Reaction wheel failures leave Swift rescue mission spinning in orbit

AI 中文解读

原本要去“救火”的卫星，自己先“抛锚”了。Katalyst公司打造的Link卫星，本是一颗专为拯救NASA斯威夫特伽马射线望远镜而设计的“太空救援车”，结果它自己上天不到一个月就开始打转——两个关键零件“反应轮”失灵，推进系统也漏了气，导致卫星失控旋转，通信断断续续。反应轮好比卫星的“方向盘”，本来靠三个轮流工作来调整姿态，现在坏了两个，卫星就像没了舵的船，只能在太空中原地转圈。虽然这个事件主要影响天文领域的空间望远镜维护计划，但也给商业航天敲响警钟：如果未来我们想靠商业卫星完成更复杂的太空任务，比如维修、燃料补给甚至拖拽报废卫星，就必须先保证这些“太空拖车”自身足够可靠——毕竟在太空中抛锚，可没有路边救援队。

Nearly a month since its launch, a first-of-its-kind commercial satellite built to save NASA's Swift gamma-ray telescope from a fiery reentry is having problems of its own, the agency announced Tuesday. The Link satellite developed by Katalyst Space Technologies "experienced issues with attitude control" over the weekend, NASA said, causing the spacecraft to spin and resulting in sporadic communications. "Preliminary investigation shows that two of Link's three reaction wheels currently are not operable, and there is some loss of functionality in its cold gas thruster system," NASA said.Read full article Comments