pjs@aristotle.JPL.NASA.gov (Peter Scott) (04/07/90)
In article <385@mtndew.UUCP>, friedl@mtndew.UUCP (Steve Friedl) writes: > > The HST won't take any pictures of Mercury because it (Mercury) > is too close to the Sun for safe pointing. Is it so close that > the camera would *necessarily* be fried, or is it just too close > for them to want to take a chance of being off by a couple of > degrees? They *do* plan to take pictures of Mercury, by using the Earth to occlude the Sun. After Mercury rises they have 5 minutes to take a picture and then slew out of the way. Needless to say they are going to wait until they have had some practice with the thing before attempting this maneuver. > Naive question #473: why not put additional O rings on the > *other* side of the tang so that when the joint rotates, the > rings over there get compressed and stop blowby? Um, isn't this exactly what they did with the redesign? This is news. This is your | Peter Scott, NASA/JPL/Caltech brain on news. Any questions? | (pjs@aristotle.jpl.nasa.gov)