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Re: magnets?
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Originally Posted by Leo M
That problem probably doesn't crop up with INTERPLANETARY shipments, does it?
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You'd be surprised at how much grief magnets can cause on spacecraft.
For some scientific spacecraft, you have to use twisted pair wires, non-magnetic fasteners (titanium screws) and non-magnetic connectors (no steel allowed) in the flight hardware. Before any equipment is mounted on the spacecraft, it is "scanned" for magnetic fields. If the field exceeds 10 nanoTesla at 1 meter measurement distance, it does not pass the magnetic "cleanliness" spec - sometimes that's a BIG problem. (BTW, the Earth's magnetic field at the surface is about 0.5 Gauss or 50,000 nanoTesla).
Curiously, the Huygen's probe didn't quite meet the magnetic cleanliness spec for Cassini (but it was close). When the probe separated from Cassini on Christmas Day, the science magnetometers (magnetic field detectors) on Cassini measured the residual field from the probe. The MAG investigators were able to confirm the proper spin and separation rate for the probe.
See the story at:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-...0HQ3K3E_0.html
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