On May 9th, the current crew of the International Space Station reported seeing white flakes being vented from an area near the station’s P6 truss structure. Further investigations using handheld cameras and remotely operated external cameras have revealed that the source of the leak was an ammonia loop, which is used for cooling the power channels onboard the station. As the [...]
Post Tagged with: “power”
Antares Launch Postponed Due to Support Equipment Mishap
The Antares rocket launch, scheduled on April 17 at 20:00 GMT from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, was cancelled due to a Ground Support Equipment issue during the countdown. The clocks had to be stopped at T-12 minutes when a power umbilical line to the second stage came loose from the vehicle prematurely, forcing the team to scrub the launch. Following [...]
Europe Addressing Space Weather Effects on Aviation
The eruptions of the infamous Icelandic volcanoes Eyjafjallajökull and Grímsvötn, in 2010 and 2011 respectively, caused disruption of the air traffic over Europe resulting in a huge financial loss. The events showed the necessity of measures for Europe to effectively react when other similar crises affecting air traffic arise. Space weather is one of the phenomena that can trouble aviation, [...]
‘Driving’ Satellites: A Complex Undertaking, Not a Cheap Date
By Michael Mackowski I have the privilege of working in the space industry as a power subsystem engineer for Orbital Sciences in Gilbert, Arizona. On February 11, 2013 the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (aka Landsat 8) spacecraft was launched and I was at the NASA Goddard mission operations center monitoring performance of this satellite that Orbital built for NASA and the [...]
Why Satellites Fail
Why do satellites fail? Although it may seem like a simple question, the answer is sometimes elusive. When a spacecraft like the European Space Agency’s Olympus communication satellite in 1993 or the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Midori II in 2002 just stops working, it has not always been possible to determine exactly what went wrong. Micrometeoroid impacts, space debris collisions, and radiation-induced electronics [...]
Russian Meteor Explosion vs. Hiroshima Bomb: The Real Comparison
On February 15 at 3:20:26 UTC, a supersonic flying space rock, roughly the size of a van or a small truck, entered Earth’s atmosphere, exploded at 24,140 meters over Russia’s Chelyabinsk, and produced a total destructive blast power of 500 kilotons. This means the destructive power yield was 30 times the blast yield of the U.S. atomic bomb, named Little [...]
Third Time Lucky For South Korean Space Launch
South Korea successfully launched its first satellite on a Korean/Russian rocket from the Naro Space Center, a facility situated about 500 km south of Seoul, on January 30. “After analysing various data, the Naro rocket successfully put the science satellite into designated orbit,” said Lee Jo-ho, the Korean Science Minister. “We now have leapt up a step to become a [...]
Galileo Search and Rescue Payload Tested in Space
The Galileo search and rescue (SAR) package has been successfully tested for the first time, marking a significant expansion of the COSPAS-SARSAT program, a satellite-based network designed to bring help to air and sea vessels in distress. “The first day was a matter of turning the repeater on and checking its temperature and power profiles were as predicted,” Said Igor [...]
Dreamliner Battery Woes Have ISS Implications
On January 16, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplanes pending investigation into the safety of its batteries. Poland followed suit, quickly joined by the rest of Europe by decree of the European Aviation Safety Administration. Japan’s fleet had already been voluntarily suspended. India and Ethiopia joined the ban within hours. “Before further flight, operators [...]
Baikonour Cosmodrome Lease Tensions Increase
Kazakh officials have responded to the Kremlin’s demands for clarification to a statement made last month by Taglat Musarbayev, the head of Kazakh space agency Kazcosmos. In the original statement, Musarbayev announced that Kazakhstan would be aiming to reduce the number of Proton-M launches from Baikonour Cosmodrome, located in the Kazakh Steppes region. Musarbayev wants greater sovereignty over the launch [...]
