NASA'S ICON Space Weather Satellite Has Suddenly Gone Silent (gizmodo.com) 29
A three-year-old NASA satellite lost touch with ground controllers two weeks ago and is now wandering through low Earth orbit without supervision. Sadly, the space agency fears the worst. Gizmodo reports: NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission has not communicated with ground stations since November 25 due to some sort of glitch the space agency is yet to identify, NASA wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. The spacecraft is equipped with an onboard command loss timer that's designed to reset ICON in the event that contact is lost for eight days, but the reset seemingly did not work as the team was still unable to communicate with the spacecraft on December 5 after the power cycle was complete.
Although silent, the ICON spacecraft is still intact. NASA used the Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network to confirm that ICON is still out there in one piece, according to the space agency. But communication is obviously key for orbiting spacecraft, as it allows the mission team to send commands to satellites and also receive data through downlinked signals. "The ICON mission team is working to troubleshoot the issue and has narrowed the cause of the communication loss to problems within the avionics or radio-frequency communications subsystems," NASA wrote in the blog post. "The team is currently unable to determine the health of the spacecraft, and the lack of a downlink signal could be indicative of a system failure." Oof, that doesn't sound good.
Although silent, the ICON spacecraft is still intact. NASA used the Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network to confirm that ICON is still out there in one piece, according to the space agency. But communication is obviously key for orbiting spacecraft, as it allows the mission team to send commands to satellites and also receive data through downlinked signals. "The ICON mission team is working to troubleshoot the issue and has narrowed the cause of the communication loss to problems within the avionics or radio-frequency communications subsystems," NASA wrote in the blog post. "The team is currently unable to determine the health of the spacecraft, and the lack of a downlink signal could be indicative of a system failure." Oof, that doesn't sound good.
Avionics or RF (Score:2)
Re: Avionics or RF (Score:1)
Lost contact (Score:2)
Re:Lost contact (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
This is one of the few times I actually know the answer. The internals have a timer. If there hasn't been any activity for 8 hours, then the timer is supposed to do a complete, hard restart. Hopefully whatever happened clears itself. The time for the power-cycle to have completed long-since came and went, so they assume something more is wrong with the system.
Re: (Score:1)
How do they know that the power cycled successfully with no means of contact?
They don't. Maybe pause for a moment, and think...before just barfing out a question.
Relax (Score:2)
It just needs some alone time. Not everyone has to be an extrovert and talk 24/7.
I'm not saying it's a... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
After all, in space it's either very cold or very hot. Not much in the Goldilocks zone.
Re:I'm not saying it's a... (Score:4, Informative)
Unless required by the technique, space instruments are usually operated around room temperature (well, maybe -20 to +50 C). So you need heaters and radiators for thermal management. Which makes surface exploration on moons so tough - the nights are long and (very) cold.
I give you that ICON goes into and out of eclipse a lot (like 8 times a day), so thermal cycling *is* an issue that needs special attention.
Has anyone tried kicking it? (Score:2)
Or banging it on the table a few times? That usually works for me.
Re: Has anyone tried kicking it? (Score:3)
Re: Has anyone tried kicking it? (Score:3)
They should probably check their browser settings, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Clear the cache!
Re: (Score:2)
IKON is hiding a secret... (Score:4, Funny)
Space Cowboys [imdb.com]
Maybe we need to re-activate a space shuttle for a repair mission. And bring back some of the old geasers from the shuttle program to man the mission. Who knows what they will find.
Oh wait, did NASA spelled their sat. as ICON?
Never mind.
Re: (Score:2)
If someone asked Elon nicely, he'd probably send a Dragon capsule with a repair team up there to fix ICON. Hell... he might even do it on the cheap for the publicity.
Re: (Score:2)
If someone asked Elon nicely, he'd probably send a Dragon capsule with a repair team up there to fix ICON. Hell... he might even do it on the cheap for the publicity.
The last time somebody tried to fix an IKON in orbit the dang thing went crazy...
It tried to nuke the Earth...
It launched Tommy Lee Jones to the Moon...
It forced us to listen to Frank Sinatra singing "Fly Me To The Moon"...
Well, that last bit actually was pretty good.
Re: (Score:2)
it's set to target
Latitude: 554507 N
Longitude: 373656 E
Aliens, obviously (Score:1)
Did any of you see the alien death beam shoot up from Stonehenge to kill the satellite corresponding -exactly- with the alleged "reboot"?
No? That's solid evidence of -invisible- alien death beams from Stonehenge!
What else could it be?
Re: (Score:1)
What else could it be?
Russians.
Re: Aliens, obviously (Score:1)
It's in a really bad neighborhood.
Re: Aliens, obviously (Score:1)
Andromeda Strain
Re: (Score:1)
This is more of a "space weather" one, studying the ionosphere... entirely different type of satellite, orbit and mission than the geostationary GOES weather satellites.
(In fact, this one notionally had a 2-year mission, which is already finished - it's just that so many things we launch nowadays last so much longer than their official missions, when something with a 2-year mission "only" lasts 3 years, it's a shock.)
Not an icon (Score:1)
Send a tech (Score:2)
Geek squad does on-site repairs for the low bargain basement price of $49.00 for up to 90 minutes. They even claim to do "the tricky stuff".