Updates ISS UPDATES

[GLS]

Roscosmos plans to reduce Russian ISS crew to two - newspaper

"Plans to reduce the crew stem from the fact that less cargo ships are sent to the ISS," Roscosmos manned programs director Sergei Krikalev said

http://tass.ru/en/science/893670

 

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NASASpaceflight.com: EVA-37 installs first external HD cameras and conducts TTCR retract task

 

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NASA Blogs: Spacewalkers Cleaning Up Before Trio Returns Home Tuesday

 

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[Ripley]

Nice microtextures they have in Kazakhstan!!

From
http://spaceflight101.com/soyuz-tma-20m/soyuz-tma-20m-landing-photos/

 

[GLS]

Russians delay next crew launch to station

The next launch of a Soyuz spacecraft carrying three space station fliers has been delayed indefinitely after testing at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan revealed an unspecified technical problem, the Russian space agency announced Saturday.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/09/17/russians-delay-next-crew-launch-to-space-station/

 

[Urwumpe]

Russia will be reducing their crew complement on the ISS from three to two cosmonauts from next year on, according to Spiegel Online:

SPIEGEL: Geldnot zwingt Russland zum Sparen bei ISS-Besatzung(German)

The article also mentions that one possible compensation for the missing astronaut could be ESA sending one of their astronauts, but there is nothing solid right now.

 

[IronRain]

Spaceflight now: NASA has no plans to buy more Soyuz seats, and it may be too late anyway

NASA is sure enough that Boeing and SpaceX can safely launch astronauts to the International Space Station by early 2019 to hold off paying Russia to keep flying U.S. crews to the research complex, and one official says a deadline to order parts for new Russian Soyuz crew capsules may have already passed.

 

[orb]

Spaceflight Now: NASA, Roscosmos open to extending station operations to 2028

 

[Nicholas Kang]

Russia to Introduce Two-Orbit Express Rendezvous with International Space Station

Russia plans to speed up the rendezvous of the country’s Soyuz and Progress spacecraft to bring crews and cargo to the International Space Station faster than with the current six-hour flight profile that has been in use for the last five years. The upcoming Progress MS-07 cargo resupply mission will debut a new two-orbit rendezvous profile, taking only three and a half hours from liftoff to docking with crewed missions inaugurating the new rendezvous technique once proven by Progress.

To realize a two-orbit launch-to-docking profile, one would either have to deal with a very narrow phase angle range or take a different approach to find a compromise between planar and phase angle constraints. The method chosen by the Russian flight dynamics team is referred to as a Quasi-Coplanar Insertion and will broaden the planar launch window and so allow the chaser to be launched into an orbit with optimized phase angle while keeping the planar separation within a manageable range.

4-Orbit Profile – Image: RSC Energia

The second important trick that comes into play is a change in orbital inclination which can be varied in order to reduce the angle at which the orbit of the Space Station and the chaser intersect and so reduce the change in velocity required by the chaser to accomplish the plane change into the ISS orbit. Without this exploitation of orbital mechanics, the two-orbit profile was found to come with excessive propellant consumption and would not have been practical.

Two-Orbit Rendezvous Profile – Image: RSC Energia/TSNIIMASH “Cosmonautics & Rocket Engineering”

If accepting a 0.65° angular separation in RAAN (Right Ascension of Ascending Node), the planar launch window will broaden by ±2.5 minutes, allowing some leeway in the setup of the phase angle by the Space Station. But as consequence, the angle at which the ISS orbit and that of Progress/Soyuz intersect will be 0.51° and it would cost the spacecraft over 66m/s of delta-v to accomplish the plane change. Varying the orbital inclination by ±0.18° will allow Soyuz to accomplish the plane change at a much more manageable delta-v of 25m/s.

Setting the Inter-Orbit Angle via Inclination Modification – Image: RSC Energia/TSNIIMASH “Cosmonautics & Rocket Engineering”

Widening the planar window to ±5 minutes (corresponding to phase angles of 20°) will require an inclination change of ±0.35° and a delta-v of 50m/s for the plane change, still manageable for the Soyuz/Progress vehicle within its typical propellant margin.

Source: Spaceflight101.com

 

[GLS]

Why Does Russia Have a Secret ISS Experiment?

Russia is sending up an experiment and NASA doesn't know what it is.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/news/a28584/russia-experiment-secret/

---------- Post added 10-14-17 at 03:55 PM ---------- Previous post was 10-13-17 at 08:13 PM ----------

...and it launched!
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFS-H3rtUGE"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFS-H3rtUGE[/ame]

 

[Codz]

The Expedition 52/53 crew (Bresnik, Nespoli, Ryazansky) will be heading home from the ISS tonight/tomorrow mornimg and the farewell ceremony is currently live on NASA TV.

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#media

 

[Urwumpe]

Since the ISS is the destination, I thought I post this here:

The leading candidate for a first German female astronaut, Nicola Baumann, resigned from astronaut training because of "various reasons", making her backup Insa Thiele-Eich the new primary candidate for the mission, which should take place in 2020.

Among the rumored reasons why the Eurofighter pilot Baumann resigned, is that the privately funded mission is still not having a single sponsoring contract, despite a lot of PR, the funding for the mission is still not secured.

Insa Thiele-Eich is the daughter of ESA astronaut Gerhard Thiele, who was Mission Specialist during the SRTM mission STS-99.

 

[GLS]

Spacewalkers complete repairs to station robotic arm

Two astronauts floated outside the International Space Station early Tuesday and replaced one of the grapple fixtures on the end of the lab’s robot arm, the first of two excursions over the next week to complete a complex overhaul that began with a pair of spacewalks last October.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/23/eva-47-coverage/

Space robotic-hand transplant

 

[GLS]

Newly installed space station robot arm grapple fixture not operating properly

The grapple mechanism installed on one end of the space station’s robot arm during a spacewalk Tuesday is experiencing problems with one of two control channels. Rather that use the fixture without redundancy, it will be removed during a re-planned spacewalk Monday and the original fitting will be re-installed, NASA said Friday.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/26/newly-installed-space-station-robot-arm-grapple-fixture-not-operating-properly/

Space arthritis is real... :uhh:

 

[GLS]

This is going to be interesting

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Cut in progress. Had to swap to scissors. :lol:

:blink: Those are scissors? Looks more like some stout tin snips...

 

[GLS]

Cut in progress. Had to swap to scissors. :lol:

The knife was just to puncture the MLI.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

THERE we go. Back to the knife and some serious progress has been made.

---------- Post added at 12:13 ---------- Previous post was at 12:12 ----------

*cringes as he watches insulation fragments float away*

---------- Post added at 12:14 ---------- Previous post was at 12:13 ----------

Arrgh, the FOD, guys! Cmon! :lol: