5 ms·
How can it be mitigated? I can't think of a single idea. For future missions, sure, but this one?
by mongol 4y ago
How can it be mitigated? I can't think of a single idea. For future missions, sure, but this one?
- andrewinardeer 4y agoRMA the device.
- wongarsu 4y agoYou probably can't do much about strikes to the heat shield because that has to point towards the sun at all times, but if you knew that a micrometeoroid is on route to strike your mirror you can turn the telescope and let the meteoroid strike a less sensitive part instead. Of course you can't predict single strikes, but maybe you can create a statistical model which direction strikes are most likely to come from, and prefer observations that point the telescope in the least dangerous orientations. Maybe there's even some seasonality to it due to interactions with the moon or with other planets, and you can just schedule observations in a particular way that reduces risk.
- rich_sasha 4y agoThose things are tiny and easily travelling at a few km/s, not sure how you could detect that
- ISL 4y agoYou can't detect them, but, like meteor showers, they may sometimes come from certain directions.
- DennisP 4y agoGP's entire second paragraph addresses that point.
- 1123581321 4y agoIt does not as the same detection problem precludes meaningful statistical modeling (we do not have enough objects that can detect and report hits, and we would create too much debris collecting that data.) If there were any dangers obvious enough to detect from here, that destructive, we already wouldn’t be using that point since the mission is expensive and long-lasting enough that a statistical approach to protection would fail too quickly. (The suggestion made me think of “gun kata” in Wimmer’s Equilibrium which had the same problem, given the performance ratios stated in the opening monologue.)
- ISL 4y agoIn addition, some orientations may decrease the collision cross-section entirely. Even a 20% decrease may mean a ~20% increase in mission lifetime if these strikes are common.
- jacquesm 4y agoThat's not always possible, any orientation that would require the instruments to point at nearby sources of heat would ruin observations for a long time, possibly forever. Webb is severely constrained in being able to point to many places but not 'backwards' to where it came from and certainly not upside down.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoThey don't really have to do a full turn, if they can predict direction with any sort of accuracy they could at least reduce the exposed surface area with a minor shift.
- ffhhj 4y agoSpare mirrors and a repairing robot-arm!
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoSpacecraft used to have double walls. Micrometeorites would strike the outer wall, piercing it but shattering. The 'dust' would strike the inner wall and not penetrate.
- vanattab 4y agoThe problem is the 1st surface mirrors not the vehicles structural walls.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoWhich, curiously, has no wall around it. A tube or shroud outside its visual collection range, could eliminate a huge fraction of impacts. Unless they came straight on, which if direction were randomly distributed would be another decimal place better.
- onetwentythree 4y agoThere’s no way to mitigate the risk of statistically random meteorites that can come from any direction. The primary mitigation is to use predictions of larger events, such as meteor showers, and move the observatory to an orientation that reduces the risk of damage.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoSure there is! Put a shroud around it in every direction but the light-collection direction. That'd mitigate like 90% of the meteors.
- sharno 4y agoI think the only way is to make launching these telescopes so cheap that losing a couple isn't that big of a deal. Let it crash like Erlang's motto