Progress ISS cargo flight: FAILURE

[DocM]

@spaceflightnow

BREAKING: Video camera aboard stricken Russian Progress cargo ship shows the craft is spinning with motion-control system failure, NASA says

[DocM]

4 second spin period

More

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/28/breaking-russians-scramble-to-restore-cargo-ship-communications/

[Skiver Veteran]

Just read that second Article - looks like that will be abandoned and SpaceX will come to the rescue

[DocM]

Dragon CRS-7 is set for late June. They may have to reshuffle some cargo, and perhaps add yet another flight. They already have +1 to make up for the lost Cygnus mission.

[speed3okie]

Moscow! We have a problem!

[Blue-Vision]

Shame about the Russian craft having trouble. Could be a bad guidance system, could be an RCS problem too.

 

SpaceX stepping up to pinch hit for both Orbital and Progress shows how far they've come. It's crunch time, people -- don't do anything differently than before. 110% effort, like always.

[DocM]

It's sounding like the spin started early, right after spacecraft separation. That calls into question the separation system and/or the service module thrusters. This could be serious because of the commonality between Soyuz and Progress.

[Blue-Vision]

Probably a defective thruster then. Those are meant to be balanced (used in sets), and if one or more isn't working we'd end up exactly what happened. The spin angle can tell them exactly which thruster is the point of failure, and why they can't correct the spin.

[FloatingFatMan]

Did someone hammer a part in upside down again?

[Blue-Vision]

Did someone hammer a part in upside down again?

 

Let's hope not. 

[DocM]

Garrett Reisman is SpaceX's chief astronaut

?@astro_g_dogg Garrett Reisman retweeted Chris B - NSF

This looks bad. Could be a GNC, Prop, Avionics, or Software problem. Hopefully will find out exactly what happened.

[Blue-Vision]

They're saying that it looks like a failure with the Primary AND Secondary Guidance Computers on the craft. They didn't get any valid telemetry after separation, and commands to restart those systems went ignored by the computers (indicating a hard lockup condition).

[DocM]

Reports it may reenter tomorrow.

[Blue-Vision]

Hope there wasn't anything terribly critical aboard. Food, Oxygen, Clothing, etc .. all necessary of course, but that can be replaced, and the ISS Crew can take a return flight if they run out of supplies.

 

I'm talking about Scientific Experiments, personal items, etc. Something that can't be replaced.

[DocM]

The big problem with this Soyuz is that almost half its cargo was propellants for the ISS. Those have to go up in a Progress or Soyuz because the tanks & fittings are at the Russian end.

Dragon and HTV can carry water to the US end, the Dragon mods and conformal tanks being recently done & paid for by NASA as a new service not in the original contract. They also added 2 Dragon flights because of the Cygnus boomski.

At this point I doubt anyone would be surprised if 1-2 more Dragons were tacked on.

[Blue-Vision]

With all the work that went into making ISS "Universal", some parts of it depend on Russian and US-specific hardware after all.

 

Too bad they can't simply build adapters for these purposes. Oh wait -- that's too much like right.

 

I'm sure SpaceX would be happy to fill the backlog ... it won't be free, of course.

[DocM]

Dragon and ST-100 Will bring unique capabilities to the table. The big reason for having 2 commercial crew vehicles, and even more cargo vehicles under commercial cargo 2, is redundancy.

It seems like a no-brainer, but until the last couple of years many bureaucrats didn't "get" it. Methinks after this and Cygnus the light bulb over their heads have been lit.

[Beittil]

. They also added 2 Dragon flights because of the Cygnus boomski.

At this point I doubt anyone would be surprised if 1-2 more Dragons were tacked on.

 

Wasn't it 3 flights for SpaceX? Bringing the total under the current contract up to 15.

[DocM]

You're correct: +3 for Dragon and +1 for Cygnus.

[trek]

Shuttle could have done reboosts and attitude adjustments in case of a failure on the Russian side... Oh wait they cancelled that too. 

[DocM]

Shuttle was cancelled for mostly safety reasons. It was outdated, a dangerous design and had killed 14 people. In addition to the Challenger and Columbia disasters there were at least 3 other flights that came very close to losing their crews. Cancelling it was overdue by a decade.

Shuttle's replacements, HL-20 (now Dream Chaser) and the similar but larger HL-42, were cancelled by Congress under pressure by Shuttle special interests shortly before HL-20 was to fly.

Updated orbital parameters give Progress (A) and the upper stage (B) some extra time,

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Apr-2015/0246.html

The following *rough* estimates are based on early TLEs and my estimate of the area to mass ratio of a Progress spacecraft.

Assumptions:

1. A/m = 0.0025 m^2/kg (Progress s/c)

2. Cd = 2.4

3. current space weather

USSTRATCOM has issued orbital elements of two objects from the 2015-024 launch. Normally the "A" object is the payload and "B" is the rocket body, but the identities assigned to initial TLEs are not always correct; therefore, I have propagated both orbits to decay, using the above Progress ballistic co-efficient.

For 2015-024A / 40619, GMAT 2014a propagates the epoch 15118.31986774 TLE to decay on 2015 Apr 29 near 08:47 UTC.

For 2015-024B / 40620, GMAT 2014a propagates the epoch 15118.53743509 TLE to decay on 2015 Apr 29 near 07:05 UTC.

The time of decay is especially sensitive to the perigee height, which could be revised in later TLEs. The above estimates could easily be off by several hours or more.

[DocM]

?@RussianSpaceWeb

Sources: Another attempt to talk to a stranded #ProgressM27M cargo ship bears no fruit tonight.

[Blue-Vision]

Shuttle was cancelled for mostly safety reasons. It was outdated, a dangerous design and had killed 14 people. In addition to the Challenger and Columbia disasters there were at least 3 other flights that came very close to losing their crews. Cancelling it was overdue by a decade.

Shuttle's replacements, HL-20 (now Dream Chaser) and the similar but larger HL-42, were cancelled by Congress under pressure by Shuttle special interests shortly before HL-20 was to fly.

Updated orbital parameters give Progress (A) and the upper stage (B) some extra time,

http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Apr-2015/0246.html

 

 

I remember that fiasco. I have a family member who helped design the tail sections you see on the HL-20 and HL-42. First Engineering gig out of College. That cancellation cost him and almost everyone on the project their jobs. Dream Chaser is an evolved derivative of that design, probably a full generation or two more advanced than the HL-series.

[DocM]

Google Translated Interfax story: sounds like Progress has broken up.

http://www.interfax.ru/world/439233

Moscow. April 29. INTERFAX.RU - If on the space truck "Progress" fly off the wreckage, the ship is likely to have falls to the ground, said Wednesday "Interfax" the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky, Yuri Karash.

"That he has become a conglomerate of 40 or more debris need to it was rendered very serious purely physical effect - either inside or outside. If inside, it means that it exploded. And if outside, it means that he entered the atmosphere and disintegrates due to the impact of thermal and dynamic loads on it during the air friction, "- said the expert.

In his opinion, exist in this form, "Progress" can be very short period of time. "He's already falling to Earth. Most likely, he just exploded," - said Karnash.

Earlier, the US Air Force Space Center based on "Vandenberg" in California gave the 44 fragments in orbit near the cargo ship "Progress M-27M" and the third-stage rocket "Soyuz-2.1a"

However, the space center on the basis of "Vandenberg" can not yet confirm whether the fragments belong to the "progress" and the third stage of the rocket.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

This does not sound very good. Although the Progress has a very good track record over the last 15+ years, this incident and the recent Cygnus event will put extreme pressure on the next bunch of resupply missions. Propellant delivery standards for all contractors will hopefully be looked at now. I am a Space X fan but this is going to make their next supply a "pins and needles" affair for many reasons.