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Comet Mission Missing In Orbit
Laurel - Aug 15, 2002 Mission operators are looking for a signal from Contour, several hours after a scheduled maneuver to send the spacecraft from Earth's orbit onto a path to encounter multiple comets. Contour's STAR 30 solid-propellant rocket motor was programmed to ignite at 4:49 a.m. EDT and deliver 1,920 meter-per-second boost which Contour needed to escape Earth's orbit. At about 140 miles (225 kilometers) above the Indian Ocean, the spacecraft was too low for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas to track it at the scheduled time of the burn. The Contour mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory expected to regain contact at approximately 5:35 a.m. EDT to confirm the burn, but the DSN has not acquired a signal. The mission operations team is working through several backup plans to establish contact with the spacecraft, searching along the predicted trajectories for a successful burn. Contour, a Discovery-class mission to explore the nucleus of comets, was built and managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., for NASA. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Contour 2002 SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Asteroid and Comet Mission News, Science and Technology
NASA'S Spitzer Finds Possible Comet Dust Around Dead Star
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 12, 2006NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted what may be comet dust sprinkled around the white dwarf star G29-38, which died approximately 500 million years ago. |
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