Tag: ISS

NASA agrees to Axiom’s third planned commercial passenger mission to ISS

8:45 am

NASA today announced that it has given Axiom the go-ahead for its third planned commercial passenger mission to ISS, now tentatively scheduled for November 2023.

Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) is expected to spend 14 days docked to the space station. A specific launch date is dependent on spacecraft traffic to the space station and in-orbit activity planning and constraints. NASA and Axiom Space mission planners will coordinate in-orbit activities for the private astronauts to conduct in coordination with space station crew members and flight controllers on the ground.

As NASA did in announcing its agreement to Axiom’s previous flight, the agency’s press release makes believe it “selected” Axiom for this flight, as if it had the power and right to do so. Hogwash. Axiom has purchased the flight from SpaceX, and wishes to rent space on ISS for two weeks for its customers. All NASA has done is agree to the deal, while also charging Axiom very large fees for that rental.

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SpaceX launches cargo Dragon to ISS

5:43 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to put a cargo Dragon capsule into orbit and on its way to ISS.

The first stage successfully completed its seventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The Dragon freighter is making its third flight, and will dock with ISS on the morning of March 16th.

The 2023 launch race:

17 SpaceX
9 China
4 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise now leads China 18 to 9 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 18 to 15. SpaceX alone leads entire world, including the rest of the U.S., 17 to 16.

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Russia considering bringing Soyuz launched on February 23rd home earlier

9:35 am

According to unnamed sources in the Russian press, Roscosmos officials are considering bringing the Soyuz capsule launched on February 23rd to ISS back to Earth in June rather than September, while moving up the launch of the next Soyuz manned mission.

As noted by space journalist Anatoly Zak:

The existence of such plans indicated that specialists had still been concerned about the possibility of a critical leak in the thermal control system of the fresh crew vehicle similar to those that hit two previous transport ships. Such change in schedule would also debunk the official explanation of previous two accidents by Roskosmos and NASA as caused by meteors rather than production defects.

The two previous coolant leaks occurred about three months after launch. Bringing the Soyuz home in June would get it home in about three and a half months, suggesting the Russians are no longer confident their Soyuz and Progress spacecraft can withstand six months in space.

If this plan is adopted it will also put less strain on the crew slated to come home on that Soyuz. Their mission has been planned for six months. Extending it to a full year without any prior preparation risks serious health issues.

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ISS maneuvers to avoid satellite

9:02 am

Though a collision was unlikely, Russian engineers fired the engines of a docked Progress freighter on March 6, 2023 to adjust ISS’s orbits in order to guaranteethat an Earth-observation satellite would fly past harmlessly.

At approximately 7:42 a.m. (12:42 GMT), thrusters on the Progress 83 resupply vessel currently docked with the International Space Station (ISS) fired for a little more than six minutes, raising the station’s orbit to prevent the potential collision, NASA said in a blog post (opens in new tab).

The satellite in question appears to have been an Argentinian Earth-observation satellite launched in 2020, according to Sandra Jones, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center. In a tweet, Dr. Jonathan McDowell, astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, narrowed the possible candidates down to Nusat-17, noting the constellation’s orbital decay.

The article at the link includes a nice graph showing the number of times per year engineers have had to do this since 1999. The number of such maneuvers ranges from 0 to 5 per year, with no clear trend up or down. That lack of a trend suggests the constant howls claiming that space junk is a growing problem might be a bit overstated. This is not to say it isn’t a problem, merely that the problem might not be as severe as some claim.

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Endeavour docks with ISS

11:58 pm

Endeavour tonight has successfully docked with ISS.

When the spacecraft got within about 70 feet of the station, there was a delay of a little more than an hour while ground controllers installed a software overide to a sensor for monitoring the position of one of the 12 hooks on Endeavour, used to lock it to ISS’s docking port. Though visual and other data showed the hook was working, the sensor could not, and without that software override Endeavour would automatically abort the docking.

This same sensor had caused a delay in the opening of the capsule’s nosecone yesterday shortly after launch.

As of posting the hatch had not yet been opened, something that should occur in about an hour or so. Though Endeavour is docked, more checks needed to be done beforehand.

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SpaceX successfully launches its Endeavour capsule carrying four astronauts

11:59 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX tonight used its Falcon 9 rocket to successfully launch its Endeavour capsule from Cape Canaveral, carrying four astronauts to ISS.

This was Endeavour’s fourth flight. It will dock with ISS in about 24 hours. The four-person crew included two Americans, one Russian (the second to fly on a Dragon capsule), and the first citizen of the United Arab Emirates to fly on an American spacecraft. He will stay on the station for six months.

The Falcon 9 first stage was making its first flight, and successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This was only the fourth new first stage used by SpaceX since January 2022 (out of 75 launches), and the second launched this year.

The 2023 launch race:

14 SpaceX
7 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise now leads China 15 to 7 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 15 to 12. SpaceX alone leads the entire world combined, including all other American companies, 14 to 13.

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Manned Endeavour launch tonight on Falcon 9 scrubbed at T-2:12

12:05 am

UPDATE: New launch date, still tentative pending investigation into the technical issue that forced tonight’s scrub, is now March 2, 2023, at 12:32 am Eastern.

The fourth manned launch of SpaceX’s Endeavour Dragon capsule, carrying four astronauts, was scrubbed tonight at T-2:12 because of an issue with ground ignition system of the rocket. As of posting no additional details had been released, as the launch team was in the process of standing down, unloading the fuel from the rocket in preparation for getting the astronauts out of the capsule safely.

Assuming the issue can be fixed quickly, there is another launch opportunity tomorrow, February 28, at 1:22 am (Eastern). For SpaceX a launch scrub for technical reasons has become remarkably rare. In fact, the only other scrub since 2020 for technical reasons took place in July 2022. During that time the company successfully launched more than 100 times, thus getting off the ground as scheduled about 99% of the time, excluding weather delays.

While the Endeavour capsule will be making its fourth flight, when this launch finally takes place the rocket’s first stage is a new stage and will be making its first flight. This has also become a relatively rare event for SpaceX. In 2022, of the company’s 61 launches, only three used new first stages. So far this year this launch will be the second new stage to fly, out of the thirteen launches so far.

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Russians launch unmanned Soyuz to ISS

5:34 pm

The Russians today successfully launched an unmanned Soyuz capsule to ISS to replace the capsule damaged by a coolant leak in December.

The new capsule will dock to ISS in two days, on February 25th. Then on February 27th a Falcon 9 rocket will launch four astronauts on its Endurance reusable Dragon capsule. The damaged Soyuz capsule will be de-orbited shortly thereafter.

Because of the new Soyuz was intended to remain in orbit with its crew until September, Roscosmos and NASA agreed to keep the crew from the damaged Soyuz on ISS until then, making the mission of these two Russians and American Frank Rubio about a year long. There is a chance Rubio could set a new record for the longest American mission, depending on the exact day his mission returns.

The 2023 launch race:

12 SpaceX
6 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 India

American private enterprise still leads China 13 to 6 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 13 to 11. SpaceX alone still leads the entire world 12 to 11.

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Russians release image of coolant system hole in Progress

1:47 pm

Comparing holes in Soyuz and Progress spacecraft

Roscosmos officials today released a close-up image taken on February 17, 2023 of what they think is the hole in the Progress freighter that caused a leak in its coolant system on February 11th.

The picture was taken shortly after the freighter undocked from ISS to be de-orbited over the Pacific. To the right is a comparison of pictures taken of that Progress hole and the hole that occurred in December on the Soyuz spacecraft docked to ISS. The comparison was first created by this Twitter user but rearranged by me to post here. The red circle in the bottom image marks what the Russians identify as the Progress hole. The top image shows the hole that caused an almost identical leak in a Soyuz capsule in December. The Russians say the Progress hole is about 12 millimeters in diameter, and to their mind was caused “by an external influence,” same as the Soyuz hole.

This conclusion however is suspect. If you look at the best resolution version of the picture of the Progress hole (available here), there appears to be material surrounding the hole, as if the hole broke from the inside, not from an outside impact. (Because the resolution is poor, however, this conclusion is uncertain.)

More telling is that, as both pictures show, the two holes are almost in the exact same place on these two spacecraft. As noted by the Twitter user who first made this picture comparison, “I can’t even calculate the odds of 2 spacecraft being struck in almost the same place, within weeks of each other.”

That the Soyuz leak caused so much staining and the Progress leak has none is also puzzling.

Were these leaks both caused by the impact of a micrometeoriod or piece of space junk, as the Russians now claim? Or was one by sabotage or sloppy production work on the ground? Or were both? One impact might make sense, but two at almost the same spot? It defies logic or the percentages for two impacts so similar to occur so close together in time.

Sabotage however in the same area is very conceivable, especially considering that the Russians have never explained the cause of the hole that was drilled in a Soyuz capsule in 2018, a hole that was drilled and then patched, before launch.

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Inspection of leaking Progress after undocking detects no obvious damage

1:10 pm

After undocking the Progress freighter from ISS yesterday, Russian astronauts on the station rolled it so that all sides of its service module could be photographed and inspected in the hope of spotting the leak in its coolant system that sprung on February 11th.

No visual damage has been detected at the Progress MS-21 spacecraft after it undocked from the International Space Station. “After the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station’s Poisk mini-research module, footage was made of its exterior surface and no visual damage was detected,” the statement [from Roscosmos] reads.

Initially the Russians postponed its de-orbit as they considered the idea of redocking the freighter to another port on the Russian half of ISS in order to inspect it more closely, but eventually they decided to fore-go that plan and de-orbit it on February 19th, one day later.

In watching the live stream of the undocking and the roll maneuver, I thought I saw a partial reddish-orange stain, similar to the stain around the hole that occurred in the Soyuz capsule in December, but it was mostly hidden behind other equipment and the Russians seemed to not consider this significant.

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Roscosmos will launch unmanned Soyuz to ISS on February 21

5:15 pm

Roscosmos today announced that it will launch the unmanned Soyuz to ISS on February 21st, only a two-day delay after doing a quick inspection of its outer surface for possible damage following the coolant leak of a Progress freighter on February 11th.

BtB’s stringer Jay provided me this translation of the announcement at the link:

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft has been checked and is beginning to be prepared for launch. The preparations suspended the day before at Baikonur will resume tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
The launch is scheduled for the 20th of February.

The ship was inspected. No maliciously drilled holes were found. We decided not to wait any longer. In any case, a refueled ship must either be launched or sent to a museum.

Update: removal of the launch vehicle to the launch pad on February 18, launch on February 21″ [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are truly intriguing. It appears Roscosmos is desperately trying to convince the world that the repeated recent leaks to Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are not related to sabotage on the ground. At the same, Roscosmos has never told us the results of its investigation into the 2018 hole in a Soyuz capsule that someone drilled and then patched before launch. It seems incredibly unlikely that the two recent leaks in the exterior coolant systems of two different spacecrafts were both caused by impact from a micrometeorite or tiny piece of space junk. Two such impacts could of course occur this frequently, but for both to happen to such similar locations on only Russian spacecraft seems beyond improbable.

Either way, the decision makes some sense. The available lifeboats on ISS right now are really insufficient. Better to get this launched. More important, they had already begun fueling it, and once that is done the clock was running. They have to launch by a certain time.

Meanwhile it would be wise for NASA to begin arranging new emergency lifeboat arrangements with SpaceX as well as Boeing (once it finally gets Starliner operational). Depending on the Russians for even part of this responsibility seems ill advised. If preplanned properly, SpaceX could certainly launch one of its Dragon manned capsules quickly in an emergency.

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First picture of hole that occurred on Soyuz in December

12:55 pm

Hole in First picture of hole that occurred on Soyuz in December

Russia has now released an image taken using the robot arm on ISS of the leak that occurred on its Soyuz capsule docked to ISS in December.

The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is that image. This is not the coolant leak hole on the Progress freighter on February 11th, this past weekend. As of now no image of that hole has ever been released.

No interpretation of this hole and the stain around it has as yet been released. However, Russia has now postponed the launch of the next Soyuz capsule from February 19th until early March in order “to give investigators time to rule out similar issues in the upcoming mission.” This Soyuz was to launch unmanned to replace the Soyuz that leaked in December and provide the astronauts that launched on that leaking Soyuz a safe lifeboat that they could come home on.

Meanwhile, all communications with ISS have now been shifted to the private channels, so the public cannot hear them.

All these actions strongly suggest that both the Russians and Americans are now seriously considering the possibility of sabotage or damage to the coolant systems on all Russian spacecraft, before they leave the factory and are launched.

ISS as of February 11, 2023

To clarify the situation, the image to the right shows all the spacecraft presently docked to ISS. Progress 82 is the spacecraft that experienced a leak in its coolant system on February 11th. Soyuz-MS22 experienced a leak in its coolant system in December. At the moment the only safe vehicle for returning the seven astronauts on ISS is Crew-5 Dragon, SpaceX’s Endurance spacecraft. Should a major catastrophe occur requiring an immediate evacuation of the station, the plan right now is for five astronauts to come home on Endurance, and two Russians to come home on the damaged Soyuz. (The thinking is that having only two men on board will prevent too much of a temperature rise during the return to Earth because of the lack of its coolant system.)

With the delay in the launch of the replacement Soyuz lifeboat, this emergency plan will be in place for at least three weeks longer.

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One of Saudi Arabia’s two Axiom passengers later this year will be a woman

9:00 am

In announcing the two astronauts who will fly as passengers on Axiom’s commercial Ax-2 flight to ISS in the second quarter of 2023, Saudi Arabia also revealed that one will be the first female Arabian to fly in space.

Saudi nationals Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali al-Qarni will join the crew of the AX-2 space mission in an accomplishment that comes in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. The spaceflight is set to launch from the United States to the ISS.

There is an aggressive space race now in the Middle East between Arab nations. The UAE started it by making space exploration a major goal for diversifying its economy. Saudi Arabia has now followed with its own program. Turkey, Bahrain, and Oman have also joined in.

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Shortly after new Progress freighter docks with ISS, older Progress loses internal pressure

10:42 am

ISS as of February 11, 2023

Shortly after a new Progress freighter docked with ISS early today (shown as Progress 83 in the graphic to the right), the older Progress 82 lost internal pressure, possibly in its coolant system.

On February 11, Roskosmos, citing data from mission control, said that the Progress MS-21 cargo ship docked at the station lost pressure. According to the State Corporation, the hatch connecting the ship’s pressurized compartment with the rest of the station was closed and the vehicle was fully isolated from the ISS’ habitable volume.

…According to unofficial sources, the spacecraft lost all its cooling fluid from its Thermal Control System, SOTR. Several hours after the incident, NASA confirmed that the breach had been limited to the cooling system. At the same time, the US space agency said that the hatches between the cargo ship and the station had remained open, while temperatures and pressures aboard the outpost had remained normal. The subsequent publicly available exchange between the NASA mission control in Houston and a US astronaut Frank Rubio, aboard the ISS, indicated that the coolant system of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft had been completely emptied before the leak stopped.

The report is very unclear. In the first paragraph it suggests the freighter’s atmosphere had leaked out, while its hatches were closed and it was isolated from the station. The second paragraph suggests it only lost pressure and coolant from its coolant system, and the hatches had been open during the event.

Either way, this is the second Russian ferry spacecraft to experience such an event since mid-December, when the Soyuz capsule attached to ISS lost its coolant from what is believed to have been a small impact.

This particular Progress freighter is slated to be undocked from ISS on February 18th, when it will be de-orbited, burning up in the atmosphere over the Pacific. Thus, this leak appears to pose a relatively small risk to the station, as it probably has already been filled with station garbage and was likely ready for disposal anyway.

This incident however raises larger concerns. If it was caused by an impact from an external object, either micrometeorite or space junk, it suggests that the station might face a new increased risk of such events, quite possibly from debris from the Russian anti-satellite test in November 2021. As of November 2022 it was estimated that there were 444 objects still in orbit, with all but 18 expected to fall back to earth by 2025. It could be that one of those tracked objects hit ISS, or a different object that has not been tracked.

Or possibly we are seeing evidence of some quality control problem in the construction of these spacecraft, in Russia. Russia and NASA have still not revealed the results of the investigation into the hole that was drilled into the hull of a Soyuz capsule in 2018. Could there be some sabotage going on the ground in Russia that has not been identified that is designed to cause such leaks sometime after launch?

Some clarity on this issue is now becoming essential.

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Progress freighter launched to ISS

9:10 am

Russia today completed its second launch of 2023, successfully using its Soyuz-2 rocket to send a Progess freighter on its way to ISS.

The capsule will dock with the leaking Zvezda module on ISS on February 11th.

The 2023 launch race:

9 SpaceX
5 China
2 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan

American private enterprise still leads China 10 to 5 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 10 to 8.

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Russian engineers recommend staying with ISS through 2028

9:02 am

Russian engineers yesterday concluded that ISS is technically capable of being operated through 2028.

However, Russia’s committee system for making any decisions is not done. This first analysis was done by Roscosmos’ top managers and its lower level engineers.

The proposed decision will now be considered at a meeting of the Scientific and Technical Council of Roscosmos. Based on its results, the state corporation will draft a message the Russian government.

At that point the Putin government will have to decide on an exit date from ISS. According to the article by Russia’s state-run press, “the minimum configuration of Russia’s own orbital outpost” will be in orbit by 2028, thus giving the government the option to leave ISS. We shall see.

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NASA and Russian engineers meeting to discuss status of leaks on ISS’s Zvezda module

9:40 am

According to Russia’s state-run press, NASA and Russian engineers have been reviewing the status of the repairs on the cracks in the Zvezda module on ISS.

Repairs to the various cracks in Zvezda’s hull, done by Russian astronauts in ’20 and ’21, have reduced the leakage from 1,140 grams per day to 300 grams per day. Normally ISS is expected to lose 325 grams per day, across the entire station, so the Zvezda leak doubled this loss, even after the repair. Thus, the hatch to Zvezda is kept closed in order to maintain the atmosphere of ISS at its normal levels, and opened only when there is need to enter it. In addition, its port is no longer used for dockings.

The engineering review is also looking into the cause of the cracks, which are believed to be stress fractures caused by the age of Zvezda (ISS’s second oldest module) combined with the many dockings that had occurred at its port. The review is also discussing ways to reduce the problem, until ISS’s retirement in 2030.

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Roscosmos predicts Russia’s new space station will launch by 2027

9:14 am

Wanna bet? Yuri Borisov, the head of Roscosmos, yesterday predicted that Russia’s new space station, dubbed the Russian Orbital Station, will launched and deployed by 2027.

“We will create sovereign infrastructure for human space flights to low near-Earth orbit. Its key element will be the Russian orbital station whose deployment we have scheduled for 2027,” he said.

The Russian space agency will carry out all the required feasibility studies by Cosmonautics Day celebrated in Russia on April 12, the Roscosmos chief said.

Based on Russia’s track record for the past three decades, this prediction will fail. Since the fall of the Soviet Union Russia’s space industry has consistently made many such predictions, none of which launched on time, with most never launching at all. Yet, that was during a time when Russia’s economy was booming, it was getting lots of revenue from the international markets, and wasn’t saddled with a draining war in the Ukraine. Now, international sanctions limit what it can get from that market, and its oil revenues have declined considerable due to the war. Moreover, the war prevents Russia from obtaining many cutting edge space components it needs for such a project. Replacing these with home-built components will take time.

If this station gets built, its launch will likely not happen before 2030.

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Russians successfully test replacement Soyuz capsule for leaks

8:49 am

The next Soyuz capsule to launch to ISS has now been passed its leak tests on the ground as it is being prepared for a February 20th launch.

“At the Baikonur cosmodrome, leak tests of the Soyuz MS-23 transport crewed spacecraft have been completed,” the [Roscosmos press release] said. In the coming days, checks of the propulsion system’s automation equipment, onboard digital computerized system and radio engineering systems will follow. Also, the thermal control system is to be filled with a coolant.

The launch has been moved up one month in order to speed the replacement of the leaking Soyuz presently on ISS.

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