In preparation for the launch of the shuttle, scheduled for May 2005, engineers at NASA are working on improving the safety of the space shuttle. Hand in hand with the shuttle goes the space station, whose completion depends on the shuttle's future
The International Space Station. Credit: NASA
Direct address to this page:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/nasashuttle1104.html
As NASA prepares the shuttle fleet for the resumption of flights, the agency's risk management teams give their opinion on risk factors that may affect the International Space Station.
"We have a lot of work to do in this area," said Wayne Hale, NASA's deputy shuttle administrator at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, adding that risk will always be a part of any space flight. This risk thing exists."
Since the space shuttle Columbia disaster and the loss of the seven astronauts [among them the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, DA] when it entered the atmosphere on February 2003, XNUMX, NASA engineers and the agency's management have been diligent both in returning the rest of the shuttles to function and in preventing further disasters.
Hale said the space shuttle program's failure rate is two flights and 14 human lives out of 113. "My job is to keep the failure rate below 3," he added.
Hale and other NASA speakers spoke at the agency's 2004 Risk Management Conference, which is being held at the space agency's Technology and Security Center at the Ohio Aeronautics and Space Institute.
The space shuttle engineers are implementing a number of recommendations on behalf of the Columbia disaster investigation team, aimed at reducing the risk in missions, increasing the safety of the spacecraft and their reliability. The next shuttle launch, STS-114 of the shuttle Discovery, is expected to occur around May 2005.
The most worrisome risk factor, Hale said, is still the outer container of the launch system. Many efforts are being made to prevent the detachment of large pieces of insulation foam, such as those that caused severe damage in Colombia.
There are also other issues, such as the need to develop the necessary ways to hold the piles that will allow the astronauts to closely examine the condition of the isolation panels while the shuttle is in orbit. Although the guides are identical to those of the shuttle's robotic arm, the 20-year-old technical drawings are not easy to read, which led to the construction of parts that did not fit together.
"Before Columbia we thought we had a tough and uncompromising risk management system, but obviously we were wrong," said John Turner, director of risk planning for the Space Shuttle Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
In addition to addressing the reduction of risks associated with shuttle flights, NASA must also work on reducing the risks associated with the operation of the International Space Station.
"A significant part of the space station's operations involves maintenance," said NASA's Warren Pattison, deputy director of flight safety. "That's how our business works."
The grounding of the shuttle fleet after the Columbia disaster stopped the assembly of the space station and limited the size of the station's crew to only two crew members instead of the three that had been there before. Despite the reduction in the size of the team, which in the eyes of the partners building the station is considered superior to an abandoned space station, the operational requirements of the station have not changed. "We're trying to maintain the station with what we have," Pattison said.
During the four dual crews' stay on the space station, the astronauts and cosmonauts worked outside the empty space station for the first time, made complicated repairs to life support equipment and spacesuits and performed an unprecedented spacewalk, coordinated between American and Russian flight controllers.
However, the future of the station still lies with the space shuttle, as it is the only spacecraft that is currently capable of transporting the rest of the station's buildings for assembly.
"If we're going to complete the space station, we're going to need a shuttle," Pattison said. "This will take a lot of resources."
Translation: Dikla Oren
The article was brought to Yahoo!
Yadan International Space Station
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~995905456~~~8&SiteName=hayadan
