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Russia's Unmanned Capsule Misses Space Station

Posted by timothy on from the head-'em-off-at-the-next-pass dept.

mikesd81 writes "Russia's unmanned cargo ship Progress 38 missed docking with the ISS and sailed right on by it instead of docking on autopilot. A telemetry lock between the Russian-made Progress module and the space station was lost and the module flew past at a safe distance. NASA said the crew was never in danger and that the supplies are not critical and will not affect station operations. There will be no other attempts at docking today, and the orbit of the module raises questions of any other attempts again. Packed aboard the spacecraft are 1,918 pounds of propellant for the station, 110 pounds of oxygen, 220 pounds of water and 2,667 pounds of dry cargo — which includes spare parts, science equipment and other supplies."

39 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Right... by Ironchew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the supplies are not critical

    In other words, it had everything worth living for in it. You don't *need* tasty food or new videos to survive.

    1. Re:Right... by blackest_k · · Score: 3, Informative

      you really don't need video's sent into space on any physical medium either.

      Russia Today said after this first ever failure to dock that a second attempt will be made on Sunday.

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
    2. Re:Right... by Firehed · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, not technically. But international data rates to the space station are a bitch. /only half-joking

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
    3. Re:Right... by msauve · · Score: 3, Funny

      "AT&T better blast Owen Wilson into orbit to try to save face."

      ...or simply as a public service.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  2. It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by mollog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is there no vehicle for the people on the space station to use so that they can nip out and catch the errant missile? Jeepers, that would have been the first thing that I would deliver. Surely, they had anticipated this happening and considered what to do about it.

    It's not clear to me why we're doing this whole space station thing in such a half-assed manner. Why not think in terms of a permanent space station, and all that entails?

    --
    Best regards.
    1. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by Cylix · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually,

      Everything is going completely as planned.

      There were no supplies on the vessel and the pod was purposely sent off course. This was a very thoroughly planned tactical decision in order to acquire the funds for the supplies via the insurance payoff.

      We would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog!

      --
      "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
    2. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by jdigriz · · Score: 5, Informative

      The space tug was one of the first things that was cancelled in the space station program http://www.astronautix.com/craft/otv.htm We're doing this whole space station thing in such a half-assed manner because approximately half of the people in Congress would dearly like to see the entire thing cancelled (and this is not a vote along party lines). They try at every chance to kill the thing outright but it's always so far been saved at the last moment (with subtantial cuts) in a political compromise. And the thing about a compromise is that it's a solution that no one is happy with, ie, half-assed. That's the main reason. The other reason is that the station is in LEO, and thus is subject to significant atmospheric drag via the attenuated atmostphere. It's not a permanent orbit. Within a few years at most, without periodic reboosts (which cost fuel), the station would reenter the atmosphere and burn up. The primary reason that the station is in such a low orbit relates to the quality of the launchers we had to launch it. Without a Saturn V class, we had no real capability to project more mass than a telecom satellite to a significantly higher orbit. The Clarke orbit is filled with junk from dead comsats, so it's unsuitable for permanent habitation even if we could reach it with so much mass. And the area between LEO and GEO is mostly unreachable by the supply and personnel rockets we had with significant payload. So basically, the reason this station program is so half-assed can be laid at the feet of the people who killed the Saturn V. Skylab was launched in 1 launch. The ISS took dozens to be mostly complete.

    3. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by socz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So what happens when the space shuttles are all retired and we only have apollo-era capsules that we can send up with a breath-taking-fall-back-to-earth? Not dissing you, but the U.S. really bit the bag on this one. The shuttles are one of the best assets the U.S. has. Literally, no one else on earth has *anything* close to it. What a shame.

      --
      My abilities are only limited by my imagination
    4. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by Kilrah_il · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Although the space program had (has) it's share of fuck-ups, I would be hesitant to jump up and yell aloud: "Everyone is stupid, I just had a great idea no one else thought of before". I mean, what you say sounds reasonable, but if hundreds of scientist didn't provide for some sort of space tug, they probably had some reason, other than plain stupidity. Some possible reasons I can think of from the top of my head (at 3:00AM; disclaimer - IANAS*):
      1) The frequency of such missed dockings is too low to justify the cost.
      2) It is cheaper to send another probe than to have a space tug ready at all times - Remember that mass is money in space, and also you have maintenance to consider.
      3) The technology for the space tug is not safe enough - it could be unpleasant if one of the astronauts gets marooned on the space tug.
      Please don't try to refute the above points. I am not saying this are the reasons, those were just examples.

      You may be right and nobody thought about some sort of contingency plan for such a scenario, but I would check it before marching around and talking about "half-assed manner".

      * IANAS - I am not a scientist.

      --
      Whenever in an argument, remember this.
    5. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by NNKK · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because no one else on Earth _wants_ anything close to it. They cost way too much for the marginal benefits they provide.

    6. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 4, Interesting

      While I agree, the benefits are "marginal" until you need them.

      One advantage of the Shuttle is it is designed to be a jack-of-all-trades. It has a big cargo bay that you can fill up with stuff, including a space lab. The arm can be used to grab nearby things and put them in the cargo bay for maintenance. It allows seven astronauts to work in a shirt-sleeve environment for two weeks. It's a pretty impressive vehicle.

      The "problem" is ISS can do most of the science stuff that the Shuttle did better than the Shuttle could (because it stays up longer). So as a science vehicle, it's not really that useful anymore. The Satellites you might want to maintain are outside the Shuttle's reach. While satellites like the Hubble Space Telescope are within the Shuttle's range, HST was designed to be maintained by the Shuttle and, in fact, has to do some crazy stuff to target stars while whizzing around the Earth within the Shuttle's range. So at this point, the Shuttle's only mission is to carry astronauts from Earth to ISS. This is akin to using a big honkin' four-wheel-drive SUV to pick up groceries at the corner store--sure it will work but it's kind of a wasteful way to do it.

      Using the Shuttle to capture the Progress Drone could probably be done. But it's kind of silly to spend $60,000,000 to launch a Shuttle to rescue a Progress drone that probably cost $10,000,000 to launch. Just launch another Progress and be done with it.

      I won't bag on the Space Shuttle--it's a great machine. But we really don't need it anymore. Let NASA get on to the next big thing (whatever that may be) and let private industry take over supplying ISS with people and supplies.

    7. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

      Trey Parker and Matt Stone were both born in the USA.

      Skylab was a lab in space before the space shuttle. Salyut 1 was before that, but it had two missions that both failed. Soyuz 10 that could not board due to fire and Soyuz 11 that crew died on rentry do to a lab. Shuttles are pointless ISS could have been lifted by cheaper and safer rockets.

      You seem to be wrong on all accounts.

    8. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Informative

      It was not an exact copy at all. It looked similar, it performed a similar task and was designed as a response to our shuttle. It was not an exact copy, it was not parts compatible or anything like that. The Tu-4 was about as an exact Russian copy of the B-29 as was possible for them. Even that was not parts compatible in the engines an guns/mounts.

    9. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by dangitman · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ah, but then you'd need a space-tug-tug to pull your space-tug back when it fails...

      Yo Dawg, I heard you liked space tugs...

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
    10. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by khallow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't know about it proving "marginal benefits."

      As I see it, "marginal benefits" means what does it provide that something like a Saturn 1B couldn't. As I see it, there's a vast amount of unused capability in the Shuttle. It can repair satellites, but nobody wants to repair a satellite for the cost of a Shuttle mission. It can return vast amounts of mass to Earth (called "downmass"), but as far as I can tell, aside from the odd experiment, the only thing that ISS managers want returned is trash and that can be returned on vehicles (like the Progress, ATV and HTV) which burn up in the atmosphere. It has a bunch of flexibility in landing that really isn't that useful (landing people or downmass at an airport isn't much more useful than dropping them in the middle of the ocean, compared to the cost of a Shuttle launch).

      As far as I know, there would be no ISS if it wasn't for the SS.

      In other words, bad planning on the part of the ISS builders. None of the components were particularly massive. The Proton (or a Saturn 1B, Ariane 5, Titan IV, Delta IV Heavy, etc) could have launched all of the ISS components, if it weren't for the volume and dimensions of the pieces. By making the pieces large enough that only the Shuttle could lift them, then NASA insured that the ISS was beholden on the Shuttle in order to exist. This was, no doubt, part of an attempt to wring more funding for the Shuttle and protect NASA's supply chain from budget cuts. The drawback was that any delay to Shuttle flights, such as from the Columbia accident, insured that the ISS was pushed behind schedule. While if there had been other vehicles capable of servicing the ISS's construction needs, then NASA could have kept going with construction despite the loss of Columbia or even of the entire Shuttle program.

      To summarize, the Shuttle became a single point of failure for the ISS and contributed considerably to the overall cost of the ISS's construction and past operation which is thought (once one includes the operation of the Shuttle past 2003) to run well over 100 billion dollars in current dollar cost. My view remains that with a smarter choice of sizing of ISS components and not using the Shuttle, NASA could have dropped the cost of the ISS to 20-30 billion dollars. in my view, we could have built 3-5 ISS for the cost of the ISS we actually built.

    11. Re:It's time to deliver a space tug to the station by NNKK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I keep hearing nonsense like this, and it's really stupid. You're stuck in a Cold War mentality (which was absurd even during the Cold War).

      Who the hell cares if there's no Shuttle replacement ready? Manned space exploration is about science, and there is no scientific need so urgent as to justify the continuation of the 30-year-old disaster that is the Space Shuttle.

      SpaceX will be up to speed in a few years. Boeing and/or Lockheed Martin can man-rate a rocket and capsule in a similar amount of time if needed.

      There is absolutely no reason to continue the massively overpriced and unnecessarily dangerous shuttle program just to prevent a 2-5 year gap in manned exploration.

      With our current three-Shuttle fleet, you could only reasonably expect to run 4-6 missions a year at most anyway, and I promise you that the termination of the program would not come when the new vehicle is ready, but when you are suddenly left with *two* Shuttles and seven fewer astronauts.

  3. Re:Whoops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    In soviet russia, space station misses you!

  4. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well to be fair, unlike other measures in the SI system, kilograms isn't all that much better than pounds. It still isn't defined in terms of any universal constant (speed of light, properties of atoms, etc), but rather defined by the International Prototype Kilogram in France.

    The most common definition of the pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms. The pound is abitrary but so is the kilogram.

    --
    "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
  5. Re:pendantry by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Pounds are a measure of mass, not weight

    This is because the most common definition of a pound is in terms of kilograms.

    --
    "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
  6. Re:Oxygen fuel and water aren't critical? by NNKK · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's called being prepared. The ISS is kept well-stocked and the loss of a single resupply run is expensive but not operationally critical.

  7. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by annex1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wouldn't call the Kilogram "arbitrary". You are correct that it isn't defined by any "universal constant" but it is defined as being very near exactly the weight of 1 litre of water.

  8. Re:Even Hollywood... by BZWingZero · · Score: 3, Informative

    They have manual control available for once the Progress gets to the parking orbit. The issue is Progress 38 didn't go to the parking orbit, it just went straight on past.

  9. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by GNUALMAFUERTE · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's not about the story behind the unit. If the definition is arbitrary or not doesn't matter at all. What does matter is the way it works. I can tell you exactly how many grams are in a kilogram, and how many grams in a Ton. And that makes perfect sense. It's 10-base. it's metric. It's logical.

    Now, try that with the ridiculous conversion ratios between ounces, pounds, stones and all that crazy mumbo-jumbo that is the imperial system.

    --
    WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
  10. in Other words: And nothing of Value was lost. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is NASA's way of pulling a USS Liberty incident on Russia's Aeronautical Space Ship (hereinafter A.S.S.)

    I bet those asstronaughts were up there saying:

    We got their automated docking source-code, so link our ISS vectoral impulse control system upto this Perl script written on my GNU/Linux OpenPandora computer because I wrote it to spoof and avoid their docking effort.

    Haha look at that shit go by us, yous Moiphies! Quick, send them an eMail that their software didn't anticipate the solar wind effecting their solar drift, that they need to hire better programmers!

    Let's post this story on Slashdot directed at one of their servers, so we can get that "SEE RUSSIA STRONG" troll to STFU!

    1. Re:in Other words: And nothing of Value was lost. by stephanruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or may be, it was just Putin's funny idea to make Obama sweat a little. Remember, considering our current restructuring/retooling efforts with NASA, the US is temporarily -- but almost-entirely dependent on Russia for resupplying the international space station. And if you're of the mind of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, what he said just a few days ago (on the 29th of June 2010), that the timing of the spying allegations seemed entirely too coincidental to his liking, might seem to apply in this particular case as well. May be, just may be, the timing of this first-ever Russian docking trajectory error, seems entirely too coincidental as well?

  11. Vger by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    In a few thousand years, a craft from some distant advanced civilization will arrive in our solar system loaded with their interpretation of Russian porn.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  12. Progress? by The+Grim+Reefer2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is what passes for "Progress" in space these days?

  13. Re:Oxygen fuel and water aren't critical? by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not as much as the milk, holly is going to have to put those poor bastards on the dog's milk now.

  14. Re:Oxygen fuel and water aren't critical? by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Funny

    Lasts longer than any other milk, dog's milk.

  15. Re:Oxygen fuel and water aren't critical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why?

    No bugger'll drink it.

  16. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by sznupi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Kilogram is a unit of mass...

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  17. Re:Oxygen fuel and water aren't critical? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oxygen fuel and water aren't critical?

    The fuck?

    Meaning they still have plenty.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  18. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by sznupi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not nearly so as you think it to be. 1000 kg is a mass of 1000 liters of water; that's a cube 1 meter on its side. Meter is derived from the size of the Earth (ancient Greeks could do it).

    Yes, those are no longer definitions; but they give something very close from, as far as humanity is currently concerned, readily accesible (by unsophisticated means) constants around us.

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  19. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Human feet vary far more than the mass of water in a given location.

  20. Re:I choose option 4 by SilverJets · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well the cash always seems to be there for the US to go to war.

  21. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by Draek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    it's no more mumbo jumbo then the metric system

    It is. It freaking switches whole *numeric bases* every couple units, for God's sake! it makes an even bigger mess than computational units, and without the mathematical reasons to do so.

    The only 'Imperial' unit I know worth preserving is the Fahrenheit/Rankine, I still prefer Celsius/Kelvin but it's not bad either. But yards, pounds and all that crap need to die a quick and very painful death, they deserve nothing else.

    --
    No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
  22. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What the fuck are you talking about? Pounds is debatable but kilograms always means mass. Things have mass in space.

    If you are smart enough to think that you know the difference between mass and weight, then you sure as shit should be smart enough to know that kilograms is a measure of mass.

    --
    "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
  23. Re:Can't believe they still use pounds by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Informative

    I can see lots of things around me that would make very poor standards for measurement. :)

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  24. Re:220 lbs of water? by tommis · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS

    The ISS has two water recovery systems. Zvezda contains a water recovery system that processes waste water from showers, sinks, and other crew systems and water vapor from the atmosphere that could be used for drinking in an emergency but is normally fed to the Elektron system to produce oxygen. The American segment has a Water Recovery System installed during STS-126 in Destiny that can process water vapour collected from the atmosphere, waste water from showers, sinks, and other crew systems, and also urine into water that is intended for drinking.