A breakdown in the communications system aboard the space shuttle Discovery has claimed a US$33 million experiment as its victim, the Orlando Sentinel reported today.
The experiment, a search for anti-matter in space, will continue through Thursday. But scientists said they will likely ask NASA to schedule a make-up mission. The system failure marks the third time in four shuttle flights that major experiments have been compromised or ruined.
The failure is the result of a break in Discovery’s main antenna system shortly after its launch last week. Because of the break, the astronauts have been robbed of their two-way transmission channel. They can receive data from Earth, but they cannot send high-speed data and video back to scientists on the ground.
The experiment relies on a 3.5-ton magnet to collect and store data aboard the shuttle. Although the communications failure won’t affect what is stored onboard, the experiment is compromised because scientists need a five-to-six-hour continuous stream of high-speed data to calibrate the magnet. Instead, they have been receiving a few minutes of data every hour using a patchwork system made from another shuttle antenna and ground relay stations. This is enough to show that the magnet is working, but little else.
This means that scientists have been able to detect anti-matter but the major questions they hoped to answer remain a mystery, thanks to the communications failure. Physicists want to know how much anti-matter exists and whether it is more than a random array of subatomic particles.
The magnet is part of the instrumentation that is to go aboard the International Space Station.
