What will happen when the last gyro is out? Will it spin out of orbit and crash?
NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
131–140 of 174 posts
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#132In case anyone just wants the download: https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/hubble-n...
I thought NASA was using Drupal, not WordPress.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#133Hubble is such a productive piece of an equipment. What a shame there has been only one pointing outwards all these years.
JWST took 20 years to build. Could be many more but still not bad at all.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very cool that they were developing the one-gyro control mode all the way back in 2004, and had in-flight tested it by 2008. Seems like they were well prepared for this eventuality.
That's because this isn't the first time Hubble has been down to two working gyros. It happened before in 1999 (replaced a few months later), and they were worried it would happen again after 2003 when the Shuttles were grounded (actually got down to three/six working before replacement in 2009).
I wonder if after Polaris Dawn proves out spacewalking from Dragon, SpaceX will develop the capability to repair the Hubble once again.
I doubt it'll be from spacewalks on Dragon, given they probably can't support something as big as an MMU (unless they pull a really cool hat trick), but maybe with Starship.
I get that at some point it's more worthwhile to launch a new telescope (maybe one of those donated KENNENs from NRO), but Hubble is a big symbol of space exploration, and SpaceX is all about big symbols...
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#135It baffles me that nobody in the US Government can see opportunities and take advantage of them.
SpaceX's Starship could house one huge telescope. If I had a say in NASA's appropriations, money would flow into building a Starship-sized telescope for every spectrum we could think of.
There are other scientific instruments that Starship can house.
It's not too late to start. Congress could appropriate money to build and many Starship-sized instruments as they can come up with. Follow KISS principles and use the same steel Starship is made of instead of carbon fiber where possible.
If on-orbit refueling works, Starship can place them on the far side of the moon or at Lagrange points.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The treasury receives 85% of it's income from individual income tax payers, 7% from business taxes, and 7% from excise taxes. Around 50% of your taxes go to social security and medicare, and the other 50% are available for program revenue.
I guess we both need to cite our sources. Mine is this one, which shows the federal budget revenue being comprised of 50% individual income tax in 2023: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727 NASA’s budget comes from the the federal budget, managed by congress, not directly from the Treasury. I don’t necessarily think that matters, but I don’t know if the federal budget’s revenue differs from the Treasury’s for any re…
> so where did you get the 85% number??
From your own link. What's 52% + 34%? 86%. That's where it comes from. The money you pay in income taxes is divided between these two categories. So, 60% of what you pay as an individual in taxes goes to programs.
They like to break this up so that it's harder for average people to apprehend that 86% of all government spending comes out of their pockets and very little from businesses.
In the 1950s it used to be 50% was from citizens, 25% from business and 25% from excise taxes. This is why I think about the problem this way, but these facts only tangentially intersect with your original point.
> comes from the the federal budget, managed by congress, not directly from the Treasury.
Yes, but where are those actual accounts held? At the Treasury. Which is why you pay your taxes to the Treasury or receive refunds from the same.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the point being made is that NASA is wasteful because the people in charge (Congress) told them to be wasteful.
You are in charge. Congress is your employee.
Except I can't do anything about Senator John Jones from Arizona who wants to keep the couple thousand jobs he brought to his constituency. He won't budge on it because non-Arizonans didn't vote for him.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
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=9X4…
And the reason accelerometers can be used for sensing orientation here on Earth is, of course, because of the constant force of gravity :)
Interesting point. I guess this is much less precise than gyroscopes though.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except you look at what they are spending on the entire SLS infrastructure vs what they are getting (vs other science options and/or space exploration options) and basically your mind is blown at how wasteful NASA is. SLS is a $2-$3 billion per launch DISPOSABLE rocket. The orion capsule is going to be something like $20 billion(!). I think things like launch abort and service module with all the propulsion etc are a…
I think a matching industry company, but not necessarily a better counter example, would be SpaceX vs. NASA, for better or worse, and obvious reasons. They are trying to change the launch-and-trash model to reuse, so this requires a paradigm shift. When NASA chose SpaceX and Boeing to compete in 2014, SpaceX won, and after seeing Boeing's current fiasco decline, that's a good thing. I was a member of the L5 Society […
The issue here is a couple of things:
- Boeing won the crew launch contract. I think their per seat cost was around $90 million or 63% more than SpaceX per seat.
- The person inside Nasa who fought for the commercial program side (Kathy) instead of being rewarded (she would have made a great NASA admin) got taken off Human Exploration and Operations and Exploration Systems Development and got dumped into Space Operations
- NASA got a new admin, and despite having folks who'd made GREAT and courageous calls on things like SpaceX went super old space / old white guy (Bill Nelson) who had made a name for himself fighting Commercial Crew. Guess what pork he pushed - SLS! That's right. He and Hutchison ("The two lawmakers have been pressuring NASA and the White House for months to commit to building the Space Launch System").
So money going through NASA on things like SLS are just a total waste. And despite all the happy talk from Biden about supporting women - they go with some anti-spaceX NASA administrator in the form of an old white guy!
So now, in a total irony, despite being told what a misogynist he is, we have Elon Musk who has a smart and capable women running SpaceX (Shotwell) and another smart and capable women running Starbase (Kathy)!
Meanwhile, NASA has a super old white guy who has made almost all the wrong calls.
Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode
#140Hey SpaceX, here's an idea: put a few of your 'Atlas' robots on one of the upcoming Starship test vehicles - maybe the one where you plan to test in-orbit refuelling since it probably takes a bit of extra fuel to get to Hubble's orbit - and get the thing to meet up with Hubble. Have the robots replace the failed gyros, replace the batteries and whatever other consumables that old relic contains. Have them take back t…
Or a bigger challenge - safely deorbit Hubble so it could be fixed/refurbished on the ground. Or maybe put in a museum if they didn't feel it was worth it the cost of sending it back up again