White House Orders NASA to Destroy Important Satellite
futurism.com
The White House has instructed NASA employees to destroy two major, climate change-focused satellite missions.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/45614563

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5763205

One is attached to the International Space Station, and the other is collecting data as a stand-alone satellite. The latter would meet its permanent demise after burning up in the atmosphere if the mission were to be terminated.

A 2023 review by NASA concluded that the data they’d been providing had been “of exceptionally high quality.”

The observatories provide detailed carbon dioxide measurements across various locations, allowing scientists to get a detailed glimpse of how human activity is affecting greenhouse gas emissions.

(Ex NASA employee) David Crisp said it “makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data,” pointing out it costs only $15 million per year to maintain both observatories, a tiny fraction of the agency’s $25.4 billion budget.

  • Asidonhopo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    7 days ago

    Somewhat related, would be nice if they’d order Juno to be rerouted to check out interstellar comet 3I-Atlas, has to be done before the end of the month. Juno is slated to be deorbited into Jupiter in September so has no actual science left to do but probably enough fuel remaining for the rendesvous.

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 days ago

      It’s a fantastic idea, really clever. But I’m afraid it’s too late, it doesn’t have the necessary Delta-V. We could have tried it if we had planned the mission a month ago, but at this point we just can’t get there in time (We didn’t know its trajectory a month ago, so it’s a moot point). What it comes down to is this, to make a flyby it would need about 2.5k Delta V, Juno has about half that.

      Also, we’re not confident Juno’s engines will light. We’ve previously refrained from using them for some planned manners because we recorded abnormalities the last time they were fired. There’s a decent chance engines would explode if used again.

      If we want to be able to take advantage of this kind of situation in the future, we’ll need at least one of two things… More probes, just sitting around with more fuel to spare, or better detection abilities so we can find these objects with more time to get to them. I’m betting on the later approach.

    • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 days ago

      What kind of trajectory is that assuming? The closest approach of 3l-Atlas to Jupiter is in March and will be 54 million km away. Is this end of the month timing to get it off of Jupiter’s orbit and closer to 3l-Atlas’s orbit? How will it achieve the 61km/sec intercept speed of the comet?

      • Asidonhopo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        This would be a flyby, rather than orbiting, as that would take a lot more propellant. I’d assume they might use gravitational assist from Jupiter, but a more or less direct shot might be planned, not sure. 3I Atlas would be closest to Jupiter in early September, yes, coincidentally the same time Juno was expected to be deorbited. As far as achieving the velocity needed, there are some calculations yet to be done but apparently there could be enough propellant onboard to do it.

        I heard about the intercept idea through The Angry Astronaut’s youtube but there was a Congresswoman and some professors pushing it too.

        (Angry Astronaut’s recent video about an intercept mission) https://youtu.be/B6O7nuJcmpY