The Cassini Huygens craft launched in 1997 is finally arriving in the vicinity of Saturn. The craft is a joint venture between NASA, the ESA and the Italian Space Agency.
Cassini is now steering toward the small Saturnian moon of Phoebe following a flawless six-minute course correction last week. During that short engine burn, Cassini used all the systems it will muster for its orbital approach with Saturn on June 30.
Earl Maize, deputy program manager for the Cassini effort at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told SPACE.com that mission controllers have been practicing operations for that final orbital insertion maneuver, a 96-minute burn that will twice carry the spacecraft through the plane of Saturn's rings. Previously in the mission, spacecraft handlers conducted an eight-day dress rehearsal of Cassini's Saturn approach in which the spacecraft turned and underwent every maneuver but engine firing, he added.
The crucial burn will slow the spacecraft to allow orbital capture. Cassini's main engine will be turned to face the direction of travel during the burn. The thrust will act like a brake.
And Now, For Something Completely Different
A European Company is working on a craft to help satellites that are running short of fuel. ConeXpress is sort of a space tugboat, powered by ion engines, ready to help out the expensive satellites, ready to fall out of the sky.
ConeXpress adopts a slow and steady approach to satellite service calls by using an ion engine to reach ailing spacecraft. The engine uses electricity from tug's solar panels to charge xenon gas, then spits ionized particles through a nozzle to provide thrust.And there's the rub. However, it is good to see private concerns space getting up.
Once the space tug arrives at a satellite it uses a docking probe to attach itself to the kick motor of the target craft, then it fulfills all the spacecraft's navigation and propulsion needs. Altogether, ConeXpress should be able to increase a single satellite's operational lifetime by up to a decade.
But one the primary challenges facing Orbital Recovery is the need to convince satellite providers that an orbital lift by ConeXpress is more useful and cost effective than launching new spacecraft.
- Art Neuro
2 comments:
Given the high cost of a single Comms satelite and the sometimes higher cost of the boost it aught to be cost effective. Making sure the ConeXpress has a Xenon propellant supply sufficient for multiple missions will be the trick. Then it could kick several or even many expensive sats back into their correct orbits. The kicks should be very cheap. Reaching each satelite less so. Since most comsats are in geosynchronous orbit though there should be enough business at that one altitude so the only really large Delta-V change required is the LEO to GEO one!
Goog plan. Hope it makes money. Next step Xenon replenishment robots to extend the life of ConeXpress craft : )
Even if in the future they had to send robots to replenish the ConeXpress, it'd be a cheaper program than the shuttle. :)
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