ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

Rxke · 2004-01-06 01:19:15

uh-oh

Palomar · 2004-01-06 10:03:35

*Thanks for posting about this, Rik; it was the first thing which caught my eye this morning here at New Mars. I've read one other article (at Space.com) pertaining to this, prior to posting here.

I'm not greatly familiar with ISS operations, etc. If they do have a bona fide leak (air), at which point will the decision be made to "abandon ship" I wonder? I presume they can return to Earth (sans NASA shuttle) the way crewmembers did a few months ago (can't recall precisely how that was accomplished). At what point will the problem be considered irreparable? If they can't repair it at all by themselves (and have to return home)...what with the shuttle program still grounded, I guess it'd be a while before repairs could commence ala shuttle crew. Hmmmmm.

The articles don't spell out much in the way of "what next," if indeed they do have a leak. Yipes.

I'll be watching this with great interest. Hopefully it's just a false alarm/indication or something along that line.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-06 11:57:16

An Update

*Bickering and differences of opinion (not surprising). Either someone's being cautiously optimistic or there's denial afoot.

Ho boy.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-07 10:44:01

"Astronauts Fail to Find Possible Station Air Leak"

*Now they're apparently considering the loss in air pressure might be due to a faulty oxygen generator "that has worked only intermittently during recent weeks." Only works *intermittently*?? Yipes.

They're losing pressure at a rate of less than .038 psi per day. Of course, they're considering there might be a problem with the measuring equipment...sure, like your car's gas gauge goes haywire and now you don't know for sure how much gas you really have in your tank. Sounds like a bit of a nail-biting scenario no matter how you look at it.

They even broke out the "ultrasound leak detector"...that sounds cool (and suspenseful). They've also checked hatches and valves. Really turning ISS upside-down and shaking it...

Report also says (relief) the ISS has "adequate air for six months"...okay, so maybe they're not biting their nails (yet).

Ah, here's an explanation of info I was looking for yesterday:

"Foale and Kaleri rocketed into orbit from Kazakhstan in October and are to return there in April on a Russian capsule, the only means of travel to the station while U.S. shuttles are grounded in the wake of the Columbia disaster. (Additional reporting by Olena Horodetska in Moscow)"

Palomar · 2004-01-08 12:45:37

Good News!!

*This just in from Yahoo! news: Air pressure in ISS is stable once again.

Article says they (astronauts Foale and Kaleri) are preparing to "hoist" (what a word...for this scenario!) it into higher orbit. They're already 250 miles above Earth.

After the initial bout of severe dizziness, I'd think: What a view!

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-09 07:01:05

I think I might know why the air pressure has been dropping on the ISS.
When I was a kid in England, there was a show on T.V. called Dr. Who, about a Time Lord who travelled around in a time/spaceship called a Tardis. In one particular episode, he was in an Earth colony on the Moon and they'd been noticing mysterious drops in dome pressure ... just like the ISS!
Well .. it turned out that a small army of Cyber-men, arch-enemies of the Doctor, had been surreptitiously entering the dome through breaches they'd made in the dome wall. Although they'd taken steps to minimise the air loss, so as not to alert the humans to their infiltration until sufficient numbers of them had gained entrance, it was impossible for them to avoid some leakage (naturally).

I won't go into further detail about what eventuated but I see definite parallels with the situation on the space station.

It's Cyber-men! No doubt about it ... it stands to reason!!

Palomar · 2004-01-09 07:26:53

I think I might know why the air pressure has been dropping on the ISS.
When I was a kid in England, there was a show on T.V. called Dr. Who, about a Time Lord who travelled around in a time/spaceship called a Tardis.

*The U.S. Public Broadcasting System used to show episodes of "Dr. Who." Didn't he have a dog named K-9? It's been a very long time. I managed to catch a few episodes (in the 1970s)...and I quickly got the impression you had to be very British to understand certain subtleties in the plots, humor, etc.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-09 07:53:32

Still leaking!

*Okay...now they (NASA) are saying that the leak continues. The ISS astronauts are going to perform another test today. The Russians and NASA are at odds on this, apparently:

"NASA said the leak was continuing, contradicting a report from the Russian Interfax News Agency that quoted a Moscow mission control official as saying; 'The pressure inside the station is stable.'

Explaining the discrepancy, a NASA official said at one point on Wednesday pressure appeared to be stable. But measurements taken Thursday showed the space station was still losing pressure at the same rate it had been, leading managers to believe the earlier reading was an anomaly."

Astronaut Kaleri is going to perform tests on the system which removes carbon dioxide...

--Cindy

~Eternal~ · 2004-01-09 19:05:51

-_- Tell me I'm not the onlly person who predicted this?
Perhaps we should dismantle the ISS for material for the "Moon Station".

Rxke · 2004-01-12 03:35:08

looks like they found the leak!
msn.com
Can't help but feel a bit mad about commentaries in the press that suggested obliquely it would turn out to be a crappy Russian component leaking... The ISS, flawed as it may be, is still a great piece of complex machinery, and this finger-pointing is stupid. The Russinans have years of experience in building space-stations, and their expertise is still needed to keep ISS going. Heck, without their Soyuz, Progress, automated docking technology, ISS wouldn't even exist, today (or in the past)
No dis to the American engineers, but the Russians have done amazing things on a budget NASA wouldn't even felt adequate to buy their paperclips, IM not-so- HO

Palomar · 2004-01-12 10:31:38

No dis to the American engineers, but the Russians have done amazing things on a budget NASA wouldn't even felt adequate to buy their paperclips, IM not-so- HO

*Thanks for the update, Rik. This is the best updated article I've yet seen this a.m.

But I'm a bit puzzled by your seeming to feel the Russians are being blamed or disparaged. What I saw in the article points out (fairly, IMO) what components are U.S. and which are Russian. Both have been scrutinized. In fact, the leak is coming from a U.S.-built component:

"The leak appears to be at the main window in the U.S.-built Destiny laboratory module."

And credit is given to the required spare part being sent up via "a robotic Russian cargo ship" later in the year.

Your statement about paperclips and budgets is right-on; total agreement there. No American in their right mind and with a working knowledge of Russian space-related accomplishments would put them down in any way. I have a lot of respect for their accomplishments; a very impressive list there.

I'm glad the ISS crew are safe and sound. What brave souls they are...(considering possible impact via meteors, other assorted space debris/junk, solar flares, etc.)!

--Cindy

Rxke · 2004-01-12 10:54:07

My commet was not related to the MSN article (wich was fairly good, i'd say), but on other things i read before they (probably) found the leak. Some reporters keep blaming the Russians for everything that's wrong with ISS. Gets a little bit boring after a while. We DO now they have 'medieval' hardware, but it works, so be happy with it. Cooperation is all about mutual respec blahblahblah

Palomar · 2004-01-12 11:01:02

My comment was not related to the MSN article (wich was fairly good, i'd say), but on other things i read before they (probably) found the leak. Some reporters keep blaming the Russians for everything that's wrong with ISS.

*I see. Sorry for the misunderstanding (a communication gap); I thought you were referring exclusively to the article you linked to in your previous post.

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-14 11:37:44

[=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040113/sc_nm/space_iss_dc_1]Hopefully this time...

*They think they've finally solved the problem with the leak. Hopefully so; last week they reported the problem was fixed and next day it wasn't...so of course they're keeping an eye on it. So far air pressure is consistently stable for a day...in fact, it's been rising. [xfingerscrossedx]

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-17 11:44:52

[=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040117/sc_nm/space_iss_dc_1]Update

*Astronauts Kaleri and Foale have sealed off two sections of the ISS to make sure there are no additional leaks (other than the one they located last Monday). They're staying in a different area of ISS for two days, until the check is completed.

"'More likely than not, no leaks will be found," the mission control spokesman said. 'Nevertheless the astronauts need to make sure that this was the only leak.'"

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-18 12:06:01

Here it is, :
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3969567&p1=0]Space station leak caused by crew
The break in the pressure hose that resulted in the troublesome space station air leak was unknowingly caused over time by crew members, Russian space experts said Thursday.
The original damage to the pressure hose was probably due to inadvertent misuse during the three years that the station has been occupied. Moscow?s Itar-Tass news agency on Thursday quoted experts at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency as saying that they believe the U-shaped hose near Destiny's main window was repeatedly bent by station crew members who used it to stabilize themselves while taking pictures out the window.
?The present crew is no more guilty than preceding ones,? the news agency quoted one Russian expert as saying. Photographs taken on board the station show crew members holding onto the loop.
NASA astronauts had not installed handholds at the window because they were waiting for the delivery of a rack assembly that was designed for installation over the window and would have provided the handholds.
Unbelievable !!!!

*Good grief!

First Hubble's bad news, then I read an article claiming three-fifths of all Americans currently oppose future manned space exploration, now this. It goes in 3's.

Thanks for sharing it, BGD. I've been offline most of the morning. I think I'll go back to bed, pull the covers over my head and forget the world now...

--Cindy :laugh:

Rxke · 2004-01-20 11:31:35

This might sound strange, but it is 'little' things like this that prove ISS *still* has it's merits for human space-flight.

Ahem. Let me elaborate (or rather: ela-bore you to tears- ate)

Fact: The U.S. Lab is state-of-the art, many subsystems are by now considered to be tried and tested, since it's been working flawlessly for months upon months.

Now consider this scenario: the leak never happened and...

Fast forward to some (dream) future: Yippee! we're going to Mars! And our nifty spaceship uses a lot of off-the-shelf hardware, and stuff derived from ISS. Makes it a lot less expensive than the Trillion-dollar Galactica...

Of course, the explorers have some nice windows to make purty pictures of the receding blue globe, and the waxing Mars disk...

And all of a sudden... PSSSSJJJJTTTSSSZZZZ! Air-leak!
By the time our interpred explorers figure out it's that thingy by the purty window that got all kinda leaky, they have lost *a lot* of their oxygen, and they're only two monts far into the mission...

So... Luckily we have the ISS, luckily the astronauts make 'mistakes' like touching thing they shouldn't, (Hey, nobody told them to stay off that tube, even after ground control saw different astronauts doing it on camera!) thereby showing how good or bad the weakest parts of a certain design are.

ISS might be boring, butit has learned us a lot, and is still doing so.

Palomar · 2004-01-20 11:45:22

*Interesting post, Rik. What would we do without you?

"Fast forward to some (dream) future: Yippee! we're going to Mars!"

Now, now Rik...calm thyself! Why do we want to go to Mars any time soon? Why not just stay in LEO forever, or go back to the moon (like we did a handful of times 30+ years ago)?? Isn't it just more fun to re-do and re-do the already done?! (just kidding, of course)

By the way...I wish that photo of Sergei had been face-on (in the link BGD provided days ago). Sergei looks rather cute from that angle anyway...

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-20 15:27:56

By the way...I wish that photo of Sergei had been face-on (in the link BGD provided days ago). Sergei looks rather cute from that angle anyway...
Cindy, you even know their name ?! Hehehe. :laugh:
Anyway have you read this:
Moscow Mission Control Center official Viktor Blagov told Itar-Tass that Russian space vehicles use a different design. Since the 1970s, he explained, all windows on human space vehicles use super-dry nitrogen gas injected between the different panes and sealed there. The windows in the Russian segment of the space station are also built this way, he continued. As a result, he concluded, ?the window would not become covered with moisture even at lowest temperatures.?
But the U.S. window is vulnerable to exactly that problem. According to air-to-ground conversations monitored privately, on Tuesday the crew noticed moisture between the two window panes.
This reminds me of a joke:
Once in space, americans observed that in 0 g neither normal fountain pens nor ball pens could write anything. So they spent 150 million $ to create a revolutionary type of pen, that can write at 0 g, on any surface, from paper to glass and metal, at any temperature between -50 to +80 Celsius, and never be erased. Currently any of those pens cost 12,000$, but it's worth it.
Russians just use graphite pencils.

*Well, his name is in the caption!

And yes, I've heard the pen/graphite pencil story (seems like something the U.S. gov't would do...I mean, they've got $500.00 toilet seats in the Pentagon). ::sigh::

--Cindy

::EDIT:: BGD, your signature line is cool. I read it quickly, with no trouble.

Rxke · 2004-01-20 16:34:47

Actually that 50k pen is a myth.
IIRC both ussr and americans used ballpoints, they work ok. Pencils have a risk to crack (the points), and in zero G those bits are considered too dangerous. They float around, could end up in machinery etc...

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#1 2004-01-06 01:19:15

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#2 2004-01-06 10:03:35

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#3 2004-01-06 11:57:16

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#4 2004-01-07 10:44:01

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#5 2004-01-08 12:45:37

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#6 2004-01-09 07:01:05

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#7 2004-01-09 07:26:53

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#8 2004-01-09 07:53:32

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#9 2004-01-09 19:05:51

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#10 2004-01-12 03:35:08

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#11 2004-01-12 10:31:38

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#12 2004-01-12 10:54:07

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#13 2004-01-12 11:01:02

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#14 2004-01-14 11:37:44

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#15 2004-01-17 11:44:52

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#16 2004-01-18 12:06:01

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#17 2004-01-20 11:31:35

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#18 2004-01-20 11:45:22

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#19 2004-01-20 15:27:56

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

#20 2004-01-20 16:34:47

Re: ISS leaking? - Experienced steady pressure drop

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