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Russian Cargo Mission To ISS Spinning Out of Control
quippe writes: Many sources report that a Russian spacecraft, launched successfully (video) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier Tuesday, is in big trouble now after having a glitch shortly after liftoff. There is a video on YouTube (credit: NASA) of the space ship spinning out of control. Recovery attempts haven't gone well so far, but they will continue. If they can't regain control, the ship will likely burn up when it falls back into the atmosphere. Current speculation points to greater-than-expected lift by the third-stage, because the apogee is 20km higher than planned. The ship does not seem to pose a threat to the ISS at the moment.
Did someone on the ISS order scrambled eggs on the supply boat?
Silence is a state of mime.
In Soviet Russia something something you
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Dear Dice, please let us know when you have something that wasn't reported in the major news outlets a day ago.
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There'll be a Dragon along with supplies in six weeks or so.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
NASA ISS Team: Due to budget cuts we're having the janitor request more supplies from Russia this year for the ISS. And remember, use both sides of the toilet paper.
FKA Scientist We've got the request from NASA....
FKA Director Whats it say?
FKA Scientist: "Kindly Spin the cargo baskets, it is to launch when inside to space, of the 20 long lengths for happy triple mode, and iside the burn of the roundness. Glory."
FKA Director: Can we....can we even do that?
FKA Scientist:Sir maybe their translator isnt very knowledgeable?
FKA Director: Nyet Sergei, this is America we're talking about. Two government shutdowns, riots every week and two failed wars...Its entirely possible this is exactly what they want...Just look at Florida.
Good people go to bed earlier.
and fix the ship with a big wrench?
No news about where it should fall off? Even if it's burned to ash, some debris will remains... where it should fall off?
The ship does not seem to pose a threat to the ISS at the moment.
The resupply ship is not even remotely in the same orbit as the ISS. Progress 59 will never pose a threat to the ISS unless they regain control, adjust the orbit 200km higher, rendezvous with the ISS and attempt a docking.
They need to get some politicians involved. They're good at spin control.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
In Soviet Russia Cargo Boxes Open You!
You're right - I do feel better.
Perhaps they forgot to put enough monopropelant tanks on :)
Our dear partners in space. They are a bad actor on earth and increasingly unreliable in space. So why are we working with them?
Thankfully, it would appear that the spacecraft is unmanned. Why TFS left out this piece of detail...
They said the problem was 2 of the solar panels didn't deploy.
Why do people keep calling this a space ship? It's a single use supply craft with no life support, heat shields, parachute or other means of recovery.
Dragon won't make it in time to deliver patriotic artifacts for Russian crew to celebrate victory of Russia in the second world war.
As you know, Russian Church blesses spacecrafts. Probably, this time they overdone, so ship flew 20km higher and one side received more blessing than the another, so it lost balance and started spinning.
Well, it's going make contact with the ground, literally.
"Current speculation points to greater-than-expected lift by the third-stage, because the apogee is 20km higher than planned. The ship does not seem to pose a threat to the ISS at the moment."
Sounds like a safe-ish orbit if all goes haywire after the third stage is done. Good flight plan.
Too bad it didn't get on course, but obviously a major malfunction.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
You just have to imagine that Elon Musk heard this news and did a happy dance. This just sells into his narrative that Russia's launch systems are old, expensive and unreliable.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
(1) spinning is caused by force
(2) more force, unless purely rotational = higher speed
(3) higher speed = higher orbit
(4) 20km higher orbit is not much -- consistent with a small engine (like a thruster) causing it
So, (5) keep guessing what the problem is
My guess: a thruster stuck open...
I come here for the love
That's an easy fix. Just turn on non-physics time warp for a moment and turn it back off. Bam, no more rotation. Easy as pie.
Old? Yes, but in rocket science old = proven. Conservative people like that they are paying for proven tech that works.
Expensive? No, Soyuz and Progress are damn cheap.
Unreliable? Well, two failures out of ~150 missions is pretty good reliability for an unmanned cargo vessel.
Proton failures with booster going full Kerbal were much bigger deal. This is obviously a setback, but nobody can claim that Progress is unreliable based on this alone. Besides, main theory appears to be third stage shutdown problem, resulting in the stage colliding with Progress and damaging it critically.
This failure does prove that you need redundant supply ships for ISS (and for any long term manned space mission) - a booster or a cargo ship might fail, so you need dissimilar redundancy and suitable buffers of supplies. ISS has these things. Dragon and HTV are still working fine. Granted, if Progress flights get delayed due to accident investigation, Dragon is going to be in bit of a do-or-die mode in June as a failure for that cargo flight would be a fairly big deal. Not "evacuate ISS"-big deal (yet), but "reshuffle all cargo manifests, start conserving supplies"-grade big deal.
I hope SpaceX is keeping their guard up though, a myriad of US defense contractors, foreign launch companies and government officials probably have prepared statements, budget bills and press campaigns ready and waiting for when SpaceX finally has a failure. If SpaceX can even maintain their current prices/reliability let alone do half of what they are working towards they're on track to shake the space launch industry to its core and a lot of people are very unhappy about it.
Russian _____________ Spinning Out Of Control. OK, easy potshot, but hey - Ukraine, Crimea, poisoned pols, puppet leaders... this well doesn't seem to be running dry anytime soon. For perspective on flying to the ISS a colleague needed to fly some software on a thumb drive to the ISS. Beyond the cargo charge, the Shuttle shakedown of the item involved extensive testing of the sw, the physical device, etc. with the associated cost with a comma in it. The Russian criteria for flying the stuff was a bit more streamlined. It amounted to little more than "did the check clear?" Yes, their flight hardware is very reliable, though actually flying in it beats you up and makes the shuttle seem like a luxury liner.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
This has been happening my rockets also. Everything needs to be thoroughly re-tested because of changes to the aerodynamic model in KSP 1.0. I admire the Russians, though, for doing things the Kerbal way; launch first, ask questions later.
Many times I let the comments brew for a few hours and then read the ones that have risen to the top of the moderation system. That can give me a lot more insight into the background of a story than anywhere else.
In other words, instead of making up your own mind, you base your opinion on what everyone else thinks, so you're sure to fit in.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel ~Waters
Surely you've noticed how biased the mod system; I can prove it to you.
It depends on insurers reaction. Once SpaceX has an incident of its own the insurers may have reason to believe the whole enterprise risk is higher and raise rates.
Pride goes before a fall.
someone forgot to turn on SAS....
https://i.imgur.com/9t5KGPK.pn...
You're kidding, right? Soyuz has had dozens of major failures. Even killed a guy in 2002 when the rocket failed seconds into launch and fell back on the pad. Also, the manned Dragon costs per seat are $25M. For Soyuz it's $75M. Hardly cheaper. Same for cargo comparisons, Soyuz is said to be as little as $6000-7000/kg++, Falcon 9 is $4500/kg, and Falcon Heavy is supposed to come in around $1700/kg.
++ - Doubtful in general; looking up actual delivered contracts makes one question whether that's actually that cheap. For example, Soyuz STB launches for the Galileo satellites were contracted at $114m per launch. That rocket has a max capacity of 7800kg to LEO. That comes out as a whopping $14,600/kg.
"...but Republicans plan to come back with a new plan, where they just slash the tires on all the ambulances."
Should they start rolling out the trampoline?
Price and cost are two different things
First stage, then ignite
I'm by no means an expert on space launch industry insurance but I would imagine that SpaceX's insurance rates started out rather high, as they didn't have a vehicle with a launch history or at least a history of working in the launch industry. With each successful launch I would guess that their rates go down, a failure may cause them to level out or increase slightly but its probably nothing compared to where they likely started out.