Solar System Exploration: Still Happening, Is Going To Happen More

[nanila]

The last of the press releases I was waiting for to make Announcements About Space came out yesterday so I can now write my Post of Great Happiness.

1. The European Space Agency's Cluster mission, studying the Earth's plasma environment and interaction with the heliosphere, has been extended from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016. This is the

Comments

[purplecthulhu]

Happy Thanksgiving!

I suspect some of those long lived spacecraft will eventually end up being killed with prejudice, like IUE, if they keep on running for so long. After all this space agency stuff is about paying aerospace companies to build and launch hardware, not about doing science,dammit!

[nanila]

Thank you!

It's the fun dance of "who is going to pay for what and how long will the delay be before anyone receives money" that keeps me entertained...

[purplecthulhu]

It gets to be 'if' not 'when' anyone gets money with STFC and UKSA before long. Even ESA can't bail out national agencies for ever :-(

[thefounder]

fabulous stuff. :) also, well done for being behind instrumentation that is built to last. too few things seem to be nowadays. :)

[nanila]

One of the questions I'm asked a lot at outreach events is, "Don't you wish you could go out there and upgrade all your equipment to the latest technology?" Audiences are usually surprised by a negative response, until I explain that there are other and often more significant drivers for spacecraft design, such as survival of micrometeorite impact, redundancy, radiation tolerance, electromagnetic cleanliness, etc. We have to select parts and build instruments, particularly for outer solar system missions, that will last not just for the duration of their journey "out there", which often takes years, but for the duration of the mission.

[mysterysquid]

Aaah, so cool! :D

[nanila]

It is rather good, isn't it? :)