Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Missing Spacecraft Found After Two Years, says NASA

Bookmark and Share

STEREO-B spacecraft
NASA reports that its STEREO-B spacecraft has made contact after two years of silence. STEREO-B is one of two Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories launched in 2006. (NASA)

     NASA is reporting that one of the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories, known as the STEREO-B spacecraft, has made contact after two years of silence.

Along with its sister STEREO-A, the prodigal probe is tasked with
Rachel Feltman
The Washington Post
8-23-16
observing the sun. When the two were launched back in 2006, the STEREO spacecraft entered an orbit around the sun respectively just ahead of and just behind the Earth, allowing them to observe solar phenomena such as coronal mass ejections from multiple angles.

... STEREO-B went silent just after mission control tested its "command loss timer," a hard reset that would be automatically triggered if STEREO-B ever stopped communicating with Earth for 72 hours. During STEREO-B's primary mission, the spacecraft was never meant to go incommunicado. But because it lived so long, it drifted into a slightly different orbit, setting itself up to pass behind the sun. ...



No comments :

Post a Comment

Dear Contributor,

Your comments are greatly appreciated, and coveted; however, blatant mis-use of this site's bandwidth will not be tolerated (e.g., SPAM etc).

Additionally, healthy debate is invited; however, ad hominem and or vitriolic attacks will not be published, nor will "anonymous" criticisms. Please keep your arguments "to the issues" and present them with civility and proper decorum. -FW

LIVE SIGHTING REPORTS BY MUFON

Mutual UFO Network Logo