The Progress launched failed due to a failed gas generator (which provides the pressure needed for the fuel into the chamber). Unless they can figure out why it failed and how to prevent it from happening again, though, that doesn’t allow them to fly again.
17 thoughts on “Narrowing It Down”
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“This year Russian ships, the European ATV, the Japanese HTV and the last shuttles brought all the necessary supplies to the station and there is no need to send one more transport ship at the end of the year,”
Ok, so without Russia and America that leaves two supply ships. Not a crisis.
Add the current Dragon w/six chairs and some O2 tanks for some backup safety and they’re fine until other options come online. Do we still know how to scrub the air or have we forgotten that as well?
But the hand wringing may be politically useful.
As far as I can tell, the only reason they have for abandoning it is a dogmatic adherence to the flight rules on landing the Soyuz and a fear of keeping the crew on-orbit beyond the 6 month soft limit on flight length. And ultimately, there’s no actual *need* to have astronauts up there at all.. the ISS isn’t *important*.. so why would you risk the health or safety of crews to keep up an illusion that it is?
Exactly, Trent. That’s what the editorial I’ll be publishing (somewhere) tomorrow will say.
Was there a longer post about the possibility of removing the astronauts from the ISS? I saw it when I was at work, and decided to read it when I got home. Now I don’t see it.
There was. I pulled it down because I didn’t mean to post it. It was a draft of a piece that I was working on for publication elsewhere…
The big question. If there was a Soyuz with crew could they have survived using an abort procedure? Say detaching the capsule after engine cutoff and using it’s parachutes/landing rockets for a soft landing?
The exact scenario you describe has already happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_18a
Until we have a market economy in space, nothing will be important. Things become important when they are part of a profit center.
>>there’s no actual *need* to have astronauts up there at all.. the ISS isn’t *important*..
If you *would* consider ISS important for any reason(*), there IS a *need* to have astronauts up there. They do a lot of station maintenance, it’s condition would deteriorate fairly quickly without manned presence.
(*) Some submit that maintaining ISS at ~$2-3B a year is necessary to have it serve as an anchor for orbital commercial flights. Some would disagree. No-one has provided another justification for it’s existence. Nothing that would pass any litmus tests.
I assume that *this* time, they built the dang station with the ability to be ordered remotely to boost its orbit?
What if they accidentally leave the keys inside when they leave? Wouldn’t that be a face-palm moment, wouldn’t it?
Did I read correctly they’d be unable to test the Dragon/Space-X resupply docking unless the station was occupied, which it may not be if they can’t fix this?
If the issue is stale lifeboats, why couldn’t they cram a crew capsule with the next cargo payload and deliver it in a fresh ride home?
They intend to bring back three of the six by the end of the year. That leaves three using supplies. Even if all six stay, they do not have a supply issue.
Wimps.
If they do stiff SpaceX for the resupply contract (when they have no excuse.) That will hopefully cause SpaceX to focus on non govt. contracts only (yeah, they hate to leave the gravy on the table, but they’ve got plenty of paying jobs to do without govt. to keep them busy.) It may even move up the Bigelow schedule.
Agree with reader, 2/3rd crew work time (which admittedly is still small) is for maintenance. Then again, much of the maintenance is for life support and payloads that won’t matter without crew. Still, if EPS or ATCS fail without crew to help fix, then the outpost could become a permanent derelick until deorbit.
BTW Big D, the Progress modules, particularly absent the Shuttle’s, provide reboost. No Progress, no reboost regardless of automation. There is some alternatives, but they wouldn’t last long enough to matter for what you are thinking. Maybe you could avoid a major metropolitan.
No Progress, no reboost regardless of automation.
Why not? ATV can reboost and refuel too.
unable to test the Dragon
Even if it could dock, it can’t unload itself. They should send a cat burgler with the supplies to break into the unoccupied station.