NASA's Rushes To Fix Its IBEX and SWOT Missions Face Technical Glitches

NASA is experiencing trouble with its Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) and Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) missions due to technical glitches .

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IBEX was launched in 2008 and orbits Earth to find energetic neutral atoms and study the edges of the Solar System.

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NASA has not been able to regain communications with IBEX after resetting its systems multiple times.

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IBEX is deployed with a hexagonal array of solar panels and double large aperture imagers to capture energetic neutral atoms.

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IBEX discovered a giant ribbon stretching across the Sun's heliosphere in 2009 which questioned previous assumptions about the outer heliosphere.

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NASA is also trying to fix the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) which is deployed on the SWOT satellite, which went offline shortly after launch.

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The KaRIn instrument is made to measure water surface heights but one of its amplifier subsystems abruptly shut down.

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The Space agencies are working together to solve the glitches on the KaRIn instrument and ensure data accuracy for SWOT's scientific operations by July 2023.

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Despite many setbacks, NASA is committed to its mission and continues to explore and study the farthest edges of our Solar System and Earth's oceans.

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