NASA probes propulsion problem in Psyche's thrusters

NASA is looking into propulsion problems experienced by a probe on its way to orbit the asteroid Psyche. The Psyche mission uses solar electric propulsion to generate thrust using charged atoms of the neutral gas xenon. The cause of the problem - first detected in April - is a pressure drop in the line feeding the xenon gas to …

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternate title?

I'd have gone with "NASA probes Psyche's plasma propulsion problem", but that's just me ;)

Fingers crossed, touched wood etc that they can fix this. It must be terrifying having a multi-billion dollar spacecraft go wrong so far from where anyone can lay hands on it to troubleshoot. The space boffins usually seem to find a way though.

[may_i]

Conversion hell

If El Reg is going to offer conversion to metric for those who have stopped using archaic units, at least try to get them right!

> approximately 148 million miles (238 km)

> from 240 million miles (386 kilometers)

Hopeless!

[notyetanotherid]

Re: Conversion hell

> approximately 148 million miles (238 km)

10836592243 brotosauruses, shurely?

[FuzzyTheBear]

Reg unit converter gone rogue ?

" from 240 million miles (386 kilometers) .. me thinks the Reg's unit converter has gone bonkers :D But it's way easier and more comprehensible in terms of brontosaurus.. 17572852286.2647 of them to be Spock accurate.. that's a measurement we can all relate to ..

[Bartholomew]

Re: Reg unit converter gone rogue ?

Do not get me wrong brontosaurus rocks as a standard measurement unit.

But the gross mess in getting that last 0.2647 is just disheartening. And you could spend years sharpening the blades used and still fail miserably to do better than 0.26 brontosaurus. And then there is the whole amber and gene splicing thing, the less said about that the better. And I am not going near the whole age issue and everything that surrounding that.

My suggestion to minimize the some of the issues would be to only use whole healthy brontosaurus that are at least 40 year old. And just avoid all fractions. If you are dealing with fractions of brontosaurus, you should be using a smaller unit of measurement.