back to article Bad weather, baulky booster keep ISS 'naut snacks on the ground

International Space Station astronauts looking forward to feasting on some fresh food have a little longer to wait as Japan’s cargo ship has suffered yet another launch delay. Bad weather originally kept Japan’s H-IIB rocket on the launchpad before engineers discovered an issue with the booster, which delayed the launch …

  1. W4YBO

    No Tang?

    1. Mark 85
      Unhappy

      No Tang or vodka.*

      *Footnote. In the late 60's in a far away country, we couldn't get orange juice, but we could get vodka. Tang worked for us. Sometimes you just have to make do with what you have.

  2. Pat Harkin

    I should have gone to SpecSavers

    I thought your headline was "baulky booster keep ISS nut sacks on the ground"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Li-ion batteries

    Or are these "special" in some way? I understand that the technology used in these is very conservative, similar sort of idea to the ones in electric cars ie discharge to 20% charge to 80% same as my laptop.

    This does mean that there is a running reserve of sorts but the extreme electrode changes at each end of the cycle do not happen (usually).

    Science recently found that despite using them for decades the ions "pile up" during some points in the charge/discharge cycle and this can lead to dendrite formation over time.

    Interesting randomness: the batteries currently used on ISS are said to be structurally similar to the ones used in Toyota Priuses (Prii?) and share many of the common features such as a mechanically robust external case and very sophisticated controller(s).

    Early ones were apparently NiCad and these were infamous for being temperamental beasts even more so than lead acid.

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