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Smart-1 First Birthday In Space And Second Lunar Resonance
Paris, France (ESA) Oct 05, 2004 On 27 September 2004, Smart-1 celebrated its first birthday in space. After travelling about 78 million kilometres, the spacecraft is in good health with all subsystems functioning as expected. As anticipated, Smart-1 has had its second encounter with the Moon. The event took place 15 September at 01:07 UTC, when Smart-1 was at apogee, and about 280 000 km from the Earth. As was the case with the first lunar resonance, the Moon's gravity has substantially altered the Smart-1 orbit. Up to 1 October, at the 278th engine pulse, the Smart-1 electric propulsion system has cumulated a total ON time of nearly 3440 hours, consumed about 54 kg of Xenon and imparted to the spacecraft a velocity increment of about 2570 ms-1. On 14 August, AMIE was pointed back at Earth and took this image showing southwest Europe, west Africa, North America and South America. At the time the image was taken, Smart-1 was 200 000 kilometres from Earth and the Earth filled AMIE's field of view. On 27 September an attempt was made to monitor X-rays from an Earth aurora with D-CXIS, starting at 02:17:00 UTC. The experiment lasted a little over three and half hours. The detectors of DCIXS were oriented in such a way that they could monitor both magnetic poles of the Earth at the same time in case an aurora would occur over one of them. The data were downloaded to Earth and the D-CIXS team at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK is presently processing them. Also on 27 September a Laser Link experiment was performed to study the laser beam propagation through the atmosphere and space. A laser was switched on from the Optical Ground Station in Tenerife and the spacecraft performed parallel scans of 1.325 degrees. At the same time AMIE took images to allow the team to observe the line produced by the laser hit while the spacecraft was slowly moving (0.013 degrees per second and later 0.026 degrees per second). The third resonance and last encounter before the lunar capture will take place on 12 October, when the orbital period of Smart-1 and the Moon will be at a 1:3 ratio. The last time Smart-1 will approach the Earth, the last perigee, will be on 2 November. Finally, the last part of the Earth orbit will lead to the capture by the Moon and the first perilune on 15 November. Between 1 October and arrival at the Moon, the EP engine will be fired for only a little over 200 hours. The EP thrusters will be turned-off on 14 October at 13:42 UTC and the spacecraft will fly for one month, nominally without any orbit correction. The relative position of the Moon and Earth will allow the gravitational field of the Earth to "hand-over" the probe to the Moon without intervention. The Flight Control team will carefully monitor the trajectory and only in case this is needed will perform necessary corrections. CommunityEmail This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Smart-1 at ESA SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It
Sloan Survey Identifies New Dwarf Galaxy Inside Milky Way
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 10, 2006Astronomers using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have discovered a previously unknown cluster of stars within the Milky Way that appears to be a separate dwarf galaxy being consumed by its much larger neighbor. |
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