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ISS Goes Solar
SumDog writes "The international space station's newest power source, a set of solar wings, made its debut yesterday. The solar array is part of a new 17.5-ton space station segment that was connected to the orbiting outpost during a spacewalk Monday."
... solar power finally working its way into our everyday lives.
So the one place where greenhouse gas emissions don't matter uses renewable energy? :P
So when do they get enough Solar Panels to go "Off Grid"?
<ducks>
Thank you, I'll be here all week!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Steam?
Here is a link to a story with a little more content and pictures of the new unfurled solar panels.
During the installation, one the navigation computers had a glitch that caused false fire alarms and a loss of gyroscope control, which sent the station spinning out of control. Only thanks to a hack were they able to bypass the Russian functions, and get the gyroscopes working again.
If the station couldn't align the solar panels toward the sun for each days charge, then it would only be a matter of time before the batteries died, and without power nothing on the station will work, nothing.
The required technology:
l ectric_generator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoe
So why do these stories about NASA, the ISS etc.. so rarely link to nasa.gov?
You can go here and get much better, more detailed information about the solar panels, the crew, the rest of the mission, watch live video, etc. Your tax dollars pay for it, you should use it.
It is the most comprehensive site for news in information regarding, imagine this, NASA. The only instance where it's probably not appropriate is when there is some requirement for investigative reporting, otherwise, things like the Boston Globe are likely to give the watered down, science lite AP version of what NASA tells them.
The blanket doesn't pose a risk of catastrophic failure to the vehicle (i.e. no repeat of Columbia), but the Mission Management Team is trying to minimize any damage to the OMS pod that would delay processing for the next mission. If they leave the blanket as is (without stapling it back in place, which is what they plan to do), there is a risk of doing damage to the pod that would delay processing for Atlantis's next mission in December.
In Soviet Russian orbit, you stabilize gyroscopes!
Check when the ISS will be overhead and illuminated by the sun. You can with a pair of good binoculars and SEE the ISS as a shape now instead of a dot of light with the Panels Deployed.
Incredibly cool to be able to see something in space and visually identify it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Juno is slated to go into Jupiter orbit. Solar may be useable out to Jupiter. The panels have to increase in size proportional to the distance from the sun squared... The weight increases exponentially. To reach past Jupiter it becomes impossible (practically) to launch that much mass from the ground. If you want 1kW of power at Saturn or maybe the Kuiper belt you have to use nuclear. If Voyager 1 and 2, launched in 1977, were powered by solar, even using these new panels, we would not still be receiving telemetry from it. Voyager 1 is currently is currently 18 times farther from the sun than Jupiter. Voyager 2 is currently 15 times farther from the sun than Jupiter. Both are studying the boundary of our solar system.
Yeah, I suspect much of the advances in solar technology have come out of NASA's budget. This is the kind of area where NASA and DOE spending feeds back obvious results.
I get frustrated as well when people protest launching nuclear powered spacecraft. The probability of an accident is extremely small. The probability of that accident affecting populated areas is smaller. The effect would be insignificant barring an explosion at the launch tower; and, that would be contained to the area around the base. If people are going to make the argument against, I wish they would do it with real numbers. If you're going to argue that "it's bad" then show me how bad and show me how that level of "bad" compares to the safety standards...
I do like this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RTG_radiation_