A NASA spacecraft is again to regular after weeks of troubles in house.
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) allowed controllers to reset the pc on March 2, company officers stated on Monday (opens in new tab) (March 6), ending three weeks of points in attempting to achieve the spacecraft.
The mission group did a “firecode reset,” or exterior reset of the spacecraft, permitting controllers to regain management of the unresponsive spacecraft two full days earlier than IBEX was scheduled to do an autonomous reset and energy cycle on Saturday (March 4.)
All is again to regular now, company officers added. “IBEX telemetry reveals that the spacecraft is totally operational and functioning usually.”
Associated: Mysterious power ribbon at photo voltaic system’s edge a ‘cosmic roadmap’
NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer launched in October 2008 to review the outer fringe of the heliosphere, specializing in the “bubble” that represents the boundary between the solar’s atmosphere and interstellar house.
The spacecraft totally mapped the heliosphere in its first 12 months after launch and will get entire-sky photos each six months. Its most well-known discovery is uncovering a dense area of particles, nicknamed the “IBEX ribbon.”
The company first introduced points in “regaining command functionality” in late February, however emphasised the spacecraft itself was wholesome regardless of its pc resetting unexpectedly and inserting IBEX into contingency mode. “Flight software program nonetheless is working, and the spacecraft methods look like practical,” NASA officers stated in a Feb. 24 replace (opens in new tab).
IBEX types a part of a community of spacecraft finding out the photo voltaic wind (or fixed stream of particles from our solar) alongside the solar itself to achieve a greater understanding of how the heliosphere shapes our photo voltaic system.
The spacecraft has spent 15 years in house, persevering with work greater than a decade previous when its prime mission resulted in 2011.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a e-book about house medication. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Fb (opens in new tab).
