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NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

science.nasa.gov

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Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#51

Post by consp »

dylan604 wrote: post #40
1970-01-01 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What a shame there has been only one pointing outwards all these years. Let's not forget that initially it was considered a massive failure. There simply was no way for NASA to build another in the 90s. What's truly remarkable is how the ROI went from unknown, to negative, and then was a massive long-term success.

Let's not forget that NRO donated multiple Hubble level satellites. NASA had no budget to utilize them, so they were not used. Of course there were other logistics involved that made the "gifts" not so practical. However, the thing that gets me is that if the NRO was willing to donate these satellites tells me that they have better than Hubble quality imaging looking inwards and absolutely have multiple of them.

Aren't they using one right now? [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telesc...

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#52

Post by nradov »

Tostino wrote: post #30
phaedrus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure at NASA as at all government agencies there are teams who work very efficiently and do more with less, and other teams whose mission does not have that characteristic and constraint.

The majority of inefficiency seems to leek into NASA via our Congress.

Pork-barrel politics are ugly and make federal programs like NASA less efficient. But in this case it serves a strategic value in preserving a geographically distributed aerospace industrial base. This ensures we won't lose too much capacity from a single disaster or enemy attack. If that "insurance" means fewer space missions then it's a premium worth paying.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#53

Post by wongarsu »

yellow_lead wrote: post #18

Are the two other gyros broken?

Breaking gyros are a recurring issue for Hubble. Hubble has 6 (3 spares, 3 for full operation). They replaced them 3 times with space shuttle missions because they kept breaking. Now Hubble is down to 2 functioning gyros again and we no longer have a space craft with the capability to service satellites. They decided to shut one of the gyros off so they still have a slightly used spare once this one breaks.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#54

Post by gammarator »

moffkalast wrote: post #45
BurningFrog wrote: post #38

I just think it's sad that they're doing fixes on a 34 year old telescope instead of sending up a new improved model every 10 years.

Well the JWST is in fact a thing. Why not keep getting science from the old ones while they're still working? NASA really needs to just fill their telescopes with gyros upon gyros, like just plaster the things with gyros and reaction wheels for 50x redundancy since that's always the mission critical thing that fails first. Or maybe a xenon powered ion reaction control system or something that would last longer then h…

> NASA really needs to just fill their telescopes with gyros upon gyros

It’s an interesting tradeoff. Missions are designed (and costed) for a nominal mission lifetime; adding more redundancy increases costs. But it’s true that the successful missions tend to stay in operations much longer than their normal lifetime.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#55

Post by fallingknife »

tonetegeatinst wrote: post #7

NASA has such a tiny budget in comparison to other stuff....so they really have to stretch that money as far as they can, and especially considering spacecraft....its a very unforgiving production environment. Am I making a joke about deploying in production? Yes, yes I am. But I also know NASA really does the best they can and I am amazed at the insane work and effort that they do to make sure spacecraft they send a…

There's a billionaire who has offered to do a repair mission. NASA considers this too risky to let some random guy go up there and fix it. If they worked together on a plan I feel like they could get this done in a way that reduces the risk, but it seems like they just don't want to.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#56

Post by cubefox »

olleromam91 wrote: post #47
cubefox wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there are two different technologies that are both called "gyroscope"? One a sensor detecting rotation, the other an actuator inducing rotation?

The sensor you’re describing is usually called an accelerometer.

No, accelerometers detect acceleration in linear direction (up/down, left/right, forward/backward), while gyroscopes detect rotation (pitch, yaw, roll). Smartphones have both, to detect all six degrees of freedom.

Edit: Apparently, for smartphones, all these sensors are integrated into a single MEMS chip, one sensor for each degree of freedom, three accelerometers and three gyroscopes: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9X4frIQo7x0

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#57

Post by cubefox »

SaberTail wrote: post #49
cubefox wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there are two different technologies that are both called "gyroscope"? One a sensor detecting rotation, the other an actuator inducing rotation?

No, the comment you're replying to is confused. These gyroscopes are entirely used for determining Hubble's orientation. Reaction wheels effect the actual rotation, and Hubble's are fine. I think the confusion is a result of imprecise language talking about how they are used to slew the telescope. They are "used" but as feedback, in conjunction with other systems. Also, there have some prominent reaction wheels failu…

Thanks, this makes sense. I guess I should look up the difference between gyroscopes and reaction wheels next.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#58

Post by TheAmazingRace »

duffyjp wrote: post #22
Freebytes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a hard time getting Doom to run on my 486. I only had something like 4MB of RAM if I recall correctly so I had to restart my computer, edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT to remove options that I would use to load Windows, and then boot back into DOS to launch DOOM each time I wanted to play it to get that last bit of memory I needed. Then, when I wanted to run Windows, I had to edit the HIMEM.SYS stuff to get it running aga…

I recently installed DOS 6.22 on an old laptop. By old, I mean a core2duo with 4GB of ram. It was hilarious to me that I needed to google the correct settings to use to get a game that requires 4MB to work on a machine with 4GB. My actual goal was to setup QBasic for my son, which I did-- but he thought it was stupid and refused to even let me show him how to code a Hello World app on it. :(

I'm sorry this happened to you. If you were my dad, I would have thought you showing me QBASIC would have been the coolest thing ever.

It kind of reminds me of my dad when he built our first whitebox 486 PC in 1992. Getting to sit on his lap while we messed around in DOS and some games from the era really stuck with me forever. He also loved to mess around in a BBS and would show me how cool it was that we could communicate with other systems at a long distance via modem. :)

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#59

Post by SiempreViernes »

BurningFrog wrote: post #38

I just think it's sad that they're doing fixes on a 34 year old telescope instead of sending up a new improved model every 10 years.

I think its sad that single use consumerism culture is so pervasive that anyone would actually bemoan a thing as extremely niche as a cutting edge scientific instrument getting over tens years of use.
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