Reply to post: Re: Well...

NASA saves Kepler space 'scope by turning it off and on again

Bronek Kozicki

Re: Well...

More likely some chip turned out not to be hardened enough against cosmic radiation - a high energy particle (which do not happen on Earth, thanks to magnetic field) may easily flip memory state or do similar harm. Electronics sent out there are always shielded against those, but as we have learnt, some particles have very large energy indeed, even if they only hit anything very, very rarely.

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