Euclid space telescope needs de-icing

Less than 12 months into its six-year survey mission, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid telescope is experiencing optical issues that require European teams to devise a de-icing procedure. ESA described the problem as common – water absorbed from the air during assembly is being released now that the spacecraft is in …

[lglethal]

Space is such a bugger of an environment, it always throws up things you did not expect. The fact that this has likely been a problem on other optics, but that the sensors are now so amazing that we can pick up such a tiny effect is astounding.

I can remember on Insight, that the Mole was functioning amazingly in testing, and then we did a small test in Martian Atmosphere, and everything stopped. It turned out that even the small change in atmospheric pressure in a volume of a few cubic mm had an effect that we hadnt taken into account. We were able to fix it, but some things are just so unexpected, you dont know to test for them!

It's great that they think they can fix it... Fingers crossed!

[vtcodger]

My first thought ...

My first thought would be to simply point the thing at something radiating a lot of heat and wait a while for the ice to evaporate (evanesce?). Not the sun. That's probably too hot. But maybe Venus or the sunlit side of the Earth's moon. But I imagine that was their first thought also. And that it won't work for any of a lot of possible reasons.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: My first thought ...

If only they'd filled the spacecraft with rice.

Or found a volunteer to live inside the telescope and occasionally wipe it clean.

Is there a service station on the interstellar hyperspace network, where they could pop in and get some anti-freeze? As well as a really horrible space-pasty.

[ColinPa]

pico joules per instruction

Someone gave us a talk about the challenges of working in space. For one probe they had to rotate part of it away from the sun when it was doing compute intense work, otherwise that side got too hot, and affected the probe. They had done research on the amount of heat generated when doing different sorts of calculation, and tweaked some algorithms to generate less heat.

[NapTime ForTruth]

It's not water icing...

The monks just completed their list of the Nine Billion Names of God.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's not water icing...

Good, so maybe now they can get around to sending Euclid a bottle of gin and some tonic water. I suspect that the problem of unwanted ice will disappear shortly afterwards. :-)

[Arthur the cat]

But …

I thought everything came packed with those little bags of silica gel?

[Dizzy Dwarf]

Traffic Lights

They just need to pull up at some traffic lights - some crusty with a sponge and a squeezy will appear from out of nowhere and want a pound coin,

[alain williams]

Re: Traffic Lights

They thought of that, but someone forgot to put the bag of £1 coins in the parts manifest.

[Snowy]

Re: Traffic Lights

That is the problem, they are not squeezing the water off correctly and freezing on the lens.

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: Traffic Lights

Trouble is they tend use water that's dirtier and gritier than your windscreen. Not sure this would be a positive.

[herman]

Egg cartons

So using recycled egg cartons as a low cost enviro friendly insulation wasn’t such a good idea after all…