A week after the mysterious impact on the station, NASA is again forced to rely on the Russians regarding the maintenance of the station. It is not possible to launch gyroscopes in place of two that broke down until the shuttle flights resume
Avi Blizovsky
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/iss071203.html
NASA is relying on Russian-made propellers to navigate the International Space Station after a new malfunction was discovered in the station's American traffic control system, NASA said Friday.
Flight controllers discovered malfunctions in the current and oscillations of one of the three gyroscopes operating on the station on November 8. Last week, when the gyroscopes were used to slightly alter the station's position, all three worked.
To prevent further malfunctions and to give engineers time to assess the situation, it was decided that these gyroscopes would not be used for at least the next month and that the Russian-made propellers would take over, flight controller Joel Montelbano said. The space station must occasionally move to a new location to prevent the outer side from heating up too much in the heat of the sun.
The only limitation in using propellers is their fuel consumption. For now, the station, which carries two crew members, has enough fuel to cover that additional use, program manager Bill Gersenmeier said.
A fourth gyro stopped working in 2002. Although only two working gyroscopes are needed at any given time to control the space station. "This is not the situation we want to be in, but we have enough backup capacity. This is not some kind of real crisis," Gerstenmeier said.
The gyroscopes are too large devices to fit into a Russian supply ship, therefore NASA cannot send a new gyroscope until the resumption of shuttle flights that have been grounded since the Columbia disaster. Currently, the plan is to launch a shuttle in September 2004.
About ten days ago there was a sound of hitting the station. The Russian military claims to have detected a tiny object, possibly space debris that hit the station. NASA is still not ready to come to a decision if there was any external damage to the station. Now they await the decoding of images taken by military satellites.
More about the affair in these two news items from last week:
Summary of the injury case for 3 days from the day of the injury until the end of that week
https://www.hayadan.org.il/iss.html
Yadan International Space Station
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~707745885~~~88&SiteName=hayadan
