A false alarm on ISS early this morning, signaling the leak of ammonia coolant, forced the evacuation of the American portion of ISS.
American engineers are assessing the cause of the alarm, though they seem pretty confident now said that no leak of any ammonia took place and the problem was likely caused by a faulty sensor.
Update: The crew has now returned to ISS.
The competiton heats up: Anthony Zak’s a detailed report of the design and development of the next generation space station modules Russia intends to dock at ISS has this interesting tidbit:
In addition to expanding the ISS, Russian developers viewed the NEM module as the basis for future Russian efforts to send humans beyond the Earth orbit. Thanks to its multi-function design, life support and power-supply capability, one or a whole cluster of such vehicles could provide habitation quarters and laboratories for a station at the so-called Lagrange points, which were considered as a staging ground for the exploration of the Moon, asteroids and Mars.
In case of an international agreement on the construction of a manned outpost in the Lagrange point, the NEM-based laboratory could constitute the Russian contribution into the effort. The NEM-based outpost could be serviced and staffed by the crews of US-European Orion spacecraft and by Russia’s next-generation spacecraft, PTK NP. Simularly, the NEM module, possibly in combination with other hardware, could serve as an outpost in the orbit around the Moon. Also in 2014, plans were hatched to make the NEM-based laboratory a part of the post-ISS Russian space station, VShOS, in the high-inclination orbit.
The Russians have always understood that a space station is nothing more than a prototype of an interplanetary spaceship. They are therefore simply carrying through with the same engineering research they did on their earlier Salyut and Mir stations, developing a vessel that can keep humans alive on long trips to other planets.
This approach makes a lot more sense that NASA’s SLS/Orion project, which does not give us what we need to make long interplanetary voyages, and costs a lot more.
The competition heats up: Sarah Brightman is scheduled to arrive in Russia on Thursday to begin her training for her tourist flight to ISS later this year.
Dragon has berthed successfully at ISS, much earlier than originally planned.
Another successful Falcon 9 launch for SpaceX this morning, placing a Dragon capsule in the correct orbit for rendezvous and berthing with ISS.
We still await word on the attempt to land the first stage of the rocket on a barge in the Atlantic. From the link above: “SpaceX founder Elon Musk has tweeted an update: ‘Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.'” More details here.
Based on what they have released, SpaceX has achieved something pretty incredible for its first attempt, actually hitting the floating ship at landing. That the landing itself was not soft or gently is literally only a detail. They will have the opportunity on future launches to get it right.
The GAO has ruled against Sierra Nevada’s protest of NASA’s decision to pick Boeing for its manned spacecraft decision.
The ruling is not really a surprise. Even if political considerations gave Boeing an unfair advantage, the space agency has enough legal leeway to make this decision as it did. The GAO recognized that it would be inappropriate to overrule them.
Due to issues in the rocket’s steering system this morning’s Falcon 9/Dragon launch was scrubbed.
They will try again Friday morning at 5:09 am Eastern.
The weather for Tuesday morning’s SpaceX launch of Dragon/Falcon are presently 60% favorable.
If all goes right, SpaceX will also try to bring the first stage back to a vertical soft landing on a ocean-going platform. If they succeed, they will immediately revolutionize the entire space launch industry.
An evening pause: Some science from an engineering perspective.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Having overheard an ISS astronaut mention the need for a particular type of wrench, the company that made the 3D printer on the station immediately worked up a design and emailed that to him, allowing him to print it up.
No word on whether the astronaut actually printed it, but it seems to me that he should do so immediately, then test its use.
Link here.
At the heart of the latest plan is the botched construction of the Multi-purpose Laboratory Module, MLM, the Russia’s next big piece of the International Space Station, ISS. After many years of delays, the price tag for the MLM project ballooned to one billion rubles, however the all-but-completed module had to be grounded until at least 2017 due to severe quality control problems during its manufacturing at GKNPTs Khrunichev in Moscow. Repairs of the module were estimated at another billion rubles and GKNPTs Khrunichev was expected to cover this cost from its own reserves. However, the nearly bankrupt company came back with an announcement that it already owed around a billion Euro and would not be able to pay for the future work. Even if repaired and successfully launched, the MLM module, which would have taken more than two decades to build, could arrive at the ISS on the eve of its retirement.
As an alternative, Russian space officials came up with a new scheme to build a whole new station around the MLM, instead of launching it to the ISS. The project with an estimated price tag from four to five billion rubles would cover a five-year delay in the construction of the ISS. The new Russian station would also utilize all future Russian modules, which were expected to follow MLM to the ISS, such as the Node Module, UM; the Science and Power Module, NEM; an Inflatable Habitat, and the OKA-T laboratory.
There’s more. Read it all.
The competition heats up: Boeing has submitted a bid for the next round of ISS cargo missions, proposing to use its CST-100 manned craft as an unmanned freighter.
The cargo version of Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft will be based on the crewed version the company is developing for NASA, said John Mulholland, Boeing commercial crew program manager. Boeing will remove spacecraft components not needed for crew missions, like its launch abort system and environmental controls, to free up room in the spacecraft for cargo. The cargo version of CST-100 would, like the crewed version, launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. The cargo version will also be able to return cargo to Earth, landing in the western U.S. like the crewed version.
This makes sense to me.
