Smaller than a strawberry seed, this tiny signal amplifier was produced by the European Space Agency to fill a missing link in current technology, helping to make future radar-observing and telecommunications space missions feasible.
“This integrated circuit is a low noise amplifier, measuring just 1.8 by 0.9 mm across,” explains ESA microwave engineer David Cuadrado-Calle. “Delivering state of the art performance, the low noise amplifier’s task is to boost very faint signals to usable levels.”
Analysis shows that one temperature measurement exceeded a pre-defined limit and that the flight software correctly triggered a shut down
Sounds like the fix is changing the start up procedure such that it doesn’t reach the temperature limit. It would be nice to know why it went outside what they deemed safe but I guess it is rocket science.
Yes, not really the complete picture of what happened.
Would have there been actual damage to the system or even destruction if the software did not shut down? Or was the temperature threshold set too conservative? Did the thermal simulations not match the observed temperatures and if so why?
What’s the solution to this problem now for the next flight?
If it reenables European sovereign and independent access to space it’s a success. Fingers crossed that it’s also as reliably as A5. Commercially I agree.
we don’t want it to reactivate in the future and begin transmitting again if its solar panels find sunlight.
Why go to so much work to ensure it can never be turned on again? What harm does it do to move the satellite to a graveyard orbit and just leave it listening?
Today’s flyby will be the first to significantly ‘tilt’ the spacecraft’s orbit and allow it to see the Sun’s polar regions, which cannot be seen from Earth.
Huh, it never occurred to me that we haven’t seen what the Sun looks like from above or below the plane of the solar system.
I love that we launched a spacecraft with the sole purpose of measuring the positions of as many stars as possible, just because we could. Well done Gaia, and all the teams who worked on it.
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