Hibernation of

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

is an operating mode used when regular operations are suspended for an extended period of time but restarting is expected (unlike termination). On long duration and deep space missions it saves power or other limited resources and extends mission life. The term is substantially similar to the hibernation mode used in computer power saving. * Rosetta, a mission to study

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P), was placed into hibernation for 31 months to conserve its limited resources when it ventured near the orbit of Jupiter while en route to its rendezvous. * The

New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...

mission entered hibernation mode many times on its way to

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...

and then again while en route to the Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth. Its hibernation mode provides some amount of health and status monitoring and occasional wake-ups to check and calibrate instruments. *

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE, List of observatory codes, observatory code C51, Explorer 92 and MIDEX-6) was a NASA infrared astronomy Space observatory, space telescope in the Explorers Program launched in December 2009.. . WISE L ...

mission, originally operated by the agency's astrophysics division for an infrared all-sky survey, was placed into hibernation in 2011 and then reawakened in 2013 to conduct an asteroid survey by the planetary science division.

References

{{reflist Spaceflight