Weekly Small Space News Story Roundup 8

ESA's JUICE Probe Has Deployed Its Antenna 

Remember this story from May 5th?  The European Space Agency said May 12 that controllers had successfully deployed the 16-meter-long antenna on its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, mission, SpaceNews reported today.  The suspected cause was a pin that was used to hold the antenna in its stowed configuration for launch had not separated as planned.  The previous meeting that talked about this was May 3, and in the May 5th post I reported:

With a couple of months of commissioning still to come, there's time to try more tricks.  The next steps include an engine burn to shake the spacecraft a little followed by a series of rotations that will turn JUICE, warming up the mount and radar, which are currently in the cold shadows.

SpaceNews reports:

While those efforts showed some signs of progress, the antenna did not deploy until controllers fired a non-explosive actuator in the jammed bracket. The shock of the firing loosened the pin enough for the antenna to unfold. Another actuator fired later to complete the antenna’s deployment.

JUICE is getting to Jupiter by a path with several gravity assists, and isn't expected to arrive for nearly eight years, 2031.  That's a full year a year after NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, slated to launch in October 2024 on a Falcon Heavy.  Six years vs. eight.  Europa Clipper has its own radar instrument, called Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) that also features deployable booms.  Tim Larson, deputy project manager for Europa Clipper at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that while their antenna has a different design, they've been following the JUICE mission closely. 

NASA Ends Lunar Flashlight Mission 

Not surprised to see this.  There have been thruster problems with the mission since the satellite was first deployed.  That link is to an update at the end of March, but SpaceNews reports NASA officially announced the decision last Friday, the 12th.   Lunar Flashlight is a cubesat that was launched in December by SpaceX, on the same mission as the ispace Hakuto-R M1 that carried the Rashid lunar lander by the United Arab Emirates. The Hakuto-R M1 mission failed to land successfully on April 25th (updated at the end of that post).   An unusual "0 for 2" on that SpaceX launch - both well out of SpaceX's control. 

A Small Company has Audacious Plans to Rescue and Repair an Old NASA Space Telescope 

Twenty years ago, NASA launched the the Spitzer Space Telescope atop a Delta II.  The Spitzer was deployed to an Earth-trailing orbit, where it drifted farther behind our planet at a rate of about 9.3 million miles a year. It was the last of NASA's four "Great Observatories" put into space from 1990 to 2003.

Like many space telescopes that observe in the infrared spectrum, Spitzer carried a tank of liquid helium to cool the sensors.  Spitzer was intended for a five year mission, so when the liquid helium ran out seven years into the mission it wasn't exactly a surprise.  The telescope continued to work but used sensors that didn't require the liquid helium; a different kind of mission.  Three years ago, 16 years into a five year mission, Spitzer began to overheat whenever it needed to point back toward Earth for communications. But the reason for overheating wasn't a fault in the space telescope hardware, it was because of that 9.3 million miles per year drift farther behind earth.  It's so far behind our orbit that it was approaching the opposite side of the sun, so that when it went to send data home, it was pointing closer to the sun than it could handle. 

This meant that operating the telescope, and having it phone home from time to time, would irreparably damage Spitzer's remaining scientific instruments.

And so in January 2020, after more than 16 years of service, the Spitzer Space Telescope was deactivated—consigned to drift in a heliocentric orbit until the Sun's fiery expansion at the end of its life a few billion years from now.

 Or was it? 

A small space technology company, Rhea Space Activity, says it has a plan to resurrect Spitzer. Last week the firm said it won a $250,000 grant from the US Space Force to continue studying a robotic rescue mission for the spacecraft, which is now about two astronomical units—or twice the distance of Earth from the Sun—away.

Satellite servicing, "rescue" in some cases, is becoming a "next big thing" with some rescues already extending the lives of satellites.  In late February of 2020 Northrup Grumman's first Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV-1) docked to Intelsat 901 (IS-901) in order to provide life-extension services.  It was the first time two commercial satellites had docked in orbit and the first time that mission extension services were offered to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit.  There's a bit more description at either that link or my coverage.

But this is way, way beyond that kind of mission.  This satellite isn't in Earth orbit, it's farther from the sun than our orbit but on the other side of the sun.  As that quote two paragraphs above says, it's two AU away.  

"When it comes to robotic space servicing, this would be the most ambitious thing ever done," said Shawn Usman, an astrophysicist who is the founder and chief executive of Rhea Space Activity, in an interview with Ars. "I mean, it is literally sending a satellite to the other side of the Sun to resurrect the last Great Observatory. So I think it would be pretty ambitious, but it'd be really great if we could pull it off."

The "Spitzer Resurrector" mission would be a small spacecraft that could fit into a 1-meter-by-1-meter box and be ready to launch as soon as 2026 (!!), Usman said. It would then take about three years to cruise to the telescope, during which time the spacecraft will make observations of solar flaring.

It's an extreme mission, but this is how innovation happens.  People who dare to dream big things no one has done before. 

The Spitzer telescope "artist's conception" from before the launch, over 20 years ago. Image NASA/JPL-Caltech.

For more info, the source on Ars Technica has some neat information.