Slashdot Mirror
Space Station Slowly Falling Apart?
Yoda2 writes "MSNBC discusses debris apparently seen by the crew floating away from the International Space Station. From the article, 'Such debris may include fragments of insulation, labels and possibly important components.' Yikes! Many of these quotes seem appropriate."
For those of you who can't get to it, don't worry--you didn't miss much. It's just a compilation of Scotty quotes, and contrary to the submitter's assertion, hardly any of them apply to the current situation.
Unless, of course, the ISS has warp drives.
Or is in the midst of battle with Klingons.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The article clearly states the piece was from the Progress or Soyuz spacecraft docked to the Space Station. It is a part that locks down the solar panels on these craft.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
the article says the piece was Russian, and is most likely part of one of the explosive bolt assemblies that holds the solar panels in the stowed position during launch.
They're going to move the Canadarm into position to take a look at the solar panels on the Progress that recently docked, to see if the part is missing.
Yes, it is station debris. The odds of anything passing within view of the crew is very, very small unless it came from the vehicle they are in. The kind of debris that is being talked about here (possibly launch stow clamps for Progress/Soyuz solar panels) is quite small and would be extremely difficult to see from greater distances. These parts are used to hold the solar panels in the folded position during ascent and are no longer needed once the spacecraft is in orbit and the panels unfold.
The station normally has a Soyuz docked (for crew escape) and a Progress docked (for resupply and refuelling and trash stowage.) That's four solar panels right there. In addition, the Russian station modules (except for the Pirs airlock) have their own solar panels, as they operated autonomously at first, and provided power to the US modules earlier in the assembly sequence before the larger US array was added.
The biggest worry is that one of these pieces could impact the station and damage it.
i am a soviet space shuttle
part of the explosive restraining bolt assembly, that keeps the solar panel stowed during launch. Once it get's into orbit, the bolt's are blown apart, and the solar panel's deploy, so they're not needed once the Progress is in orbit.
The pieces of the bolt are supposed to stay secured to the spacecraft with restraining wire (so that you don't have bolts and stuff tumbling around in the same orbit with you). The article says they're going to move the Canadarm into position to check to see if one of these restraining bolts is missing.
That first paragraph prented as the headline is a bit inaccurate. Basically the article goes on to explain that the part in question is part of an explosive bolt, read, disposable. The space station is not falling apart as out slashdot editors would have us believe.
Images of the object were sent to the Russians, and the boltlike object looked familiar. "Preliminary info from Moscow indicates that the eyebolt may be from the Soyuz solar arrays," the NASA report said. "Four of them are used to safe the [solar array] during launch with a hook mechanism, which is released via [explosive bolt] after insertion [into orbit]. The bolts are secured with a nut and a locking wire, and apparently one of them came free."
The same bolts are used both on the Soyuz crew transport spacecraft and on Progress, the Russian-built cargo-only ship. Both vehicles are currently docked at the station, and NASA sources said Tuesday the Russians now believe the piece actually came off the Progress, which arrived at the space station at the end of last month. In the past, during periods of strong rhythmic thumping on an exercise device, the solar arrays on docked Soyuz and Progress craft can be observed to jiggle.
From IMDB:
Lev Andropov: Excuse me, but I think I know how to fix this.
Watts: Move it! You don't know the components!
Lev Andropov: [annoyed] Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!!!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Kapton tape, which is essentially used as space duct tape, erodes in the presence of atomic oxygen. Atomic oxygen (just a single O, not the usual stable O2) is quite reactive, and will eat away many materials on the leading edge of spacecraft. Atomic oxygen is found more in the lower orbits (i.e. ISS and space shuttle) rather than the higer orbits (geosynchronous). Here are some pictures from the experiment.
(yep, I'm a former rocket scientist)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Except, on the space station, you might actually need a $10,000 screwdriver. After all, you don't have the ground to leverage yourself against, so it's quite possible with a simple screwdriver to rotate there in space while the damn screw doesn't move at all. I remember that NASA found a way around this and that it wasn't cheap (though I don't think it was ten grand).
Take away that gravitational field and that torque which I feel on my hand has nothing fighting against it and I start (very slowly) spinning around on the axis of the screwdriver. Now, if there's a simple handle to hold onto on the satellite, then this is all negated and the torque goes into the screw instead of me. So, no, using a cordless screw driver doesn't fix the problem.
Now, if there's a cordless screwdriver that doesn't deliver torque back onto the wielder, this is the solution.
From what I've read, NASA (or maybe the White House) isn't as keen on the ISS as the Russians would like us to be, and they've expressed concern that we might be looking to back out of it in some way or another. Here's one link I dug up, but not the best: http://www.space.com/news/russia_iss_011106.html The upshot is, the US can afford to abandon the ISS if necessary, but it'll practically bankrupt Russia. Wouldn't be too good for relations.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.