NASA Relies On Thrusters To Steer Space Station After Malfunction

AP via CNN ^ | December 6, 2003 | AP

[John W]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- NASA is relying on Russian-made thrusters to steer the international space station following a new malfunction with the U.S. motion-control system, officials said Friday.

Flight controllers detected spikes in current and vibration in one of the station's three operating gyroscopes on November 8. Last week, when the gyroscopes were used again to shift the position of the orbiting outpost, all three worked.

[Lokibob]

 

 

From the ISS tracking site heavens above:

 

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ISS Height Profile

This plot shows the orbital height of the ISS over the last year. Clearly visible are the re-boosts which suddenly increase the height, and the gradual decay in between. The height is averaged over one orbit, and the gradual decrease is caused by atmospheric drag. As can be seen from the plot, the rate of descent is not constant and this variation is caused by changes in the density of the tenuous outer atmosphere due mainly to solar activity.

[Monty22]

The ISS is turning into a boondogle. Why the heck are there only 2 on board when it was supposed to be 7? I know the shuttle is part of it, and they haven't been able to put enough modules on, and the escape system is poor too now.

But c'mon. Depending on the shuttle was mistake #1. This thing was supposed to help us get to the moon and Mars. They better make some good use of it soon.

[Lokibob]

If you are really interested in what they are doing, you can read their weekly reports here.  They are doing some real science up there, but a lot of it is station keeping, due to the reduced crew.

 

The shuttle tragedy set them back a lot.

 

 

[festus]

Never thought I'd live to say this but .....

Thank heavens for Russian technology.

They brought our crew home and their stuff is keeping the thing aloft.

Hey the ISS may not actually fly for very long but at least its a multi-cultural non-unilateral international bias-free rama-ding-ding insert any other PC nonsense here project. [/sarcasm off]

Apollo et. al. was American but dadgumit it flew.

[RandallFlagg]

PLEASE don't tell me that the thing's ALREADY startin' to break down before we've even finished building it!

OK, guys. At this point I'd say skroo it all!
We need to start building THESE!!!

Imagine the look on the Kim Jung Ill's face!

[leadpenny]

Airplane and Airplane II


Don't Panic!





Ok, Panic!

Seriously, they had something go "clunk" on the ISS about a week ago, and now this. Should at least be Breaking News.

[ARCADIA]

With the money NASA has squandered, the defense department would have already built two of those.

[FreedomCalls]

The loss of altitude has nothing to do with a malfunction in the attitude control system. The attitude control system uses gyroscopes to maintain the station's orientation to earth. The station needs a periodic reboost from either the shuttle or a Soyuz to reboost it up into a higher altitude.

[Lokibob]

I agree and understand that, however if they use the thrusters to maintain position, there is less fuel available to maintain altitude. I wonder if that is the reason it is so low as shown in the chart. I seem to remember the altitude in 2001 in the 420-440 range.

[FreedomCalls]

if they use the thrusters to maintain position, there is less fuel available to maintain altitude.

That is true and it could be a problem down the road.

[tubebender]

Do you want to ping the team...

[XBob]

3 - "The ISS is turning into a boondogle."

The ISS was a boondoggle long before it was built, it was a boondoggle from its incompetent conception, and repeated incompetent design changes, until NASA was finally told, either settle on a design (after screwing around with about 6 or 8 different designs), or forget the whole program.

[XBob]

thanks TB - but there is nothing new here - just more NASA incompetence.

The loud noise they heard a week or 2 ago was probably one of the gyro's crashing.

They spent 10 years screwing around, just trying to get a design, and finally were forced to pick a design, and they didn't even pick a good design. They certainly picked a costly one though (one beam cost $500 million + another $500 million for launch costs).

In fact, I have grown so pessimistic with their incompetence, I think that the whole US manned space program will be cancelled in a few years, as the remaining shuttles crash (or rust away) and the ISS falls out of orbit.

[Moonman62]

They spent 10 years screwing around, just trying to get a design, and finally were forced to pick a design, and they didn't even pick a good design. They certainly picked a costly one though (one beam cost $500 million + another $500 million for launch costs).

That was the whole idea. The ISS always was little more than a make work for bureaucrats and shuttle flights. Mission accomplished

In fact, I have grown so pessimistic with their incompetence, I think that the whole US manned space program will be cancelled in a few years, as the remaining shuttles crash (or rust away) and the ISS falls out of orbit.

Haven't you been reading all the threads about how Bush is going to spend even more of our money on a new moon mission?

[snopercod]

...the two-man station has more than enough fuel to spare, said program manager Bill Gerstenmaier.

Yeah right, that's why they're not reboosting it.

[XBob]

15 - "Haven't you been reading all the threads about how Bush is going to spend even more of our money on a new moon mission?"

What money?

We don't have an extra Trillion+ dollars to get to the moon again. We don't even have the money to get to the space station.

The government burro-crats run what's left of our space program now, and there is no way we will be able to afford to go to the moon again.

[XBob]

In fact, it is beyond our capability to get from the VAB to the launch pad again.

If the crawlers break, we have no way to make new ones. Marion Power Shovel, which built them, is now out of business and we no longer have expertice/skilled workers to make the giant forgings and castings necessary to build new ones.

[XBob]

ping

[RadioAstronomer]

We don't even have the money to get to the space station.

We were discussing this very thing at work on Friday. One of my colleagues started with project Mercury and stayed with NASA all the way thru the mid 90s. He saw the heyday of NASA and was one of the people "on console" during the Apollo 1 fire. He is also skeptical we have the money to create the infrastructure needed for another manned shot to the moon in the near term. The big question is, if this program does get underway, will the next congress kill it not unlike the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC)?