After Two Years NASA Loses Contact With Its Briefcase-Sized, Exoplanet-Hunting Satellite (bgr.com) 30
"NASA has a lot of high-tech hardware cruising around in space right now, but one of the space agency's pint-sized exoplanet hunters appears to have gone dark," reports BGR:
In a post by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the group explains that its ASTERIA satellite has been failing to return attempts to contact it for about a month now.
ASTERIA is a tiny satellite capable of observing some very big things. The spacecraft was sent into Earth orbit in late 2017, and it spent several months studying nearby stars for changes in their brightness. These brightness dips are the telltale signs that a planet is orbiting those stars. Much of NASA's exoplanet-hunting hardware is big and beefy, but the ASTERIA mission proved that spotting hints of exoplanets is indeed possible using much smaller devices. CubeSats, which are only about the size of a briefcase, are easier to deploy than their larger counterparts, and ASTERIA showed that CubeSats can make for good planet hunters.
"The ASTERIA project achieved outstanding results during its three -month prime mission and its nearly two-year-long extended mission," Lorraine Fesq of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. "Although we are disappointed that we lost contact with the spacecraft, we are thrilled with all that we have accomplished with this impressive CubeSat."
NASA adds that "Attempts to contact it are expected to continue into March 2020."
ASTERIA is a tiny satellite capable of observing some very big things. The spacecraft was sent into Earth orbit in late 2017, and it spent several months studying nearby stars for changes in their brightness. These brightness dips are the telltale signs that a planet is orbiting those stars. Much of NASA's exoplanet-hunting hardware is big and beefy, but the ASTERIA mission proved that spotting hints of exoplanets is indeed possible using much smaller devices. CubeSats, which are only about the size of a briefcase, are easier to deploy than their larger counterparts, and ASTERIA showed that CubeSats can make for good planet hunters.
"The ASTERIA project achieved outstanding results during its three -month prime mission and its nearly two-year-long extended mission," Lorraine Fesq of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. "Although we are disappointed that we lost contact with the spacecraft, we are thrilled with all that we have accomplished with this impressive CubeSat."
NASA adds that "Attempts to contact it are expected to continue into March 2020."
Almost right (Score:5, Informative)
Cubesats are some multiple of a 100mm cube. I seem to remember seeing the prototype for this satellite and it was a 6x2x1 multiple of a 100mm cube. Not quite suitcase-sized.
Although the headline is sad, this was a total mission success, with the only disappointment being that it didn't stay around for even more years after the primary and secondary missions.
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And if it's not quite suitcase-sized, it's nowhere near "pint-sized", even using British pints (568ml).
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pint-sized*
* for sufficiently loose definitions of "pint"
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* for sufficiently loose definitions of "pint"
Yanks and Brits should just split the difference and make a pint exactly 500ml (half a liter).
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Yanks and Brits should just split the difference and make a pint exactly 500ml (half a liter).
No way - that would have a deleterious effect on the capacity of pint beer glasses.
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even using British pints
Interestingly, the story of what happened to the satellite was chronicled in a Blake's 7 episode. Season 3.
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No, at 3000ml, it's more like a couple of boots. (Generally 1 or 2 L.)
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CubeSats, which are only about the size of a briefcase
Apparently the author has either never seen a CubeSat, or has never seen a briefcase.
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Remember when the Cubesats were first proposed? They were expected to only be useful for university classes wanting a cheap demonstration for projects.
de-orbit (Score:2)
With all these tiny satellites I wonder if the end of service life de-orbit has been designed into them?
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With all these tiny satellites I wonder if the end of service life de-orbit has been designed into them?
They burn up.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multim... [esa.int]
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No matter what you do with them, when they have a close encounter with a 'shooting star', they will have a problem and likely cease to function. Plenty and I mean a whole lot of them, of them up there, I bet NASA engineers do not look up into the night sky and make a wish, or perhaps they do, they wish those shooting stars do not too closely interact with their satellites. Not to worry with the new launch method you can put a lot more heavily armoured objects into space and thus a whole lot more durable and
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You do realize that "shooting stars" are about the size of a grain of sand, right?
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And already burning up in the atmosphere, which is substantially lower than satellites orbit, or they would already be "shooting stars".
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Re:de-orbit (Score:5, Informative)
FCC will not license your radio communications if your satellite does not have a de-orbit strategy. For low-orbit satellites, like your typical cubesat, the orbit decays by itself and they burn up. For higher orbit ones, you need a method to de-orbit them.
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FCC will not license your radio communications if your satellite does not have a de-orbit strategy. For low-orbit satellites, like your typical cubesat, the orbit decays by itself and they burn up. For higher orbit ones, you need a method to de-orbit them.
That's only for "high" LEO orbits, GEO satellites will still go to a graveyard orbit (GEO+300). At least Starlink's 550/340km satellite layer would clear up in a matter of decades on its own, the 1150km layer would probably take a century or two but it's still coming down on its own we just want them to do it faster.
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FCC will not license your radio communications if your satellite does not have a de-orbit strategy.
Thanks, that's good to know.
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Well it's a good thing that only the USA puts up satellites then.
Re: de-orbit (Score:2)
Grandpa? (Score:1)
CubeSats, which are only about the size of a briefcase
Grandpa, what's a briefcase?
Freaking journalists, I swear. And this is one of them that still has a job after the rounds of layoffs!
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Re: Grandpa? (Score:2)
what's a briefcase
It's a lot like one of those laptop backpacks, except you carry it in one hand.
Alternative theory (Score:2)
Remember, boys and girls: the surest sign of intelligent life in space is that we don't know it's there!
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Well it's not anywhere to be found here on Earth, it must have gone somewhere! Check under the couch.