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Posted by John Schilling on July 26, 2006, 4:42 am
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On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 03:31:14 -0700, "Max Power"
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>Hard drives on 'Deep Space' missions: any idea why they are never used?
Mostly because hard drives have moving parts, and moving parts are a
serious annoyance to engineers who have to design hardware that absolutely
must work for years at a time with absolutely no possibility of repair or
servicing.
Also, hard drives require air to work - it's guaranteed head crash time if
you try to spin one up in vacuum. You can seal them inside a pressurized
container, of course, but now you've got a set of seals that absolutely
must not leak, again for years at a time with no maintenance.
Usually, it's easier to go with some sort of no-moving-parts memory;
several technologies to chose from, and they'll hold enough data to keep
the scientists and journalists happy until the next mission.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schillin@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
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Posted by no_one on July 26, 2006, 4:42 am
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> Hard drives on 'Deep Space' missions: any idea why they are never used?
> 4 x 100 Gb drives could store enough data such that it could take up to 6
> months to trickle the data back at 24,000 kbs (assuming high power
> downlink
> and turbo codes).
power requirements, or perhaps the need to "float" the head on a cushion of
air to prevent head crashes.
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Posted by delt0r on July 26, 2006, 4:42 am
Please log in for more thread options see the thread on hard drives at 30,000 feet. Also consumer grade hard
drives are just not realiable enough. Its cheap to replace them here on
earth... but up there, on mars? or at Pluto? Solid state looks like the
way to go for deep space applications.
IIRC However i do belive that some LEO satlites may have use them. But
i could be totaly wrong there.
greg
Max Power wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> Hard drives on 'Deep Space' missions: any idea why they are never used?
> 4 x 100 Gb drives could store enough data such that it could take up to 6
> months to trickle the data back at 24,000 kbs (assuming high power downlink
> and turbo codes).
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Posted by Rick Jones on August 12, 2006, 5:55 pm
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> Hard drives on 'Deep Space' missions: any idea why they are never used?
I've no direct knowledge, but would think that the heating/cooling
cycles a deep space probe might encounter would be rather difficult on
a disc drive. It is a rather delicate component - certainly compared
with say magtape and definitely so compared to core :) I would hazzard
a guess that a disc drive requires environmental conditions not too
far from those desired/required by humans.
rick jones
--
Process shall set you free from the need for rational thought.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
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