It had a good run - in fact, running past its mission parameters - but the Gaia might be gone. It got hit by a micrometeor in its STL2 halo. The recent solar storms haven't helped either (STL2 is shaded by Earth, but the halo isn't).
The L2 halo needs course-correction, so Gaia's mission ends when they turn off its power - or run out of propellant, but propellant seems a nonfactor at this point.
A new Gaia should aim at more precision, in which case maybe they can use this vibration-damper. With the usual caveats about the hype-curve (ht. Sabine for batteries).
No comments:
Post a Comment