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Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

bbc.com

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Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#61

Post by bArray »

MrPouig wrote: post #34
gwbas1c wrote: post #16

Maybe someone who knows more about the ISS than I do can answer this: Naively, I would assume that there are airlocks between the different sections of the ISS. I would also assume that they would close these airlocks while doing the kind of work they are doing to repair the leaks. So, assuming I'm right (and my assumptions might be wrong,) why do the astronauts need to shelter?

If things go wrong, they're already in the vehicle supposed to bring them back. It might be upsetting to be 3 locked doors away from your best way to come back home

This is the right answer - if it goes wrong they are already placed in the escape vehicle, sitting in their space suits.

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#62

Post by Zigurd »

threwrfaway wrote: post #23
willy_k wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is less debris around on the way to mars and this is a known and worsening for the ISS due to its age.

A top (arguably, the top) metallurgist who studied previous failed parts told me it's corrosion of the Russian alloy used. Corrosion is a hard problem in living quarters (ie moisture and salt) in space (sealed with no gravity)

In microgravity, everything gets everywhere. My mother worked on NASA funded research for diagnostic spit tests to determine chronic versus acute stress, which previously required blood draws, which are a less than optimal choice in space. It's all very stressful.

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#63

Post by nuclearsugar »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11

Imagine something like this happening halfway to Mars and zero chance of escaping, getting any help or parts sent to you.

A bit of a tangent, but the fictional book "Children of Time" takes this to wild extremes. Really fun read

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#64

Post by ordu »

Can't they just get things out of the module and paint it fresh? Maybe with some special paint, or with several layers of a paint?

Obviously they can't, it looks like an obvious solution they couldn't have missed. But I wonder why it is impossible to do.

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#66

Post by vitally3643 »

LPisGood wrote: post #26
Quitschquat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently started an embedded hardware/software job. Shipping firmware to the manufacturer feels like that for the device classes that have no internet.

Anything special you noticed about the deployment processes involved with that versus more typical software engineering work?

Software can be updated and patched, even if you have to manually email customers a bespoke exe that pokes bytes into a compiled dll.

Generally firmware can't be updated by the end user because there is physically no way to do so without returning the hardware. (Unless an update mechanism is specifically implemented in hardware, obv)

Pucker factor goes way up because if you ship a bug, there's no way back. If you aren't careful, you can break physical devices which can have consequences anywhere from thousands of RMAs to burning down a user's house depending on the hardware and how bad you fucked up.

The deployment process itself is about the same. Tests and more tests, including testing on prototype and/or pre-production units. Hardware testing can get wild depending on application, but I don't think any SWE would find it too surprising. Then you email a binary to your manufacturer and pray

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#67

Post by monster_group »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11

Imagine something like this happening halfway to Mars and zero chance of escaping, getting any help or parts sent to you.

A little off-topic - the movie Stowaway (on Netflix) is a good movie about journey to Mars.

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#68

Post by hgoel »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11

Imagine something like this happening halfway to Mars and zero chance of escaping, getting any help or parts sent to you.

Ideally your Mars transit vehicle hasn't been taking 90 minute heating and cooling cycles nonstop for 26 years.

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#69

Post by elzbardico »

jmount wrote: post #4

I have to say worrying about the provenance of writing has made me a grumpier reader. For example: "The space station is made up of Russian and US segments, and there are modules from the European and Japanese space agencies too." It feels like this sentence is inserting some points, but is lacking in authorial intent. Is the intent to say the station is largely Russian and US, or to say the station has more than two…

A big motivation behind the creation of the ISS was an attempt to use scientific collaboration to promote peace between the two big opposing super-powers during the war, the URSS (basically Russia's communist empire) and the USA and to focus both nations resources into peaceful space research that could benefit the whole mankind.

Several other countries contributed, in an attempt to include other nations, but for all practical purposes it is an American/Soviet(Russian) project from a more civiled age of international competition. I think its appropriate the article remind us of this. A lot of people wasn't born them, and have no idea that once science had less borders.

Re: Astronauts told to return to ISS after sheltering over air leak repairs

#70

Post by SoftTalker »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #57
threwrfaway wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A top (arguably, the top) metallurgist who studied previous failed parts told me it's corrosion of the Russian alloy used. Corrosion is a hard problem in living quarters (ie moisture and salt) in space (sealed with no gravity)

I was wondering about this as well. In theory, there are also some metals and compounds that react with each other with just simple contact which result in some kind of amalgamation which can result in disastrous structural loss. Veratassium recently did a video on this kind of effect[1]. Could this be happening here? [1]: https://youtu.be/ksn5yrsC3Wg

Are you referring to galvanic corrosion? That's well understood and I'd hope not an issue in spacecraft manufacturing.
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