Space Station Gyro Problem Dangerous? 60
mysterystevenson writes "After bringing more mass than ever before up to the ISS, one of the gyros has failed. Gyros help maintain attitude position in space; the more mass needed to be controlled, the more force that is exerted on the gyros. Now there is the danger that the Shuttle may be bringing yet more mass and starting construction while turning off another gyro, which could cause a need for thrusters to maintain attitude. The assemblies are not all constructed to be able to withstand such force and in a bad situation there could be a collapse which could affect the Shuttle and the ISS as well. Worse case could be total loss; a wise idea might be to alter the construction schedule and address the Gyro and Gyro design problems, before going forward with the introduction of more mass."
MysteryStevenson to the rescue! (Score:5, Funny)
AAAGH (Score:5, Funny)
It's only 11:00, the gyro cart won't be out for another hour!
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Crab juice, anyone?
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I'll stay in Colorado though. The view/people/traffic/cost of living/clean air/clean water/cab drivers/attitude/etc. is better here. And I can get just about anything at the restaurants. Rattlesnake salad? Elk Consumme?
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They need to stop off at Alexandros (best take-out gyros in Toronto -- Danforth and Logan -- just behind the statue of Alexander) to pick up some tasty replacements.
(I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Alexandros is too far from work, and it being Monday, the Market is closed -- )
I offer the following to NASA for information on fixing their gyros properly;
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe.php?id=1 88&title=Anghelika's+Tsatsiki+(Tzatziki) [cookingforengineers.com]
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The food has a generally "unsafe" reputation. No one really gets sick on a regular basis, but I've seen the guys bring meat in like old paint tubs
Cheap food, usually $6 max. Lots of chicken/lamb a
No spares for the RAIG array? (Score:2)
Shouldn't they have had more than *one* spare in the production pipeline, or placed bids or whatever for a second spare back in 2003?
Ask any system admin: RAIG only improve reliability if the MTTR is significantly less than the MTTF.
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Surely, the problem is moment of inertia (Score:1)
Solar arrays can't handle rocket fires??? (Score:2, Informative)
Withstanding attack (Score:3, Funny)
But if the attacking ships use phasers instead of rockets, the solar arrays can take it.
WTF? (Score:2)
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While I do think they should've been thinking more about keeping enough spares handy, they can't exactly afford to propel an entire second space station into orbit. If you think $10 is expensive for shipping computer parts, imagine the bill for shipping into space.
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Re:Solar arrays can't handle rocket fires??? (Score:5, Informative)
ISS is not in imminent danger. First off, it can hold attitude indefinitely on two of four gyros. Second, the solar arrays can withstand the RCS thrusters firing, they just need to lock down the assemblies that rotate the solar arrays first. Therein lies the rub.
The next shuttle mission brings up more parts and re-wires a large section of the ISS's power grid. This means bringing some systems offline for the duration of a spacewalk, reconfiguring them, and bringing them back up shortly thereafter. Naturally, during this process, the ISS will be running on less redundancy than it is now. One of the spacewalks is slated to bring down two of the gyros, on the assumption that the other two can maintain attitude, while running off the new solar arrays which must rotate in order to generate the specified amount of power. Without the other gyro, RCS firings might be necessary, which make the solar cells unhappy.
This is a nontrivial but solvable problem. Solutions currently being proposed:
- Bring up the failing gyro for the duration of the spacewalk. It didn't up and die one day -- it's just vibrating a lot, and might do the trick.
- Leave the failing gyro off, and be prepared to bring it up only if the one operational gyro can't maintain attitude.
- Lock the solar array into a suboptimal orientation, and fire the RCS thrusters as necessary.
- Bring up a replacement gyro. They're about 800 pounds and aren't simple to install, which is a lot to be adding to a mission three weeks from launch, so this is unlikely.
They are rocket scientists, you know.This seems rather alarmist (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems rather alarmist. First off, why would they risk destroying the station to preserve the attitude? It seems that letting it turn somewhat for a limited amount of time would be far better than risking its destruction to preserve its orientation at all costs.
And the time would be limited. Remember, there is conservation of angular momentum. If you are tumbling, you will need to use the thrusters to stop it in any case (gyros don't create or destroy angular momentum--if you want to get rid of some permanently, you'll need to cast off some reaction mass). But for what they do do, which is reorienting a ship by temporarily holding some angular momentum, they can be used as slowly as you want. Heck, if you weren't in a hurry you could turn the ship by hand (actually, foot) by just "walking" around the outer wall without any gyros at all.
--MarkusQ
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Again, this is a question of angular momentum (which is conserved), not of orientation (which isn't). If the station has picked up some sort of spin that is large enough to impede docking, gyros aren't going to help. They need to use some sort of thruster that ejects reaction mass, and there's really no way around it.
--MarkusQ
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... as portrayed in SG-1, not in Atlantis.
There was an episode of Atlantis where they basically had a catfight between Rodney McKay and Samantha Carter. McKay was telling Carter that he had been studying their mission logs, and that they had been ignoring countless status and warning messages that the stargate was emitting. Rather than having Carter be concerned about this legitimate (though rudely-delivered) criticism---as she would have been in SG-1---the clueless Atlantis writers instead had her get
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Most of our spacecraft are designed to turn, rotisserie style, under the sun's undiminished glare... I once read in an article that if the space shuttle didn't rotate in this manner, the astronauts would be cooked in a matter of hours...
If that's the case for the ISS, then a risk of damage and harm seems much better than certain death...
If not, then le
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Heck, if you weren't in a hurry you could turn the ship by hand (actually, foot) by just "walking" around the outer wall without any gyros at all.
Now that's real spacewalking. None of this jetpack shit.
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And the original article as "irrational person who thinks he knows more than the rocket scientists".
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I think we're talking at cross purposes. If there's a consistant net torque (e.g. tidal forces pulling the station to be perpendicular to the ground) that's something you'll have to fix with thrusters. Gyros won't do it for you, as there is a limit to how fast they can spin (and thus how much torque they can suck up). After they're "full" what are you going to do about it?
--MarkusQ
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No, they don't.
You might be thinking of "friction." But even that doesn't destroy the angular momentum, it just thermalizes it as a whole bunch of unsynchronized rotations of small objects. And when you started the hard drive, you had to push against the Earth, which gave a very very small rotation to a very very large object.
Angular momentum is conserved.
--MarkusQ
Running out of Attitude? (Score:1)
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Dangerous gyro (Score:2)
Perhaps this might be because the left the mayonnaise-laden sandwiches sitting in the back of someone's station wagon for 3 days before loading them in the shuttle.
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Get it right.
Now mod me off-topic already.
Sarcasm Follows (Score:2)
OB Trek Quote (Score:2, Funny)
"I canna change the laws of physics!"
Don't Panic (Score:1)
The situation is being assessed but things continue to progress. Other "minor" problems include the fact that the Russian Oxygen generator has stopped working as well.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/oct/HQ_SS0604 4_station_status.html [nasa.gov]
And this is why we need(ed) the ISS (Score:2)
Case? (Score:1)
Wrong category (Score:2)
Attitude Position? (Score:1)
Let me know when it starts singing "Bicycle Built For Two."
Mystery Summary ; Thumbs up Slashdot ! (Score:1)
I'd like to state at the beginning , that this post is not for points , a zero is fine by me , just want you to know I really mean the next sentence . I thank Slashdot for going ahead and publishing this story ; you had to know it would generate some heat, also for keeping it up when it seemed there were those that would rather it not remain. A big thumbs up for integrity.
As for the story, there were many important parts that are being missed; the lives of the Astronauts, grante
ISS (Score:1)