spacetoday.net: space news from around the webin association with SpaceNews


LCROSS problem causes fuel loss
Posted: Wed, Aug 26, 2009, 1:56 PM ET (1756 GMT)
LCROSS spacecraft illustration (NASA) A NASA spacecraft scheduled to crash into the Moon in October used up much of its onboard fuel because of an attitude control problem over the weekend, project officials said Tuesday. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) suffered a fault with its inertial reference unit, which led to the spacecraft's thruster to fire excessively, using up a "substantial" amount of fuel before ground controllers were able to resolve the problem. Project officials believe they still have enough fuel on LCROSS to carry out its prime mission, although with minimal margins. LCROSS, a secondary payload on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission launched in June, is attached to the Centaur upper stage that launched both spacecraft. It will maneuver the Centaur onto a collision course with a crater in the Moon's polar regions and separate to observe the collision before itself colliding with the Moon.
<<previous article   next article>>
news in brief
Starship explodes during preparations for static-fire test
Posted: Sun, Jun 22 6:52 AM ET (1052 GMT)

French government leads investment in Eutelsat
Posted: Sat, Jun 21 8:38 AM ET (1238 GMT)

NASA further delays Ax-4 launch
Posted: Sat, Jun 21 8:34 AM ET (1234 GMT)

news links
Monday, June 23
SpaceX Sends Icelandic Hemp on Orbital Mission
Iceland Review — 4:31 am ET (0831 GMT)
Amazon and SpaceX satellite launches rescheduled for Monday
WESH-TV Orlando — 4:28 am ET (0828 GMT)


about spacetoday.net   ·   info@spacetoday.net   ·   mailing list