NASA still hoping to save its Lunar Trailblazer mission
Though the odds of success are very dim, NASA has decided to give engineers another few weeks to try to activate its Lunar Trailblazer orbiter, that stopped communicating with Earth the day after it was launched in late February.
NASA has extended recovery efforts of its Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft from mid-June to early July. Updated modeling of the spacecraft’s trajectory by the mission team indicates lighting conditions will continue to be favorable and may provide enough sunlight for the spacecraft’s solar panels to recharge its batteries to an operational state and turn on its radio.
…Should enough sunlight reach Lunar Trailblazer’s solar panels, the batteries may charge to a level that allows the spacecraft’s radio system to boot up. But as Lunar Trailblazer travels farther away, it will soon be too distant to recover because its telecommunications signals to Earth will be too weak for the mission to receive telemetry and command.
The mission team has determined that if they can regain command of the spacecraft, the propulsion system isn’t frozen, and the instruments remain operable, the spacecraft may be able to achieve an elliptical lunar orbit and complete its lunar science objectives.
As I said, the chance of success are not good.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Though the odds of success are very dim, NASA has decided to give engineers another few weeks to try to activate its Lunar Trailblazer orbiter, that stopped communicating with Earth the day after it was launched in late February.
NASA has extended recovery efforts of its Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft from mid-June to early July. Updated modeling of the spacecraft’s trajectory by the mission team indicates lighting conditions will continue to be favorable and may provide enough sunlight for the spacecraft’s solar panels to recharge its batteries to an operational state and turn on its radio.
…Should enough sunlight reach Lunar Trailblazer’s solar panels, the batteries may charge to a level that allows the spacecraft’s radio system to boot up. But as Lunar Trailblazer travels farther away, it will soon be too distant to recover because its telecommunications signals to Earth will be too weak for the mission to receive telemetry and command.
The mission team has determined that if they can regain command of the spacecraft, the propulsion system isn’t frozen, and the instruments remain operable, the spacecraft may be able to achieve an elliptical lunar orbit and complete its lunar science objectives.
As I said, the chance of success are not good.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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