Tag: ISS

An investigation into the dangerous leak of water into a spacesuit during a spacesuit last July has found that NASA engineers had missed an earlier failure of the same suit.

12:32 am

An investigation into the dangerous leak of water into a spacesuit during a spacesuit last July has found that NASA engineers had missed an earlier failure of the same suit.

The leak had first happened in a spacewalk a week earlier, and engineers misdiagnosed the problem. In addition, it appears they didn’t look closely enough at it.

Meanwhile, the investigation has pinpointed the cause of the leak as a clogged filter, but still could not trace what caused that clog.

2 comments

NASA is preparing the next round of commercial contracts to supply cargo to ISS.

1:34 pm

The competition heats up: NASA is preparing the next round of commercial contracts to supply cargo to ISS.

NASA announced the plan in a request for information released late Feb. 21. Responses from industry are due March 21. The document, which NASA posted online, did not say when the agency would solicit bids, or when it would make an award for the Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS) contract. The expected budget for CRS 2 is between $1 billion and $1.4 billion a year from 2017 to 2024, NASA said. NASA envisions four to five flights a year under CRS 2. Back in January, the White House announced it wanted to extend space station operations through 2024. Congress has currently committed to fund the space station through 2020. CRS 2 contract calls for delivery of 14,250 to 16,750 kilograms per year of pressurized cargo, and delivery of 1,500 to 4,000 kilograms per year of unpressurized cargo.

Assuming both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences win new contracts, this will give them a strong cash flow as they pursue new space endeavors.

Leave a comment

The first four cubesats of a fleet of 28 launched from ISS on Tuesday.

9:31 pm

The first four cubesats of a fleet of 28 launched from ISS on Tuesday.

The four “cubesats,” each about the size of a loaf of bread, were deployed from the space station this morning and began zipping freely around Earth. Twenty-four more will join them over the coming days, filling out the “Flock 1” satellite fleet operated by San Francisco-based startup Planet Labs. Planet Labs’ Flock 1 will provide frequent, low-cost, high-resolution imagery of Earth that could serve a variety of purposes, company officials say, from tracking deforestation and natural disasters to monitoring leaks in oil pipelines.

Leave a comment

A new harvest of vegetables in space!

7:19 pm

A new harvest of vegetables in space!

Notice that this research is a partnership of the Russians and an American university. NASA is not included. When I wrote about this subject for Air & Space a few years ago, the American researcher explained that there was too much bureaucracy working with NASA. Moreover, the Russians were much more knowledgeable about crop research in space, as they had been doing it for decades already on their Salyut and Mir stations.

Leave a comment

In a spacewalk earlier this week, two Russian astronauts on ISS successfully installed the commercial UrtheCast cameras.

8:56 am

In a spacewalk earlier this week, two Russian astronauts on ISS successfully installed the commercial UrtheCast cameras.

The cameras cost $17-million and are capable of beaming down images and high-definition video from the Russian part of the ISS to UrtheCast, a small Vancouver company that struck a deal with the Russian space agency to have its devices blasted into space on a Soyuz rocket and installed in exchange for imagery captured over Russia.

There had been a problem installing these cameras on an earlier spacewalk last month, so this was the second attempt.

Once operational, these cameras will also provide a continuous and free live feed of the Earth for anyone who wishes to view it.

2 comments

Cygnus was successfully berthed to ISS today.

11:46 pm

Cygnus was successfully berthed to ISS today.

This is the first operational station resupply mission carried out by Orbital Sciences under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA calling for at least eight flights and delivery of 40,000 pounds of cargo and supplies.

The Cygnus captured Sunday will remain attached to the space station until mid February. At that point SpaceX will step up with launch of a Dragon cargo ship around Feb. 22. It will be the third operational resupply flight by SpaceX, which holds a $1.6 billion contract to deliver more than 44,000 pounds of supplies over a dozen missions.

Leave a comment

Orbital Sciences has successfully launched its Cygnus cargo ferry into orbit.

11:23 am

Orbital Sciences has successfully launched its Cygnus cargo ferry into orbit.

Another perfect launch for the company.

Consider once again what has happened. While it cost NASA six years and $9 billion to build nothing before its Constellation program was cancelled, two private companies have built and launched two different rockets and unmanned cargo spacecraft in that same time period for about a third of that cost.

The contrast couldn’t be more stark. And that contrast will get even more stark as the flights of the privately built manned spacecraft by SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada unfold in the coming three years, while SLS and Orion sit around and do little but spend money.

30 comments

NASA and the Obama administration have announced their support for extending ISS’s operations for more years to at least 2024.

11:18 pm

NASA and the Obama administration have announced their support for extending ISS’s operations for more years to at least 2024.

Obviously, Congress needs to agree with funds. Moreover, so do the Europeans, Russians, and Japanese, though they all have been pushing to extend ISS for awhile.

Now maybe NASA will finally consider doing some of those year-long plus manned missions on ISS that are essential if humans are eventually going to go to Mars and beyond.

Leave a comment

The company for the high resolution cameras that the Russian astronauts were unable to install on ISS during their spacewalk last week has issued an update.

8:42 am

The company for the high resolution cameras that the Russian astronauts were unable to install on ISS during their spacewalk last week has issued an update.

The installation of the cameras proceeded according to plan and without incident. During a spacewalk, Russian cosmonauts were able to transport the cameras to their mounting position and install them quickly and efficiently. However, soon after installation, the Mission Control Centre (MCC) outside of Moscow was unable to receive any data from either camera (contrary to what was reported during the live transmission of the spacewalk). Without this data, engineers in the MCC were not able to confirm that the cameras were receiving the power necessary to allow them to survive the temperature fluctuations of the space environment. As a consequence, senior technical personnel from UrtheCast and RSC Energia (UrtheCast’s Russian partner) jointly decided that the safest and most prudent course of action was to uninstall the cameras and bring them back inside the ISS to be reinstalled at a later date, once the data transmission problem has been solved.

UrtheCast’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. George Tyc, was present at the MCC throughout the operation, along with the Company’s Chief Engineer for Space Systems, Mr. Greg Giffin. Said Dr. Tyc, “The fact the neither camera could communicate with the MCC strongly suggests that the problem lies inside the ISS and it is not a problem with the cameras or external cables. This kind of issue has been encountered before on the ISS and can be fixed in the near-term. Bringing the cameras back inside to be installed another day was simply the right engineering decision.”

No word on what caused the problem, but as this commercial project is being done in partnership with the Russians and the Russians are whom the company is working to solve the technical problem it was almost certainly on the Russian portion of ISS.

One comment

Today’s spacewalk by two Russian astronauts on ISS set a new Russian duration record though one of the two commercial cameras was unable to transmit its data to the ground.

3:23 pm

Today’s spacewalk by two Russian astronauts on ISS set a new Russian duration record though one of the two commercial cameras installed was unable to transmit its data to the ground.

For reasons that are unclear, the astronauts were then instructed to disconnect both cameras and bring them back inside ISS. This caused the cancellation of a number of other tasks and was the reason the spacewalk was the longest ever by Russian astronauts.

Leave a comment

This news report, confirmed by no other source, claims that the spacewalk this week was cut short because of water in the astronauts’ spacesuits.

8:43 am

This news report, confirmed by no other source, claims that the spacewalk this week was cut short because of water in the astronauts’ spacesuits.

I report this story but am very puzzled. If a water leak was the cause of the shortened spacewalks, I would have expected others to report that fact as well. No one has, however. (See this nasaspaceflight.com article, for example, which outlines the entire engineering situation quite thoroughly but says “both suits performed well during the EVA.”) Moreover, the ABC particular story above is written by someone who is not a space reporter, and contains some incongruities that reflect that, making me even more skeptical.

Leave a comment

Yesterday’s spacewalk on ISS, though successful, was cut short because of spacesuit discomfort issues unrelated to the earlier water leak problems.

9:11 am

Yesterday’s spacewalk on ISS, though successful, was cut short because of spacesuit discomfort issues unrelated to the earlier water leak problems.

No story on the spacewalk is entirely clear on the issues. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio was cold, but it seems he also had other problems that have not been outlined clearly. Interestingly he was not using the spacesuit that flooded in July. Michael Hopkins was using that suit and apparently had no problems.

In order to resize the spare suit on the station for Mastracchio they have delayed the next spacesuit for one day.

2 comments

NASA engineers have decided to go ahead with a series of spacewalks to repair the ISS cooling system, thereby delaying the Cygnus cargo mission until January.

3:12 pm

NASA engineers have decided to go ahead with a series of spacewalks to repair the ISS cooling system, thereby delaying the Cygnus cargo mission until January.

The EVAs will take place on December 21, 23 and 25 followed by a Russian Spacewalk on the 27th and a Beta-Angle Cut-out beginning on December 29. That means that the earliest launch opportunity for Cygnus is January 9, 2014 (local time) – pending the successful execution of the contingency EVAs.

Update: The Orbital Sciences press announcement says their launch can happen no earlier than January 13.

Leave a comment

It appears that NASA is planning to go ahead with at least one spacewalk to replace ISS’s faulty coolant system pump.

10:40 am

It appears that NASA is planning to go ahead with at least one spacewalk to replace ISS’s faulty coolant system pump.

After attempts from the inside to restart the malfunctioning cooling loop on the International Space Station failed last night, NASA mission managers have decided a spacewalk will be required to fix the problem, a source privy to NASA operations told TV20 News. NASA mission managers have scheduled the first spacewalk for Dec. 19th, according to the source, with two other spacewalks, also known as EVAs, likely to follow a few days after.

This story is not yet confirmed, but this AP article suggests it might be true.

Leave a comment

The coolant systems failure on ISS might delay next week’s Cygnus cargo mission.

5:50 pm

The coolant systems failure on ISS might delay next week’s Cygnus cargo mission.

[T]he reduced cooling capability means there’s less of a safety margin on the station. Todd said mission managers don’t want to risk having the Cygnus come in for a hookup under such conditions. “While we’re sitting at one loop, we’re somewhat vulnerable,” he said.

The logic here escapes me. It suggests they will stop all cargo missions to ISS until the coolant problem is solved. However, what if they can’t solve it without a spacewalk? To do that spacewalk they have to deliver an upgraded spacesuit to the station to replace the suit that had water leak problems in July, and that delivery is not scheduled until late February when the next Dragon cargo launch is scheduled.

Maybe they are considering putting that replacement suit on the Cygnus capsule so it can arrive quickly. If so, that would justify delaying the Cygnus launch for a few days.

More details about the situation here.

4 comments

If a US spacewalk on ISS is necessary to repair its cooling system, the spare parts are there, but the spacesuits are not.

8:35 am

If a US spacewalk on ISS is necessary to repair its cooling system, the spare parts are there, but the spacesuits are not.

Prior to retiring the shuttle NASA, aware that cargo supply would be limited once the shuttle was gone, shipped up to the station as many spare parts as possible. Thus, there are three spare pump modules on ISS that could be installed during a spacewalk to replace the module that has the valve problem.

However, because of the water leak problem that occurred in one American spacesuit during a July spacewalk, NASA has halted all American spacewalks until replacement suits can be shipped up to the station.

Since then, NASA has been conducting extensive investigations into the water leak issue, with… “the crew performed a series of tests on EMU 3011 [the faulty spacesuit] as part of an ongoing effort for returning the suit back to service. The tests included water leak checks, communication checks, and suit pressure leak checks. EMU 3011 passed all tests.”

However, NASA had been planning to wait to return another EMU, serial number 3015, to Earth aboard a SpaceX Dragon vehicle and deliver a new EMU in its place before clearing EVAs to resume. However the next Dragon vehicle is not scheduled to arrive at the ISS until at least late February next year.

The Russians might be able to do this spacewalk, but they are going to demand payment for the work. And they won’t come cheap, considering the circumstances.

Leave a comment
1 … 31 32 33 34 35 … 47