ASTERIA Has Gone Dark
Dear Friends & Neighbors,
ASTERIA CubeSat space telescope (Attribution: NASA, Presented at: WindermereSun.com)
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According to mission operators at NASA, a miniature satellite tasked with searching for planets outside of our solar system has gone dark. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said that their final communication with the satellite, ASTERIA, took place on December 5, 2019. This briefcase-sized spacecraft was first of its kind to be deployed into Earth orbit in 2017;it spent three months “planet hunting” by observing changes in the brightness of nearby stars. Astronomers use a method which measures the light curve of distant stars for periodic dips in brightness, Transit Photometry. Such dips in brightness are the result of exoplanets passing in front of the star (i.e. transiting) relative to the observer.
For more about ASTERIA, please refer to the excerpt from wikipedia, in italics, below:
ASTERIA (Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics) is a miniaturized space telescope meant as a technology demonstrator to advance the capabilities for astrophysical measurements. Its bus is a nanosatellite of the 6U CubeSat format. It was designed in collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and served as an introductory flight project for early-career hires.
ASTERIA was launched on 14 August 2017 and deployed into low Earth orbit from the International Space Station on 20 November 2017.[1] The primary mission lasted 90 days, but the satellite continued operation for two years before ceasing contact with ground station operators. The last successful communications were made on December 5, 2019.[2] The Principal Investigator was Canadian-American astronomer and planetary scientist Sara Seager, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Below, is a photo of ASTERIA. ASTERIA (Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics) is a miniaturized space telescope meant as a technology demonstrator to advance the CubeSat capabilities for astrophysical measurements and exoplanet detection by the transit method. Its bus is a nanosatellite of the 6U CubeSat format. It was designed in collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. ASTERIA was launched on 14 August 2017 and deployed into low Earth orbit from the International Space Station on November 2017.
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article: ASTERIA (spacecraft), in the video “ASTERIA (spacecraft), Wikipedia audio article“, below:
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
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