Expand / ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission will confront Sunlight from inside the orbit of Mercury at its nearest approach. (charge: ESA/ATG medialab)
The ESA’s newly established Solar Orbiter will invest decades in one of their most unwelcoming places in the Solar System: the Sun. Throughout its assignment, the Solar Orbiter will have 10 million km closer to the Sun than Mercury. And, mind you, Mercury is near enough to have lasted temperatures hitting 450°C on its own Sun-facing surface.
To resist these temperatures, Solar Orbiter will rely upon a solidly designed heat protector. This heat guard, though, will shield the spacecraft just when it’s pointed straight at the Sun–there is not any adequate protection on either side or at the rear of the probe. So, consequently, ESA created a real time operating system (RTOS) for Solar Orbiter which may behave under quite strict demands. The maximum permitted off-pointing in the Sun is just 6.5 levels. One other off-pointing exceeding 2.3 levels is acceptable just for an extremely short time period. If something goes wrong and harmful off-pointing is discovered, Solar Orbiter will have just 50 minutes to respond.
“We have got really demanding conditions for this assignment,” states Maria Hernek, mind of flight applications systems department in ESA. “Ordinarily, rebooting the stage like this takes approximately 40 minutes. Here, we have had 50 seconds complete to obtain the problem, have it have the system working, and take recovery actions.”
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