The LADEE spacecraft ran into some equipment trouble during its moon-launch Friday. NASA officials assured the public the spacecraft is still on track, but the problem must be resolved over the next few weeks.
The spacecrafts was spinning too fast after it broke away from its launch rocket. LADEE's reaction wheels were activated to stabilize the spacecraft, but the computer immediately shut them down due to "excess current," the Associated Press reported, via USA Today.
The operations team is not in a rush to fix the technical difficulties, a NASA press release reported.
The LADEE spacecraft is working as it was designed to under these conditions -- there's no indication of anything wrong with the reaction wheels or spacecraft," S. Pete Worden, Ames center director, said. "The LADEE spacecraft is communicating and is very robust. The mission team has ample time to resolve this issue before the spacecraft reaches lunar orbit. We don't have to do anything in a rush."
The LADEE team will spend the next few days analyzing the situation.
"This is not an unusual event in spacecraft," Worden said. "We plan in the next few days to complete spacecraft checkout."
The car-sized LADEE spacecraft will gather information on the moon's atmosphere, a NASA press release reported.
"The moon's tenuous atmosphere may be more common in the solar system than we thought," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science in Washington, said. "Further understanding of the moon's atmosphere may also help us better understand our diverse solar system and its evolution."
The craft was made using Modular Common Spacecraft Bus architecture, which allows multiple units to be tested at once. The process could lead to a more "commercial" production method for spacecrafts, so they would no longer need to be custom made.
"The LADEE mission demonstrates how it is possible to build a first class spacecraft at a reduced cost while using a more efficient manufacturing and assembly process," Butler Hine, LADEE project manager, said.
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