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ISS Releases Baby Sputnik

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the outer-space-births dept.

illumina+us writes "CNN is running an article about the recent space walk taken by the personnel of the International Space Station. On today's walk the two astronauts 'carried out a 1-foot-long, 11-pound satellite called Nanosputnik, designed for experimental maneuvering by ground controllers.'" The article also has some tidbits on the ISS's gyroscope problems and how the thrusters used to compensate have caused problems for spacewalks in the past.

6 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. GPS by lxt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not mentioned in the CNN article (but mentioned on the NASA website - http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/ - is that a GPS antenna was installed to help guide the European Automated Transfer Vehicle...what kind of accuracy do you get from a GPS system at that kind of altitude?

    1. Re:GPS by twiddlingbits · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You get very good GPS as you can see a large number of the GSP satellites. I had a friend who worked on the GPS for the STS (Shuttle) back in the 1990's. The number of data points from seeing so many sattelites overwhelmed the Integrator software in the GPS unit and it had to be rewritten to use more data points. Apprently getting TOO MUCH data could hurt the older generation GPS, I don't know if that is a problem now. If you can't measure distance accurately how can you measure the closing speed/distance of the two vessels so the supply mission knows when to slow down and use the radar to dock. The only reason the ISS went to GPS is the new Progress ships use it, there had been no docking problems with the old systems except the one time the Russian cosmonaut tried to hand fly to Progess to the dock and came in a bit too hot.

  2. Space shuttle should carry one of these by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A refined version of this would be a good tool for the space shuttle for exterior inspection without requiring a space walk. A small robotic webcam could peruse the wings for damage and relay video to the shuttle or ground crew. And at 11 pounds (less if they create a mini-version), the impact on the mass budget is not too bad.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  3. Re:Sound Idea by e2mtt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is there any more information out there about why and how the stations loses stability during spacewalks? I hadn't heard of this before.

  4. Re:More coverage by no-body · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Not enough coverage - eh?

    Could it be that this is actually a toy for star wars - or whatever they call the US military's ambition to "strike any target on the planet" - you can read more about this BS (plutonium driven lasers, total US dominance of space, upsetting everyone else - China, Russia, N-Korea..., more junk in space) in the US Air Force Transformation Flight Plan, the document is there . Analysis of the text is at: <http://www.space4peace.org> <http://www.nuclearpolicy.org> < http://www.cdi.org>.

    There was a show recently on TUC Radio , the first part of the show can be heard on that page , further down, at: MOST RECENT PROGRAMS: Arming the Heavens.

  5. Re:More coverage by kabocox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm surprised there isn't more coverage.

    Oh, that's because of Star Trek and Star Wars. The general public won't get excited about star travel until we have a FTL drive and can go visit/kill aliens.

    I wish that some one would produce a hit space series where it occurred all in our solar system. We don't need to see aliens to see strange things, and we don't need to get out of the neighborhood to have conflicts.