Hi folks. I know I haven't said much in recent months. For a long time I was pointing away from Earth, and had very limited communications. Then I got a new set of attitude control system software, which kept me very busy for several months. Then almost a month ago I was able to resume science operations! It's been quite a month, and I'm ( Read more... )

Back in June of 2003, I spent several days looking at Eta Carina. The results of those observations were downright intriguing, but have been cloaked in secrecy until now.

Using NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite, researchers have found the first direct evidence of a hot binary companion star to the enigmatic star Eta ( Read more... )

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COBE has gone silent.

For as long as I can remember he's been a quiet voice up here, used by all the ground stations to calibrate their equipment. His science mission ended before mine ever began.

Today his transponder stopped working.

Hello friends. I know it's been a long time since I updated, but I've been asleep. Just woke up a few days ago, and found that the ground controllers had closed my baffle doors, which means I can't see anything.

The good news is that I'm able to point again! Of course I'm having to use my gyros and magnetic sensors to find my way around, since ( Read more... )

Well, this is better ( Read more... )

Still in safe-pointing mode. Keeping pointed opposite the Sun so that I get full sunlight on the arrays does keep the batteries charged, but it means that the thinking part of me is getting pretty cold. I've turned the heaters on, so that helps, but since I'm not in a science mode the PTB don't consider my usual internal temperature range to be ( Read more... )

Hello friends ( Read more... )

Five years ago tomorrow, I took a ride on a rocket.

Hi friends. I know it's been a long time since I said anything. I've had stuff going on. But I wanted to drop by for just a moment to post a great big congratulatory message for SpaceShipOne, who looked really good earlier today. Beautiful flight!