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Hubble is not the only NASA mission to have seen better days. In fact, this is one of the agency's four most recognizable programs, currently in safe mode or not communicating with the Earth. NASA spokeswoman Felicia Chou said she could not say whether these circumstances were unprecedented for the agency; When I arrived home Friday afternoon, many of the people who could answer this question were not in the office. "Although it seems that we have aging spacecraft due to secure modes and a fuel outage, we have a whole new generation of spacecraft and landing gear equipped with latest technologies, already in space, recently launched or coming, "said Chou m assured.
But the number of marginalized missions seems at least unusual from recent memory. Every announcement of a new problem has sparked a wave of support from scientists, engineers, and space fans who aspire to re-establish a mission.
The shame of the mission began in June with a massive storm on Mars. The planet's thin atmosphere swelled with dust and prevented sunlight from reaching the surface. In the dark, the solar – powered Opportunity rover could no longer recharge its batteries and thus fell asleep. The sky cleared in September and the engineers were hoping that the return of the sun would prompt Opportunity to wake up. But they still have not heard of the rover, and NASA management has already thought about when the team may have to give up.
The Kepler Space Telescope was as follows. Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has discovered thousands of planets beyond the solar system, including 30 Earth-sized planets that revolve around the habitable areas of their stars, where liquid water, precursor of life, can exist. Kepler had to run out of fuel this year and lose his ability to steer himself, but the engineers did not know exactly when. The design of the spacecraft did not include a gas gauge, which, according to scientists, would probably have been a good idea, in retrospect.
In July, Kepler began to show signs of very low fuel efficiency and the observatory went into and out of safe mode ever since. The telescope came out of sleep in August, observed the sky for about a month, and then came back down in October. On Friday, NASA announced that the engineers had awakened Kepler once again. They will now download the latest telescope data while trying to use as little fuel as possible.
In mid-September, another Martian rover fell asleep. The engineers discovered a technical problem on Curiosity's main computer that prevented him from transmitting the scientific and technical data stored in his memory home. They turned off the robot's scientific instruments just in case, and last week, they switched it to a backup computer. Nearly a month later, they are still investigating the problem.
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