Comments on: Odyssey Possibly Hit by High-Energy Particles; Phoenix Science Run About to Begin

By: Dave Finton

Dave Finton — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:52:45 +0000

This sort of thing happens a lot with earth-bound satellites fairly frequently. The reason you don't hear of this happening more often with Mars satellites is because there are only 2 active man-made objects orbiting the planet, while Earth has hundreds of these objects.

Also, metal shielding is pretty much useless with regards to cosmic rays because the rays themselves are so energetic even an inch of lead can't stop them. All metal shielding will do would be to break up the cosmic ray into hundreds of secondary radiation particles which in turn will still have a detrimental effect on electrical components in space.

The best defense we've got without breaking the budget is redundancy and a good back-up plan in case the on-board electronics go wonky. That's why you hear about remote probes going into safe mode all the time. That way one can restart the probe without damaging sensitive equipment.

By: alphonso richardson

alphonso richardson — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:02:34 +0000

Oh well, better safe than sorry

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:21:06 +0000

That sucks, doesn't the satellite have EM shielding, like metal or something?

By: Mick

Mick — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:20:15 +0000

Looks like some thing does not want us to find some thing on Mars ( X-file music)

But this is truly an exciting few days a head of us !

By: RL

RL — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:38:52 +0000

Does this kind of thing happen often to probes? I don't recall hearing about this kind of thing before.

By: Jozef K

Jozef K — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:21:30 +0000

such bad coincidence that a problem like this occurs just as the good stuff was about to happen : \