headline?
micro-meteorite night plight might blight space-flight
come on, there's even loads left!!
sight light right.....
NASA ground controllers received some disturbing readings from the International Space Station on Wednesday - air pressure inside the craft was falling. That’s not a good sign when you're 220 miles up in space. The ISS crew were asleep at the time, but ground control opted not to mention it to them, since the pressure drop …
I'm disappointed that all the kapton tape sources I could find didn't say "As used on the space station" anywhere.Kapton's Wikipedia page has already been patched.
"Or it could just be a weak spot in the Soyuz that just let go."
Must be that GREAT soviet build quality we've heard all about. As for the kapton tape, I wonder if Amazon has "two day delivery" to the ISS ready to go. Somebody must have fronted the bill for Amazon Prime somewhere in NASA, I would think.
>Must be that GREAT soviet build quality we've heard all about
Are you American, by any chance? Because your stupid is showing.
Firstly, when something breaks, it is normal to try and work out why. And yes, a manufacturing fault is one option, obviously.
Secondly, the very next sentence in the article states that this is unlikely. Did you just stop reading when you came across something that seemed to confirm your slightly xenophobic stereotypes?
Thirdly, and this one is important. Why is the US relying on Russian engineering to get its astronauts into space? Maybe you should stop to ponder the inability of the US to transport its own astronauts before you take a shit on the Russians who have, by all sensible measures, won the space race.
Nice Armageddon reference. Reminds me of one of my favourites...
"You know we’re sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it?"
The 'lowest bidder' trope was actually a real one from teh first set of astronauts in the 1960s, although it's not clear who exactly originated it.
Usually attributed to John Glenn, but according to Gene Kranz (in his book 'Failure Is Not An Option') actually Alan Shepard. Both good.
http://books.google.com/books?id=slQZ3JOUSKQC&q=%22The+fact+that+every+part+of+this+ship+was+built+by+the+low+bidder%22&pg=PA201#v=onepage
"Must be that GREAT soviet build quality we've heard all about."
Yeah you're right really. I mean the Soyuz is around 60 years old in design and is the safest and most reliable spacecraft ever built by man. It's quite obviously lacking in the build quality department.
Pity that the space shuttle isn't around to show how 'murican quality wins the day eh?
Prick.
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Kapton wiring not so much as although it's a good insulator it degrades fairly rapidly when subject to chaffing which lead to a number of aircraft accidents. I seem to remember an episode of Panorama or similar about the problem as the MoD had a lot of it in their aircraft.
The current ISS commander is an American. The leak is in a Russian Soyuz with a Russian capsule commander. This apparently lead to some friction where the ISS commander wanted to wait for the ground to give them the go ahead for a certain fix while the capsule commander decided to just go ahead and bung a rag with some sealant in the hole.
My experience with bicycles is, finding that you have a slow leak is one thing, finding the leak is another. Immersion in a bucket of water doesn't seem to be an option so I winder how they did it.
And if Kapton tape is not a sufficiently long-term solution, do they have another puncture repair outfit ofr some sort?
My guess:
Step 1: seal each compartment, monitor each compartment for pressure. This identifies the compartment the leak is in.
Step 2: Option 1: Float something really light and non-damaging to anything in the compartment around the walls of the target compartment. A leak should induce a slight current towards the hole. Follow this to the hole. I vaguely remember some S-F story that had balloons filled with gunk deployed in the event of a breach - they'd get sucked to the hole and then burst over it - the balloon material providing some of the seal, the gunk being the glue. Good enough for a temporary fix and to identify the area in need of attention.
Step 2: Option 2: If some sort of remote camera is present outside, look for the air venting out. Manual inspection to then find it on the inside.
Oddly there's no detail on the various space sites that I can find, although there's an earlier article on RELL that is an external scanner that has been used to isolate leak locations before.
Also, there's this article on using sound to find leaks.
Step 1: seal each compartment, monitor each compartment for pressure. This identifies the compartment the leak is in.
That was the basic technique . A 2mm hole wouldn't generate a draft that would stir dust or light objects.
I'm surprised El Reg didn't mention that prior to taping the puncture, an astronaut (Alexander Gerst) plugged it with his finger.
This is a Roscosmos Soyuz module, attached to the Russian segment. Is it really up to NASA to determine its fate? Much more likely it is Roscosmos... In fact I have been to the MKS in Moscow (during the undocking of the Jules Verne transport) and was told that for anything related to the Russian segment, the ultimate control devolved to the commander in the control room of the MKS floor, who was pointed out to me, a Russian chap at the time. Please stop making the ISS out as an entirely NASA controlled affair when it patently is not. You are well above the sloppy, inaccurate reporting evident here.