Linked Questions

43 votes
2 answers
8k views

What is that haze on Starman's windshield?

There is a haze on the top half of Starman's windshield? It was not there in the first day o fthe launch and the video feed. It looks like fogged window, but assume it cannot be that. What is it and ...
kdobrev's user avatar
  • 471
31 votes
7 answers
8k views

Do things get dirty in space?

I'm writing a computer game involving space exploration, where the player will come across space ships/stations that are hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of years old. I'm also trying to make it ...
GoatInTheMachine's user avatar
6 votes
6 answers
3k views

Do electronics and mechanical components work in a vacuum or require a sealed controlled atmosphere?

I'm curious about the electronics and other instruments on Voyager and similar spacecraft. Are the electronic components kept in open vacuum or in a sealed atmosphere? I imagine cooling gets tricky ...
Roger Wood's user avatar
  • 3,794
9 votes
3 answers
2k views

What are the common space application adhesives used in Earth orbiting satellites?

For quite some time, I am reading about space adhesives. Selecting the right adhesive for space applications is extremely important, mainly due to the high vacuum (around 10-8 Torr), and the variation ...
Yovan Mascarenhas's user avatar
12 votes
2 answers
817 views

Which are the main challenges for sample return mission from an asteroid and a comet?

The first sample return mission from a comet has been achieved by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, and the first sample return mission from an asteroid has been achieved by JAXA's Hayabusa spacecraft. What ...
Mark777's user avatar
  • 2,135
5 votes
1 answer
1k views

What is the "space grease" used to lubricate the ISS robotic arm? What are the material considerations for it?

Space.com's Spacesuit Gloves Contaminated During Friday's Historic Spacewalk quotes NASA astronaut Christina Koch (Wikipedia, NASA): "And so," she continued, "of course, a mechanical ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
3 votes
2 answers
405 views

Do reaction wheels generally run in vacuum, or are they pressurized? Sealed or vented?

Is there some general trend for the operating pressure of reaction wheels? I can imagine low to no pressure has obvious advantages of low to no drag (more drag requiring more power, beyond that ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
3 votes
1 answer
756 views

Why are some reaction wheels sealed with low pressure gas, others with vacuum?

This answer and this answer address the question Do reaction wheels generally run in vacuum, or are they pressurized? Sealed or vented? and they both mention that sometimes momentum wheels are sealed ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
3 votes
1 answer
939 views

ViaSat's 18 kW solar array - largest ever for a commercial telecom satellite?

Now that the protests at Kourou Space Center in French Guiana are over, Arianne has launched both EutelSat 172B and ViaSat-2 as 2017-029A. While EutelSat 172B has a ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
9 votes
1 answer
441 views

Why is the Aeolus space laser losing power so quickly?

The BBC News article Aeolus: Wind-mapping space laser is losing power says that Europe's Aeolus satellite was launched last year to gather data to improve weather forecasts, and its observations have ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
6 votes
1 answer
236 views

Hows does "Glenn Research Center's sapphire refractive secondary concentrator" work?

Clicking through NASA.spinoff.gov I came to the page for spinnoff 2001 Glenn Research Center and found this: Glenn Research Center's sapphire refractive secondary concentrator will be used with ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
7 votes
0 answers
406 views

Were solar concentrators on HS-702 just a stop-gap measure until triple-junction PV cells were available?

According to Gunter's Space Page discussion of early versions of the Hughes HS-702 Bus: The first version of the 702 used solar arrays with concentrators. These concentrators tended to early fogging, ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
1 vote
1 answer
179 views

How is the atmosphere in the pressurized housing of ISS' HDEV cameras managed? Outgassing addressed?

This answer says: The ISS live feed uses the cameras of the HDEV experiment. This is a group of four cameras in a pressurized housing attached to the outside of the ISS. A hermetically sealed ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
6 votes
1 answer
213 views

Advantages/disadvantages of wood for surface of cubesat?

Generally aluminum and kapton are the exterior surfaces of a cubesat. A Finnish/ESA cubesat, the WISA/Woodsat was launched that has plywood panels. It has protection against offgassing and very low ...
tedder42's user avatar
  • 840
0 votes
1 answer
206 views

Atmospheric influences on satellite imagery [closed]

I need to know if there's any relationship between the drag force of any point in LEO with the quantity of particles or something like that that are flying in the air that makes quality of the ...
Unnamed's user avatar
  • 111

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