The world’s first private space distance built to visit an asteroid, slowly tumbling in space and the prospects are terrible.
The spacecraft, called Odin, launched a SpaceX rocket (26 February) on Wednesday on top of a mission to fly through the small Asteroid 2022 OB5 for Astroforge, a company that eventually wants to get the nearby Space Rock. But only a few hours after the launch, Astroforge broke with the probe. The last contact was 20 hours after the launch.
“I think we all know that the hope fades while we continue the mission,” said Astroforge founder Matt Gialich in a video update about X early Saturday (March 1). “So we’re going to keep our head up. We’ll keep trying it at the weekend, and we’ll see how far we get.”
At the time of Gialich’s update on Saturday morning, the Odin spacecraft was more than 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) of the Earth and he largely followed the intended process. On Friday, Astroforge said that the solar panels of the spacecraft power generated power, with tracking data that it showed in the expected position. But the probe has not sent full telemetry about its status.
Gialich said that Astroforge experienced challenges with ground stations that were designed to keep communication lines open with Odin after the launch.
“And I think missing our early ground stations really damages ours to solve potential problems we had,” he said.
The 265 pounds (120 kilograms) Odin was only designed to last 2.5 hours on his internal battery, but Astroforge received his last contact of the probe 20 hours after the launch, the confidence that the spacecraft is driven.
Odin tumbles as slowly as it flies through the room, added Gialich, and confirms a theory based on observations of the spacecraft.
“And when I say tumble, this is a real, really low speed tumbling,” said Gialich. “But in short, we don’t know why and that is the problem in the future.”
Astroforge’s mission team works on recovery efforts through the weekend, but options can be limited.
“We have a plan at the weekend and there is still a chance that we can restore the vehicle,” Gialich said. “We think we have some theories about what’s going on, and if one of them is true, there is still a recovery path.”
Gialich said that Astroforge will share a more detailed update on its website this weekend, followed by an in -depth analysis of the anomaly next week.
Gialich founded Astroforge with the aim of mining the enormous means of asteroids for use on earth and in space. The Odin mission is a reconnaissance effort to fly through Asteroid 2022 OB5 to record images and data that would be the scene for a landing by Astroforge’s next mission, called Vestri.
The company built Odin in just 10 months, Gialich said. It was launched as a Piggyback -Lading in addition to the Athena Moon Lander of the company intuitive machines, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer Moon Orbiter (who also suffers problems after launch) and a small orbital tugboat demonstrator built by Epic Aerospace.
Gialich emphasized that Astroforge is committed to that Vestri Asteroid landing mission despite the challenges with which the Odin probe is confronted.
“We probably have the best group of investors in the world. Many of them have doubled with this company,” said Gialich. “So regardless of the outcome of Odin, regardless of whether we will ever talk to it again or not, we will roll these findings in the next mission.
“And we’ll see you here again in about a year when we’ll make it again.”
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