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Rosetta would be in Mars’ shadow, having to rely on the limited battery supply instead of solar panels. The risk was that the batteries weren’t designed for the
by rkagerer 7y ago
Rosetta would be in Mars’ shadow, having to rely on the limited battery supply instead of solar panels. The risk was that the batteries weren’t designed for the task.
Huh? This implies a change in mission parameters or doubt whether the engineering was adequate. The link in that sentence doesn't mention either. Just that the craft entered a "sleep" mode to conserve power. I expect the power subsystem was designed specifically for the task.
- sq_ 7y agoInterestingly, that's apparently not quite correct. From the ESA link in the article: > Rosetta's original trajectory and engineering design did not include an eclipse, but unavoidable launch delays forced the trajectory to be replanned. Mission controllers working on Rosetta have spent months carefully planning and testing a low-power configuration which will allow the spacecraft to safely operate on batteries.
- rkagerer 7y agoThat explains it. I missed that bit in the link, thanks for correcting me!
- sq_ 7y agoFigured it was something like that :) No way everyone can click through every link in every article they read. Glad we were jointly able to bring something interesting from the article to people's attention.