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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

#11

Post by go_elmo »

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…

Its insane how far quality can push things, even with a tiny budget. And yes, Im also making jokes about burning money.. tech is a strange world!

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#14

Post by regularfry »

londons_explore wrote: post #9
EncomLab wrote: post #5

Pretty incredible what they are able to do with a i486!

Luckily the processing for this sort of control loop is usually very simple mathematically. It's gonna be a few multiplies and a bunch of adding and subtracting most likely. The challenge is designing that mathematical formula, and making sure to take the readings from the sensors and output them to the actuators on time .

It's not just designing the formula, getting the parameters right is going to be a right pain. You might have meant that as part of "designing" but it's a significant challenge in its own right, over and above having a formula that's the right shape.

Not to mention numerical accuracy in the implementation, but I'd assume that's mostly known patterns at this point.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#15

Post by Freebytes »

tanbog45 wrote: post #6
EncomLab wrote: post #5

Pretty incredible what they are able to do with a i486!

We used to get quake and Warcraft running on them from memory. It was - is! - a great chip.

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 again. (I was a teenager with no Internet access. I have no idea how I figured out this stuff or where I got information from.)

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#16

Post by 1970-01-01 »

jagger27 wrote: post #12

Hubble is such a productive piece of an equipment. What a shame there has been only one pointing outwards all these years.

>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.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#17

Post by trentnix »

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…

NASA looks efficient because you’re comparing it to the rest of government.

I love the work they do. I wish they did more with what they have. And then I wish they had more to work with.

When they are constrained, like they are with spacecraft already in flight, their ability to problem solve with the tools and systems they have available is absolutely impressive.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#19

Post by SoftTalker »

aejm wrote: post #10
madaxe_again wrote: post #3

I’d love to see some actual data on this - what’s the impact on resolution, maximum exposure time, etc.?

“Once Hubble is on target, the steadiness of the telescope in one-gyro mode is almost comparable to that of a full three-gyro complement… Although one-gyro mode is an excellent way to keep Hubble science operations going, it does have limitations, which include a small decrease in efficiency (roughly 12 percent) due to the added time required to slew and lock the telescope onto a science target… If Earth or the moon…

It was launched 34 years ago with a 15-year expected service life. So that it's still operating at all today is quite an achievement.

Re: NASA releases Hubble image taken in new pointing mode

#20

Post by codesnik »

Freebytes wrote: post #15
tanbog45 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to get quake and Warcraft running on them from memory. It was - is! - a great chip.

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…

"norton commander" shell had a user defined menu where you could create short scripts, basically just a chain of DOS commands. As a fellow teenager with no Internet access, I've made a "game" submenu which replaced normal autoexec.bat with a slim one curated for a particular game and rebooted computer right into the game. After you exit the game it'll replace autoexec.bat with the backup of normal one and reboot again back into norton commander.

I have no idea why I needed that level of automation, of course.

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