PFS issue on Venus Express, PFS scanner stuck in its closed position |
PFS issue on Venus Express, PFS scanner stuck in its closed position |
Mar 21 2006, 09:03 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 370 Joined: 12-September 05 From: France Member No.: 495 |
Bad news for PFS. I hope they will be able to solve this issue.
The PFS scanner is stuck in its closed position. Several attempts to move it were made at the time, but the instrument did not respond. Experts suspected a thermal problem by which low temperatures were blocking the rotation of the mechanism. Another attempt to move the scanner was made on 16 March 2006, in warmer flight conditions. Unfortunately, the scanner remains stuck. The next opportunity to perform another test on the spacecraft will be end of April, after the Venus Orbit Insertion. From http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=38964 |
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May 31 2006, 03:05 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
Any chance they could use the probe's thrusters to shake up
the craft enuogh to perhaps loosen the blockage? I know, it didn't work any better for Galileo's stuck antenna, but in lieu of sending a repair crew to Venus.... -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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