Re: Bush cancels Hubble telescope rescue mission

From: gregg (saville_at_comcast.net)
Date: 01/31/05 

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 18:21:38 -0500

George William Herbert wrote:

> gregg <saville@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>: We have no other spectrum in which an orbital observatory
>>>>: has had continuous operations.
>>
>> CHANDRA has been operating continuously since launch in 1998. It
>> operates
>>in the X-Ray spectrum.
>
> You're missing the point,

 In reading below I see that...evidently what was meant by "continuous
operations" was from one observatory to another.

>and it was deployed July 23, 1999.
 
Sorry..slip of the finger-typo.

>
> Chandra had a design lifetime of 5 years on orbit.
> It probably will last longer, but that's the advertised
> design lifetime.
>
> The followon mission, Constellation-X, is still in long
> term planning and not expected to launch until 2011 at
> the earliest. That schedule was known and accepted
> when Constellation-X was formalized in 1996, before
> Chandra was launched in 1999 but when Chandra's design
> and planned lifetime on orbit were known.
>
> There is no plan which formally requires or guarantees
> that there will be a continuous X-ray observatory in
> orbit from the time Chandra launched in 1999 going through
> the forseeable future.

 Agreed.

>The design and schedule for
> Constellation-X were timed with the implicit acknowledgement
> that it's likely that Chandra will fail before Constellation-X
> gets launched, and that therefore it's likely there will
> be a gap in observation capability.

Yes now I understand what was attempted to be said. 

-- 
Saville
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