- SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - David
Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space
mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot
to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn's
largest moon.
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- "The story is actually fairly gruesome,'' the University
of Idaho scientist said in an e-mail from Germany, the headquarters of
the European Space Agency. "It was human error - the command to turn
the instrument on was forgotten.''
-
- The mission to study Saturn and its moons was launched
in 1997 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., a joint effort by NASA, the European
agency and the Italian space agency. Last Friday, Huygens, the European
space probe sent to the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, transmitted the
first detailed pictures of the frozen surface.
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- Atkinson and his team were at European space headquarters
in Darmstadt, Germany, waiting for their wind measurements to arrive.
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- The probe was to transmit data on two channels, A and
B, Atkinson said. His Doppler wind experiment was to use Channel A, a very
stable frequency.
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- But the order to activate the receiver, or oscillator,
for Channel A was never sent, so the entire mission operated through Channel
B, which is less stable, Atkinson said.
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- "I (and the rest of my team) waited and waited and
waited,'' he wrote, as the probe descended. "We watched the probe
enter and start transmitting data, but our instrument never turned on.''
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- Officials for the European Space Agency said last week
they would investigate to learn what happened. They were not available
for comment on Thursday, nor did NASA officials immediately respond to
telephone messages.
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