Slashdot Mirror
Trouble on the International Space Station
lewiz writes "The BBC News website has an article that explains the International Space Station has run into troubles due to one of four gyroscopes breaking down. They say while this is a serious problem it will not have any massive effect but it will have to be replaced quickly as the gyroscopes stabilise and control the flight."
NASA tries to spin the lack of spin. There's just something wrong about this...
The In Space, No One Knows You Read Vogue story, just two posts ago, had the supermodel report which seemed to already cover this.:
They also reported a loud, growling noise inside the space station. It turned out to be a broken gyroscope that was commanded to spin down and then shut down. One of the bearings apparently seized up.
NASA said the other gyroscopes were working fine and that the failure would not affect the station's navigation and control. But the bad unit will need to be replaced, and the soonest that can happen is early next year.
I.O.U One Sig.
We know that it took them 5 tries to build the Babylon space station, so really, still being on the first one here is pretty good. As long as the first few aren't sabotaged, and the fourth one isn't taken back in time, we're all good.
Of course, maybe it would help if we had some of that fancy Vorlon technology, but I suppose Canadians are kinda mysterious and frozen like them, so that's close enough.
At this point they would be a class one security hazard.
If you're going to allow supermodels into a space station full of extremely horny astronouts, you'd better have five fully functioning gyroscopes.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
No. Gyros have to be carried on board the Shuttle. They are not intended to be launched on board an unmanned rocket and must be manually lifted from the shuttle's payload bay using the Canadarm (RMS) and installed on the station by spacewalking astronauts with the help of a shuttle crew.
0 8cmg/ :
From http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/sts111/0206
NASA has a spare CMG available, but it cannot be launched until early next year. That's because a CMG package - the gyro and necessary sub-assemblies - weighs some 1,100 pounds at launch and must be mounted on a special carrier beam in the shuttle's cargo bay. The next two shuttle flights, in August and October, will carry up huge sections of the station's solar array truss and don't have room for a CMG. As a result, the station may have to get by with three CMGs until early next year.
However, what the Slashdot story failed to note is that redundancy: only two control moment gyros are required for full control. One failed, leaving the station with three. No need to panic yet -- and even if the last one fails, the Russian modules attached to the station (which seem to be forgotten now, since all the activity is on the US side) are capable of using conventional rocket thrusters to control the station.
i am a soviet space shuttle
When I was an intern in a company building satellites and rockets, local gurus told me that gyroscopes, with all their complex pieces moving fast, are the most failure-prone part of most satellites, and that's the reason why they usually have 4 gyros while only 3 are needed for normal operation, and 2 are enough for "degraded mode".
Now one gyroscope of the ISS is out: granted, it's a bit early, but it is also a bit early to worry about the ISS's future. Remember Hubble: at the beginning, it sounded like the mission would be a complete failure... In the end, Hubble could be repaired, and it is now considered a complete success. Don't be too hasty when bashing space missions: this IS rocket science after all.