NASA Finds A New Way To Use Old Spacecraft
NASA Lends Galaxy Evolution Explorer to Caltech
“NASA is lending the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, where the spacecraft will continue its exploration of the cosmos. In a first-of-a-kind move for NASA, a Space Act Agreement was signed May 14 so the university soon can resume spacecraft operations and data management for the mission using private funds.”
Keith’s note: Wow. Is NASA going to adopt this approach for the reuse of other spacecraft? This could be very interesting.
Time for a big smile. First it was the Hubble repair missions, and now this. A gold star on the refrigerator door for NASA for actually changing the status quo. It seems that you can teach an old agency new tricks (based on old ideas). Now this is what reuse is all about. It’s an awful shame that they saw the light only after the last of the Shuttle External Tanks was toasted.
Waste not, want not; and don’t be afraid to use what you’ve got.
Steve
“the last of the Shuttle External Tanks was toasted.
ET reused was never really a viable idea
Charlie
I didn’t mean reusing them to launch Shuttles, but rather in space as enclosed volume for habs, depots, etc. Just add a tiny bit more more thrust each time when a Shuttle was launched and we coud have had all those ETs in LEO, ready to modify into all kinds of useful things.
Steve
Not to mention a bit of Hydrogen and Oxygen for air and water. I still regret not keeping all those tanks on orbit. Terrible waste, even if they had required significant work to convert.
🙂
Thanks. Has anybody ever told you you’re cute when you smile like that?
Been there, done that, years ago:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/new…
Two British spacecraft (STRV-1a/b) were transferred to the University of Colorado and operated from there for a couple of years, then transferred back to the UK for end-of-mission disposal
That’s a pretty neat idea. Might be a good way to keep interesting science missions running. I remember that for a while they weren’t sure if they were going to keep Kepler running after its initial mission duration. Pretty neat idea overall.
~Jon
And a useful example to Russia. Why the devil didn’t they sell or otherwise convey Express-AM4 to Polar Broadband Systems Ltd for Antarctic work instead of pointlessly trashing it?
Why indeed!
The more SAAs I see, the better I like the concept.
OS,
Then please run for Congress. Adding in your intelligence and good sense would bring the average waaaaay up.
Steve
Wouldn’t it be cool if we had say a Bigelow 550 garage, with a big door up there with a small crew that could fly up to a satellite like they did with the shuttle and repair and upgrade de-orbit many old satellites. Shouldn’t NASA and or other countries have a program for cleaning up Leo that makes it possible commercial to create salvage companies that could make this satellite last decades.
DTARS,
Very cool, indeed. But the door would have to be an air lock, the mass of which I think might be too much of a strain on a large-scale inflatable; you might have to add an extended igloo-like portal to distribute the air lock forces — unless we can invent a force field curtain that is entirely non-permeable to oxygen and nitrogen adjacent to a vacuum.
As for cleaning up the LEO junk yard, it’s one of those things that everybody (civilian, military and government alike, from many countries) agrees on a regular basis really should be done, and then they all immediately rush out and do absolutely nothing about it. Discussing it is sort of like leap year — it happens every once in a while, like clockwork, but means nothing, really.
Clean up/salvage is in the same category as many other space proposals; there’s no money in it for private companies (yet), and governments either won’t admit that it’s a threat or put it too low on the priority list to pay for, and Joe Q and his friends don’t think about it at all. I suspect it will take a couple of catastrophes before any action (serious or otherwise) is taken. But there will still be the “who’s to blame?” and “who’s going to pay how much?” battles to go through, so round one will likely be little more than a token effort.
I’d like to see a workable scheme whereby a small company, or group of companies, could salvage the stuff as scrap and then sell it back (to those who put it there) as recycled materials for new construction. If they set up the operation in LEO, then the heat and electricity (two of the major costs in material recovery and smelting) are extremely cheap — a bunch of mirrors, one close-by sun, solar panels, and a few odds and ends. All of the motors could be driven by external combustion steam engines, a simple but reliable technology that requires no “fuel,” just water and a temperature differential (simple and cheap to create in space).
Looks like you’ve invented yet another industry! Long live DTARS Entrepreneurial Services. “Building a Railway to the Stars.”
Steve
Steve
Your 550 is a long sphere
Maybe you design an add on frame that you fly up in sections that you add to the now inflated hab that make it possible to have a frame that cuts the whole hab in half and open it on a hinge the whole hab is an air lock just for the purpose of garaging and working on each project in safety.
Your add-on frame could have a inside and out-side that clamps to the Bigelow fabric.
Lol Also for glueing dragon trunk beam sections together NASA. R and d developed apoxie rope that sets in the grove like a gasket. The rope has little berry size spheres that break when pressure is applied that releases one part of your glue and a solvent that desolves your rope skins to create a primer to wet your joint surface.
Lol you have remmember now we have NASA working R and D with there new NACA role right!!!!