Faint Hopes for the Faint Object Camera

NEWS MANNED SPECEFLIGHT ____ New blow for Juno London Faint hopes for the Faint THE troubled Juno mission, which aimed to send a British astronaut and a series of Object Camera microgravity experiments to the Soviet Mir space station in 1991, seems doomed now • Replacement camera an expensive option that the Moscow Narodny Bank has stopped looking for sponsors. The original • In-orbit repair quick but difficult £16 million mission collapsed due to a lack London & Washington astronomer Michael Disney, from Uni of sponsorship in March, but science direc EuROPEAN space engineers this week versity College, Cardiff, is for a new FOC tor Professor Heinz Wolff had negotiated a launch a study to see what can be done to to be jointly funded by NASA and ESA. rescue package - the Soviets offering a £2 improve the optical performance of the The FOC is to an extent the victim of its million flight, in return for improved busi Faint Object Camera (FOC), built by the own success. Because its test performance ness links with British companies. European Space Agency (ESA) for the came up to specifications, there were Wolff hopes that many of the experi now-crippled Hubble Space Telescope never any plans to build a second genera ments, into which he has ploughed over (HST). But Robin Laurance, ESA's tion instrument. In contrast, corcern £100,000 of his Brunei University labora space telescope project manager, warns over the detectors in NASA's Wide Field/ tory's research contract earnings, will fly that "the prognosis is not very good" for Planetary Camera (WFPC) means that a on other missions. The bank, meanwhile, is each of the options being considered. second WFPC is already partly built. Fit trying to secure a flight for one of the astro The FOC was designed to detect ex ting corrective optics to this new camera nauts in training. Peter Aldhous tremely faint or distant objects, allowing will be relatively inexpensive. astronomers to see if distant quasars are For ESA, the ideal solution would be placeable by astronauts, and any other embedded in faint galaxies, and to search for NASA to correct the HST's problems repair options would go well beyond the for planets around nearer stars. Together at source, in the primary optical system, planned serviceability of the telescope. with the telescope's solar panels, the FOC rather than correcting individual instru Meanwhile, astronomers met last week represents ESA's contribution to the ments. But the idea of bringing the HST at the Space Telescope Science Institute Hubble project. But in common with back to Earth was ruled out years ago, in Baltimore, Maryland, to begin the diffi most of the HST's scientific instruments, according to a NASA spokesman, be cult task of re-organizing the HST's the camera's performance has been cause of the danger of damage to the schedule of observations in the light of undermined by the aberration in the telescope and contamination by dust. what is now known of the telescope's telescope's primary mirror. Similarly, although it would in principle reduced capabilities. The first step will be Laurance says that the ESA study will be possible to fit a large corrective lens to to assess how much of the currently planned look at three plans to salvage the FOC, all the HST as a whole, NASA has ruled observing programme is salvageable, and of them built around a planned shuttle against any such plan in favour of replac to discuss the fate of individual projects flight to the HST in 1993. Fitting correc ing scientific instruments one by one on with the astronomers who had been tive optics to the FOC in orbit is an scheduled shuttle flights. The HST's in granted telescope time for them. attractive option, as little observing time struments were all designed to be re- Peter Aldhous & David Lindley would be lost, but it is beset with technical difficulties - corrective lenses may have to be fitted inside the camera, which was Computer plays never designed to be opened once in too safe space. A safer option would be to bring BElWEEN various mysterious the camera back to Earth for the necessary glitches and heart-stopping corrections, but the refurbished FOC losses of contact, the Magel could then not be reinstalled on the HST lan probe last week returned until the next scheduled shuttle flight in its first radar mapping pic 1996. tures of Venus. The compo site (right) shows one such The third option is to build an entirely image, a 24 by 40 mile new camera, complete with corrective op closeup of a volcanic highland tics, for launch in 1993. Laurance points region called Beta Regia. out that because of repeated launch de The bright line running across lays, the FOC, originally delivered to the the region is thought to be a National Aeronautics and Space Admi fracture or fault zone. Reso nistration (NASA) in 1983, is now an old lution of the picture is about instrument. Scientifically, the preferred 400 feet, 10 times better option would be to start again, but a new than the best previous image instrument would cost about $100 million, of the region from Earth based radar or earlier probes. Laurance estimates, beyond the resources As of late last week, NASA of ESA's stretched science budget. controllers had reestablished One hope is that a new FOC could be contact with Magellan, which freed from the restricted space science has shown a worrisome tend budget and made an ESA 'special project' ency to "safe" itself and shut funded by donations from ESA member off communications for rea states above their mandatory contribu sons that appear to be con tions. But this would be an unpre nected with the on-board cedented move: special project status is computer. Engineers last week uploaded new software usually reserved for commercial ventures, to the probe in hopes of cur such as the Ariane launch vehicle prog ingthe problem. C.A. ramme. Another option, suggested by NATURE · VOL 346 · 30 AUGUST 1990 781 © 1990 Nature Publishing Group.

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