Space Station Spacewalkers Stymied By Stubborn Bolt

Hugh Pickens writes "Reuters reports that astronauts at the International Space Station ran into problems after removing the station's 100-kg power-switching unit, one of four used in a system that distributes electrical power generated by the station's solar array wings, and were stymied after repeated attempts to attach the new device failed when a bolt jammed, preventing astronauts from hooking it up into the station's power grid. Japanese Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide got the bolt to turn nine times but engineers need 15 turns to secure the power-switching unit. 'We're kind of at a loss of what else we can try,' said astronaut Jack Fischer at NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston after more than an hour of trouble-shooting. 'If you guys have any thoughts or ideas or brilliant schemes on what we can do, let us know.' Hoshide suggested using a tool that provides more force on bolts, but NASA engineers are reluctant to try anything that could make the situation worse and as the spacewalk slipped past seven hours, flight controllers told the astronauts to tether the unit in place, clean up their tools and head back into the station's airlock. NASA officials says the failure to secure the new unit won't disrupt station operations but it will force engineers to carefully distribute electrical power from three operating units to various station systems and says another attempt to install the power distributor could come as early as next week if engineers can figure out what to do with the stubborn bolt. 'We're going to figure it out another day,' says Fischer."

Comments

Come on, this is 2012

[sabri]

I would expect that in 2012, NASA engineers would be capable of producing bolts that fit. Haven't they learned anything from Hubble?

Last weekend I watched NASA's "When we left the Earth" again on Netflix. They are capable of great, great achievements. Yet, they keep shooting their own foot with these tiny little things..

Re:Come on, this is 2012

[sabri]

you're obviously not an engineer. the big things are made up out of tiny things. its always* a tiny things that gets you

Not a mechanical engineer, no. I'm a network engineer. And when I build a network, I make sure to catch the "low hanging fruit" when I test things.

And when it comes to testing bolts, even with my non-mechanical engineering background, I can see that this is low hanging fruit. Will this bolt be able to turn 15 times in this configuration? I'm sure NASA would have been able to test that in their fish tank, and they probably did; with a different bolt...