From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Sat Jun 28 2003 - 10:16:40 PDT
This article is also available on the web at:
http://www.spacetoday.net/getsummary.php?id=1755 .
Instrument problem keeps Landsat offline
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Posted: Sat, Jun 28 12:40 PM ET (1640 GMT)
A problem with the Landsat 7 remote sensing spacecraft has
rendered the spacecraft essentially useless for nearly a
month, with no solution to the problem on the immediate
horizon. Spacecraft controllers first noticed the problem
on May 31, and traced it to the failure of the spacecraft's
Scan Line Corrector (SLC), a device that allows the
spacecraft's imager to compensate for the motion of the
spacecraft. The US Geological Survey has removed all
Landsat 7 data collected since May 31 and has limited the
spacecraft to housekeeping operations and efforts to correct
the problem. As of Friday the SLC remained offline, meaning
that most of the data returned by the spacecraft's Enhanced
Thematic Mapper plus instrument contains gaps and duplicated
data. Engineers have identified over 150 fault scenarios,
generally involving electrical and mechanical problems, and
are looking into each to find those most likely to explain
the SLC problem. Scientists are also developing techniques
to interpolate across images to fill in the missing data,
but caution that the validity of those techniques have not
been fully investigated.
Related Links:
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Landsat 7 anomaly investigation updates:
http://landsat7.usgs.gov/updates.php
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