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>the craft is spin-stabilized to minimize thruster usage So one good reason for it to hibernate is to save thruster fuel.
by maaark 9y ago
>the craft is spin-stabilized to minimize thruster usage
So one good reason for it to hibernate is to save thruster fuel.
- 3JPLW 9y agoIt's not obvious to me why the two (spin-stabilization and hibernation) would have to be coupled. Could it be due to antennas that are required for communication during active mission control? That said, there's a whole lot of nothing out there. It makes sense to put the craft into a safer mode that has less risk of failure when there's nothing for it to do.
- barkingcat 9y agoMost likely while spin stabilizing, many instrument packages that require some kind of orientation are useless, so it's better to turn them off - and also, to save their operational lifetimes (if something has a certain # hours of operating life it makes sense to turn them off to save life)