything about the SMELL? it's getting rather intense over here in Chicago
Warm Mission (Score:1)
In May of 2009, the Spitzer IR space telescope ran out of coolant and transitioned to a "warm mission":
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-086 [nasa.gov]
However...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-field_Infrared_Survey_Explorer [wikipedia.org] ...The WISE group's bid for continued funding for an extended "warm mission" was recently scored low by a NASA review board, in part because of a lack of outside groups publishing on WISE Data. Such a mission would have allowed use of the 3.4 and 4.6 micron detectors after the la
Primary missions successfully completed 7/17/10 (Score:2)
Isn't space 'cold'? (Score:2)
Okay, stupid question, but isn't space 'cold'? I'm having a hard time picturing why the thing is heating up when it is in outer space.
Re: (Score:2)
It is way colder than 12K, but the density of matter in space is very small, what makes it hard to conduct any heat into it. You could still radiate the heat away, if you were able to carry enough radiative area, and dealed with the problem that is the Sun heating your radiators, instead of deep space cooling them.
Re:Isn't space 'cold'? (Score:4, Informative)
It's heating up due to absorbing solar radiation and the operation of the electronics on board. Space is cold, but that doesn't help our poor telescope because there's nothing for its heat to be transmitted to. It's not like setting a hot mug of coffee outside on a cold winter day. There, conduction and convection are doing most of the work. Conduction, by the way, is why the sun hitting one side of the scope results in the entire telescope heating up.
In space the only effective way to lose heat is via radiation. The amount of blackbody radiation emitted is proportional to temperature, and the equilibrium point where the telescope is losing as much heat as it is gaining is well above 12K.
Re: (Score:2)
Cool, thanks!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's pretty cool, just not cool enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Space doesn't really have a temperature. Temperature and conduction of heat requires particles to bump into each other. You feel something being hot because the molecules in it are moving very quickly. You feel something being cold because the molecules in it are moving slower. However in space there are (almost) no molecules.
Thus the only ways to lose and gain temperature are via radiation (not necessarily ionizing radiation), and internal heat generation. The sun is radiating energy onto the satellite and
Re: (Score:2)
So 'cold' means only 'has a low temperature'? Because I've been colloquially using it to also mean 'leaches heat'.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe it's a problem of density. Each individual particle is cold, but they are so dispersed in space that you don't come into contact with enough of them to lose much heat. So we have to rely on radiation instead of conduction, which is much less effective, especially for objects that are already really cold.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on how you look at it - space everywhere is filled with background radiation from the big bang, which effectively gives it a temperature. Space is also full of all kinds of particles/etc flying around (solar wind, heat from sun, cosmic rays, etc). When you're trying to keep something at 16K it matters. Biggest issues have to be the sun, the earth, and any equipment on-board (maybe even the moon).
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't that just be the sunward-side?
Re: (Score:2)
Rotation FTW
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I don't understand your numbers. I talk in Celsius.
I talk in English myself.
NASA is US-based, Slashdot is US-based, and the US uses Fahrenheit as the common measure of temperature. As for Kelvin, it's very easy for the rest of us to convert it to Celsius.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I talk in English myself.
The entire British Commonwealth uses Celsius.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The entire British Commonwealth uses Celsius.
Language wise, English equals British about as much as Spanish equals Spain.
In other words, lots of countries were subjugated many hundreds of years ago by the two empires. English is simply a footprint from that period of time, as is Spanish. Since most of the countries are now separate entities and disparate, logic would dictate that the ousted countries' activities would hold no bearing on said countries' activities.
Re: (Score:2)
Even more interesting, there's a lot of people in Spain who don't speak Spanish. They speak Galician, Basque, or Catalan. Also interesting, there really isn't any such language as "Spanish". The language referred to by that name is really called Castillian, only one of the languages of Spain.
Re: (Score:2)
The entire British Commonwealth uses Celsius.
Language wise, English equals British about as much as Spanish equals Spain.
In other words, lots of countries were subjugated many hundreds of years ago by the two empires. English is simply a footprint from that period of time, as is Spanish. Since most of the countries are now separate entities and disparate, logic would dictate that the ousted countries' activities would hold no bearing on said countries' activities.
a) The British Commonwealth includes the United Kingdom.
b) The British Commonwealth equates to 'the English-speaking world' more legitimately than the United States alone.
Re: (Score:2)
b) The British Commonwealth equates to 'the English-speaking world' more legitimately than the United States alone
Are you bloody kidding? The US, has, by far, the greatest number of primary and first language English speakers than the rest of the world combined. KTHXBIBI.
The rest of the world covers more ground than the United States alone. America is not 'the English-speaking world' (related: it is not 'the world'.) America is one country, and unlike military or economic power, size alone does not dictate legitimacy in such matters. Millions use English for commerce or education at a first-language level and aren't counted as primary speakers merely because they have a different mother tongue.
Re: (Score:2)
If Britain is on the metric system, why does Top Gear always talk about MPH?
Re: (Score:2)
I think you'll find it is true that the US 'left' the Commonwealth some time ago.
I did not mean to imply the United States is still part of the Commonwealth.
Re: (Score:2)
I did not mean to imply the United States is still part of the Commonwealth.
I talk in English myself.
The entire British Commonwealth uses Celsius.
So... you meant to imply that we don't speak English in the US? Or what?
Re: (Score:2)
I did not mean to imply the United States is still part of the Commonwealth.
I talk in English myself.
The entire British Commonwealth uses Celsius.
So... you meant to imply that we don't speak English in the US? Or what?
I meant to imply that 'talking in English' doesn't necessarily oblige one to use the Fahrenheit scale. Or any of the hideous Imperial units Americans seem to be so fond of.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So that's like... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
But NASA is a scientific entity. We use SI units.
Unfortunately it's not that simple. Astronomers and astrophysicists don't use SI, we use cgs (centimetre, gram, second) in Europe. I'm not sure about USA.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Astronomers use a hodge-podge of units in different systems. Cgs units are common, but for the really fun things we tend to use units like solar masses, parsecs, magnitudes, and foes (although that one never really caught on).
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately it's not that simple. Astronomers and astrophysicists don't use SI, we use cgs (centimetre, gram, second) in Europe. I'm not sure about USA.
NASA isn't a astronomy/astrophysics research organization, but rather an aerospace engineering organization that does some useful astronomy and astrophysics on the side. So it uses SI units. Second, parsecs and solar masses (two commonly used units of measure in the field) don't fit into the cgs system. So saying that astronomers and astrophysics use cgs is not particularly accurate.
Re:So that's like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, this whole discussion is moot. -404F isn't any more or less informative to most people than -242C. They're both "really really fucking cold".
The only useful unit for temperatures that low is K.
Re:So that's like... (Score:4, Funny)
Frankly, this whole discussion is moot. -404F isn't any more or less informative to most people than -242C. They're both "really really fucking cold".
The only useful unit for temperatures that low is K.
It seems the only thing missing here is u. FCK!
Re:So that's like... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Old news, NASA managed to solve this cooling problem. They'll be sending my ex-girlfriend into space to bring the satellite's temperature closer to absolute zero.
Re: (Score:2)
All Kelvin, all the time?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
So if your server is in Nashville, all text should be in a southern accent, rest of the country be damned?
Newsflash: political boundaries are figments of the imagination.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So if your server is in Nashville, all text should be in a southern accent, rest of the country be damned?
Of course not, but I would logically expect the site's text to be in English.
If a US-based organization's data is released by way of a US-based website (Network World) to what I assume is mostly a US audience I'm not going to be surprised they used Fahrenheit. Celsius would have been nice for the rest of us but it's not hard to convert.
Re: (Score:1)
You're obviously not too cultured, then.
There are things outside of your door, my friend.
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't understand Kelvins, then you're no geek and you have no business on this site. Anyone with a half-decent college education, who took Chemistry in college, would understand Kelvins.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't make it worse than it is. IF the data doesn't fit, it's fairly simple to smooth it. Or just correct for the assumed errors. This is not uncommon in other NASA projects [wordpress.com].
Nothing new [telegraph.co.uk] here.
Re: (Score:2)
> Apparently their problems include the NOAA-16 satellite too
I hope WISE scientists aren't up nights worrying about every sensor of everybody else's satellites.
Nor do hardware glitches support the allegation that climatology is a fraudulent global conspiracy. Such FUD works great in politics, but to disprove AGW, scientists need reproducible counter-evidence. Press releases about anomalous sensor readings shouldn't influence otherwise tech-savvy people like you.
Re: (Score:2)
> it first must be stated as a falsifiable hypothesis
For GW, how about
"Significantly increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere causes global temperatures to rise"
After proving that, for AGW test
"Human activity has caused a significant net increase of carbon in the atmosphere".
For catastrophic AGW, pick your catastrophe:
"Increased global temperature causes polar ice to melt and sea levels to rise."
"Increased global temperature causes more
Re: (Score:2)
> Ice cores clearly show a CO2 lag to temperature, so we've refuted that.
Wow. Great news. Please show your work so I can verify.
Re: (Score:2)
What I see at your link appears to show that historically, temperature increases weren't driven exclusively by CO2.
I don't see where it refutes the hypothesis that increasing atmospheric carbon causes temperatures to rise. In fact, FTA:
Any laymen will understand from [Al Gore's] statement that the ice-cores demonstrate a causal link, that higher amounts of CO2 give rise to higher temperatures. Of course, this could indeed be the case, and to some extent, it necessarily is .
The question before the house is whether increasing carbon increases temperatures, and the page you cite allows that possibility and admits "to some extent" that reality.
I don't think you h
NOAA 16 was NASA and NOAA (Score:1)
Well, a quick google on NOAA-16 leads to this:
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2000/nov00/noaa00r323.html [noaa.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
Aw nuts! For a second I thought you were talking about the Reaumur scale [wikipedia.org].