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More Solar Panel Problems For ISS
rufey writes "This week there have been two pieces of bad news from the International Space Station. First was the discovery of metal shavings inside a problematic rotary joint used to keep one set of solar panels in the optimal position for power generation. At the close of a subsequent spacewalk, after it was relocated to its permanent location, the unfurling of the 4B solar panel resulted in it tearing in two places. A spacewalk is now planned for November 4th to attempt to fix the tear. The upcoming spacewalk is not without risks, including the remote possibility of electrocution since it is impossible to stop the solar panel from generating electricity during the repair attempt. NASA says the ripped wing needs to be fixed or the solar rotary joint problem solved before any more shuttles can fly to the space station and continue construction. With a hard deadline of 2010 for Shuttle retirement, NASA does not have much wiggle room in the schedule in order to finish ISS construction."
Why is 2010 such a "hard" deadline? Was it not created solely by politicians who wanted to divert resources to go to Mars? As such, can it not be moved just as easily as it was created? It is, after all, three years away. If we can't move deadlines that far out, isn't there a chance we're overplanning, and leaving ourselves completely vulnerable to unexpected circumstances, exactly like this solar panel issue?
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
I think you're confusing the rovers with Deep Space 1 and it's Star Tracker.
Apparently due to the inclination of the orbit, only about a quarter of those 93 minutes is in the Earth's shadow. So, the bad news is that they get slightly less than 25 shock free minutes to fix the problem. The good news is they get 15 attempts per day.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Forgive my ignorance, but are they going to do this spacewalk repair bare-handed? Is there at least two exposeds part of a spacesuit that is conductive from the outside to the inside (you need two points to complete a circuit)? If there's something like aluminum ring seals at the wrists, have another crewmember double wrap them with duct tape or electrical tape before sending them outside.
How does electrocution come into play with this? Dielectric breakdown through the suit shouldn't be an issue as I seem to recall on a previous story that we're talking roughly 160VDC potential, nearly the same as US household wall socket voltages. Deadly? Yes. Arc through your spacesuit (twice)? Hardly.
Jerkoffs from Lockheed Martin designed these problem-plagued arrays. Furling/unfurling the arrays has been a problem from day one. Recall the problems the HST had with array warping? They were designed by the same idiots at Lockmart. The problems went away after the last shuttle servicing mission when NASA installed proper rigid Boeing arrays.
Normal duct tape is probably frozen solid at 5 kelvin (or whatever the temperature is at that altitude).
In fact, I seriosly doubt that any non-magnetic glue will work well at that temp.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
That is dangerous thing to say...It's that kind of thinking that stifles innovation...There may be an easy fix that Nasa has not thought of....like maybe covering it up the Solar panel with a blanket. who knows...
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