ISS Releases Baby Sputnik

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.

Comments

Sound Idea

[filmmaker]

Each time, Russian thrusters have to take over, potentially exposing the crew to toxic fuel. This time, flight controllers were careful not to fire the thrusters until the spacewalkers were at a safe distance.

That's probably a sound idea. Definitely pin that up next to "Use either Metric or Imperial units consistently throughout."

Re:Sound Idea

[lxs]

If only the crew could wear some kind of air tight suits during the spacewalk, then it wouldn't be a problem.

Re:Sound Idea

[igny]

'carried out a 1- foot-long, 1-pound satellite called Nano-sputnik,

"Use either Metric or Imperial units consistently throughout."

I think, lack of consistency is evident.

Re:Sound Idea

[e2mtt]

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

Re:Sound Idea

[crawling_chaos]

To be perfectly pedantic, there are no metric units used anywhere in that phrase. Unless there's a new SI unit for satellite size called the Sputnik that I am unaware of, of course.

Re:Sound Idea

[mboverload]

The problem is they "derobe" in the ISS, which brings those toxic materials inside.

Re:Sound Idea

[orac2]

Your prize for asking that rare gem, a perceptive question on /., deserves to be rewarded by a (hopefully) informative answer:

Jim Oberg has a good analysis of the problem in an article on an earlier thruster incideny. In summary, a "mystery force" is being applied to the station during spacewalks which torques it and overloads the gyroscopes normally used to maintain attitude control. The Russians think it may be a small leak from the airlock, NASA is leaning more towards venting from the spacesuits.

Re:Sound Idea

[Cpt_Kirks]

See, that's why I make my kids take their muddy shoes off OUTSIDE...

Awe. Its so cute.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you started a college savings program for it yet

Nanosputnik

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm offended. Clearly, the Visputnik is superior!

Re:Nanosputnik

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Actually the Emacsputnik is a lot better, but they couldn't even lift it off the ground...

Toxic ??

[Sperryfreak01]

Exposing the crew to toxic fuel I thought they were in space suits, they only thing toxic they should be exposed to is if one of them had the three bean salad for dinner

Re:Toxic ??

[TheKidWho]

Umm, the fuel gets on the suits and once they get back into the station the stuff on the suits you know gets into the air?!?! Russian Rocket fuel is nasty stuff that you don't want to be breathing in or touching.

Holy bejeezuz you might actually have to think for a second like the guys at NASA/Russian Space Agency do!

Re:Toxic ??

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Russian Rocket fuel is nasty stuff that you don't want to be breathing in or touching.

I feel the same way with their ubiquitous cabbage soup...

Re:Toxic ??

[JaredOfEuropa]

I feel the same way with their ubiquitous cabbage soup...

You obviously haven't had any proper cabbage soup (borscht); it can be very tasty. Also keep in mind the old Russian saying: "the more you beat the wife, the better the soup will taste".

Nano ?

[karvind]

-Flamebit-

1-foot-long, 11-pound satellite called Nanosputnik

1 foot = 0.304 x 10^9 nanometer

11 pound = 4 989.5 x 10^9 nanogram

Quite a big nano I would say..

-Flamebit-

...like in the movies

[lxt]

"Everything is like in the movies, and it's hard to believe.", Sharipov said... ...you mean, everything was faked then? :)

1 ft, 11 pound?

[Eunuch]

That sounds like something to be proud of!

See?

[PornMaster]

No wonder we don't switch to metric!

Even the people who use it don't know how to use it.

Actually, it pisses me off that people who use metric will say 5000 kilometers instead of 5 megameters... effectively changing the base unit to suit their scale.

Re:See?

[Guppy06]

"effectively changing the base unit to suit their scale."

No, they're implying the accuracy of their measurment. 5000 km is measured to the nearest km, while 5 Mm is measured to the nearest Mm, less accurate by three orders of magnitude.

Just because it's easy to move around that decimal point in metric doesn't mean you should.

Re:See?

[Guppy06]

No, I'm using pretty standard and accepted practices when it comes to metrology. No decimal point, no trailing zeroes, it's to the nearest Mm unless specifically stated otherwise. As such, 5.3 Mm is to the nearest 100 km, and 5.000 Mm is to the nearest km.

Re:See?

[pedroloco]

Actually, it pisses me off that people who use metric will say 5000 kilometers instead of 5 megameters... effectively changing the base unit to suit their scale.

Actually, it pisses me off that people who use Imperial units will say 3000 miles instead of 190080000 inches... effectively changing the base unit to suit their scale.

Units

[Anonymous Coward]

1 Foot = 1 Nanodecamile

And soon...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Microlaika, a dwarf chihuahua, will soon be the launched onboard Nanosputnik 2 by the Sovi^H^H^H^H ISS.

Sheesh, what extiting times we live in. It almost makes that guy who claims we'll walk the on moon some day sound serious...

GPS

[lxt]

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?

Re:GPS

[FatAlb3rt]

the altitude is not the issue, the speed is. gps is only used until they're within a couple kilometers of docking, then onboard sensors determine relative distances.

Re:GPS

[twiddlingbits]

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.

More coverage

[Cyclotron_Boy]

Here's a little more information about TEKh-42 (the technical name). Quote:

[Purpose of Nanosputnik is to support development of satellite control techniques, monitoring of satellite operations, and research on new attitude system sensors and other components.]

Also, space.com has an article mentioning it.

I'm surprised there isn't more coverage. It is a little reminiscent of the latter days of the Apollo program when there was little/no coverage on the press, or to a greater extent the latter days of SpaceLab.

-F

Re:More coverage

[no-body]

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.

Re:More coverage

[kabocox]

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.

Space shuttle should carry one of these

[G4from128k]

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.

Re:This

[Nine Tenths of The W]

In federated Commonwealth of Independent States Baby Sputnik launches YOU!

Re:Read about this before

[Scarblac]

Come on mods, that's just a troll... Russians don't have a near monopoly on commercial launches, and all those links lead to, uhm, exciting sports pictures of a younger-than-18-year-old...

(squirrel)

Conversation

[Chemisor]

Astronaut 1: Oops. I think I just dropped our navigation module.
Houston: No problem. We'll just call it "nanosputnik" and everyone will think you did it because we told you to.

Re:Read about this before

[merlin_jim]

Mods, click the links.

Each link is a different picture of a squirrel on water skis.

This isn't informative. This is a troll.

Navigation issue

[ADRenalyn]

I hope they aren't using Dual Shock controllers to remote pilot that thing.

Is the nano-sputnik same as released by MIR?

[homerito]

Is this nano-sputnik the same as the ones released by MIR in 97?
They are about the same mass and size.

http://www.skyrocket.de/space/index_frame.htm?http ://www.skyrocket.de/space/doc_sdat/sputnik-40.htm

how small is it?

[zixor]

Nanosputnik?? Does that mean its somewhere between microsputnik and picosputnik?