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Coolant Glitch Forces Partial Space Station Shutdown
astroengine writes "A coolant system glitch on the International Space Station has forced several of the orbital outpost's modules offline as astronauts and ground control manage the problem. The crew are not in danger and ground control teams are currently working to see how best to troubleshoot. The issue, that occurred early on Wednesday, focuses on one of the space station's two external ammonia cooling loops, along which the station's electrical systems use to regulate their temperatures. The loop 'automatically shut down when it reached pre-set temperature limits,' said NASA in a statement. It is thought that a flow control valve in the ammonia pump itself may have malfunctioned."
^ First reaction.
Posting as AC because moderators got no humor. (Or maybe my humor is of little value for the readers.)
Just so we know, what are the Russian and Japanese translations of "This is *NOT* cool, man!!!!1"
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
occurred early on Wednesday
With a 90 minute orbit, when exactly is that on ISS?
They should check for kid-friendly robots lurking about.
the coolant glitch is a result of a failed experiment in one of the science modules. If anyone watched NASA TV you could clearly hear the conversation up to the event. an astronaut can distinctly be overheard saying, "see, i told you it wont run Crysis"
Good people go to bed earlier.
Mir had the same problem on a number of occasions so sounds pretty routine as space station problems go.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Isn't a coolant leak, the reason to evacuate the engineering bay in ST:TNG?
It is almost like they didn't want the engineers to come up with a plot resolving fix, just yet.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
always happens in winter.
As it happens, the US and Russians used pencils at first; but concluded that unpredictable addition of conductive graphite dust to the closed interiors of expensive, accident-prone aerospace hardware was a bad plan.
The Russians used grease pencils as a substitute for a while, since the binder keeps the pigment from floating around, and NASA took Fisher up on their offer to test some of their fancy new pressurized pens, which they eventually adopted (as did the Russians).
Kind of funny to think of overheating in space, isn't it freezing cold out there? No conductor for the heat I suppose. Anyway, maybe this explains why self-replicating space probes haven't taken over everything, it gets too hot out there. Perhaps it is time to rig up some laser cooling on the ISS.
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The research and development of which Fisher had done on their own initiative and their own dime.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Yes, "space stuff", like find and fix the common issues that will eventually crop up in a long-term flight or colonization project. Both Mir and the Shuttle ran into similar issues, so obviously one of the things they need to do before attempting to actually live further out than NEO is create a better cooling system. Not as flashy as building a new booster, but every bit as important.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Yes. The electronics getting hot and shutting off will, for no apparent reason, expend significant amounts of delta-v, deorbiting the station.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Yeah, pretty much.
But is there some reason we can't use "SCOTUS" as an abbreviation? "Supremes" makes me think of either the 60s musical group, or some sort of Japanese mecha robot team a la Supreme Ultra Mega Iron Defenders of Earth.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I am very, very sorry to report that your link appears to be broken. Was hoping for suitably entertaining image.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Ah, it was one of those "ecard" line drawings of a child on a stool with a dunce cap. It was captioned "There are stupid questions."
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Ammonia was one of the first coolants used more commonly in food industry, my brother has been wanting to get an air conditioner for his home that uses ammonia refrigerant but they are mostly commercial.