International Space Station (Updates)

[Draggendrop Veteran]

This post is a little off beat...but eh!...it's Friday.....

 

During April 2013, on board a Russian "experiment" satellite, some thing funny was caught on camera.......GeckoNauts...

 

 

 

Sometimes a little less gravity is all it takes to cut loose. For a group of Russian space-faring geckos, the extra lift of zero-g appears to have been all the encouragement they needed to engage in a bit of unprecedented tomfoolery.

The 15 geckonauts took off in April 2013 on board the uncrewed Bion-M1 satellite, along with some mice, gerbils, snails and fish. One gecko wriggled free of its coloured identification collar before take-off, and the collar spent the 30 days of orbital flight floating around its enclosure. On-board cameras captured the geckos

[Draggendrop Veteran]

June 18th Status Report......

 

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-18-june-2015.html

 

Item of note........

 

 

ISS Reboost: The ISS performed a reboost at 5:59 am CDT today using 58P thrusters. This reboost was added to the timeline as the result of 43S Soyuz launch date moving from July 24 to July 22. A second reboost is planned for July 10 to finalize setup for 43S Soyuz 4-orbit launch. Delta-V was 0.5 meters/second and burn duration was 4 minutes, 8 seconds.

 

 

 

Friday, 06/19: Ocular Health, CUCU/CCP checkout, SPX-7 OBT RoBOT training
Saturday, 06/20: Crew off duty, housekeeping
Sunday, 06/21: Crew off duty
QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[???] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[???] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Standby
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

 

Cheers.......

[_neutrino Veteran]

The laptops on ISS (and Shuttle) are Lenovo Thinkpads and they had to be tested for radiation tolerance, off-gassing (ex: plastic vapors), thermal characteristics, fire safety & fire suppression.

 

They also had to switch them over to Linux because they kept getting infected. they now no longer have direct access to the internet either. They essentially remote desktop into a computer on the ground and use that computer to browse the internet so that they do not directly connect anything on the space station to the internet. (they use an internal network between the station and the ground so that it is isolated)

[DocM]

Running the browser in an external, isolated server and the workstatio s seeinv a virtual webpage is known as an air gap. The US Govt. has implementing a propriatory version known as AirGap, which was developed by SpaceX's CIO to keep China out of their servers. He left to commercialize it.

https://spikes.com/index.html

[Draggendrop Veteran]

ISS getting a few more camera's.....

 

UrtheCast currently operates medium- and high-resolution cameras mounted on the Russian segment of the ISS. The company released the first video from the high-resolution camera June 17, and said that it would enter commercial service by late July. The company is also developing another high-resolution camera and radar imaging system to be installed on the station

[Draggendrop Veteran]

In reference to ISS computer systems, Doc and Goeffrey B are correct. The laptops are lenova and they still have a few of the IBM variants from before the Lenova acquisition of the product line. The ISS has a Lenova server...which in the past has crashed twice and the crew on board had to reload by media. Official operations are now Linux. The network is hardwired (ethernet) as well as wireless 802.11g (you don't want wireless near sensitive experiments). Data is hard to get on the full system but NASA IT will release a few goodies once in a while. The switch was to Linux as a lot of the equipment is locally controlled via a linux variant anyway. I was surprised though when a NASA IT rep stated awhile back that a few windows laptops are still on board. Last count I saw of laptop numbers was 68 IBM and 32 Lenova, info dated a bit but I will keep looking. The wireless SSID is kept secret, comm is through Houston's sand boxed server and voip used for personal calls to family members. And yes, prior virus's have been brought on board by accident on two occasions. All products brought on board the ISS are now reviewed for issues. Old laptops have a ride on Progress...to the atmospheric incinerator. 

 

ISS....... "game center"

 

Links for data bits..some dated...

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-space-station-switches-from-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability

http://mentalfloss.com/article/57240/11-things-you-might-not-know-about-international-space-station

http://www.cnet.com/news/interview-the-space-stations-it-guys/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/international-space-station-ditches-windows-for-linux/

[Draggendrop Veteran]

This one caught my attention.....32 years ago this week.......

 

On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space when the space shuttle Challenger launched on mission STS-7 from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

 

http://phys.org/news/2015-06-image-sts-clouds.html

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Also this week....52 years ago......

 

 

On June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6, Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel into space. After 48 orbits and 71 hours, she returned to earth, having spent more time in space than all U.S. astronauts combined to that date.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-woman-in-space

 

For a complete list of women astronauts in order of date.........

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_astronauts

 

Cheers....

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Russia's Vostochny launch site (new one under construction) receives first telemetry from the ISS....

 

 

"The first seance with the ISS was held...from 11:00 a.m. to 11:22 a.m. Moscow time [08:00-08:22 GMT] on June 17. The second session was held from 1:48 p.m. to 2:01 p.m. Moscow time [10:48-11:01 GMT]," the company spokesman said.

He said the telemetry signals received were satisfactory.

The Vostochny Space Center is under construction in the Amur Region of Russia's Far East since 2012. The first piloted spacecraft is expected to take off from Vostochny in 2018.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russias_Vostochny_Cosmodrome_Receives_First_Telemetry_From_ISS_999.html

 

 

In other news....Russian and US scientists have had several meetings and have agreed on more science initiatives...

 

 

 

A delegation of RAS representatives visited the US and held talks on cooperation with American scientists. A number of joint projects will be implemented in the near future.

"Those projects deal with carbon energy, environment protection, climate research and the exploration of the North. They are also related to the non-proliferation of nuclear arms and technologies. The visit was very friendly and showed much interest," Fortov said.

According to him, Russian and American scientists agreed on cooperation in the space exploration fields.

"There is visible progress to work together in this field [space exploration]. Recently scientists from the US Academy of Sciences visited our country, and we agreed on certain space exploration projects, including the exploration of Venus. These projects were in question before," Fortov said.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Russian_US_Scientists_to_Cooperate_in_Space_Exploration_Despite_Sanctions_999.html

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

In this post, coverage of the ISS's ECLSS will begin. The ECLSS is the Environmental Control and Life Support System. This is one of the most complex systems on the ISS and is a work in progress. 

Subsystems are:

1) atmosphere

2) fire detection and suppression

3) oxygen levels

4) waste management

5) water supply

6) recycling of particular consumables

 

We will start with the atmosphere, which is kept the same as Earth at sea level, 101.3 kpa (14.7 psi), due to a pure oxygen environment being too dangerous. A good start would be the oxygen supply and tie it into generation and recycling of liquid and gaseous products. Oxygen on board the ISS is achieved by several main systems and back up supplies for emergencies. 

For oxygen, we have...

1) Oxygen Generator System (OGS)

2) ESA OGS as part of it's closed loop ACLS, Advanced Closed Loop System

3) Several Russian Elektron oxygen generators...similar to the OGS systems

4) Compressed air cylinders for top ups (100 day supply, 3 people)

5) SFOG units, solid fuel oxygen generators in canisters, one supplies 1 crew member for 1 day (84 canister supply)

 

A few pictures are here to help as we move through them...

Russian Elektron oxygen generating units

 

ECLSS system which contains the OGA

 

ECLSS schematic of parts

 

ETHOS display program for atmospheric variables

 

To begin, water vapour in the air is reclaimed, as well as water from sink's, showers, condensate, other water use systems and urine ( yes.....the water content can be safely removed)

 

Urine goes to a UPA, Urine Processor Assembly, the liquid is processed and condensate is reused by sending it to the WPA, Water Processor Assembly.

 

The WPA also takes in water from other condensates as well as water produced by the Sabatier Reduction System, SRS.

 

The SRS uses carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produces water (sent to water processor) and methane which is dumped overboard at this time.

 

The Water Processor Assembly produces potable water for use by the station and is also sent to the OGA, Oxygen Generator Assembly, for electrolysis to create oxygen for the cabin.

 

As you can see, as much as possible is reprocessed and reused in the environment.

The OGA can supply 12 pounds of oxygen per day and the ESA unit can supply is approximately the same 

 

In 2005, an Elektron unit failed...2 air canisters were ignited to see how well they worked before switching to tank oxygen.

http://www.space.com/1099-space-station-crew-ignite-oxygen-generating-candles.html

 

We have covered the environmental heating and cooling systems of the ISS and we know that due to a weightless environment, ducting moves the air around the station. The air is filtered by the TCCS, Trace Contaminant Control Subassembly to remove harmfull particulates. Another assembly, the MCA, Major Constituent Analyser monitors the air for the proper ratio of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, methane, carbon dioxide and water vapour.

 

The ETHOS console is in mission control to monitor the ISS environmental controls at all times. This data is available to the crew as well. We used to be able to monitor this data at home but was discontinued in 2014...hope they bring it back online again.....

 

Well...this was a start anyway...will cover other stuff as things progress...hope you didn't fall asleep through this..   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Node-3_Cupola/Oxygen_Generation_System_Rack

http://www.space.com/2052-air-apparent-oxygen-systems-iss.html

https://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-selects-advanced-oxygen-recovery-proposals-for-spacecraft-missions/

http://www.space.com/2052-air-apparent-oxygen-systems-iss.html

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/104840main_eclss.pdf

https://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/ISSRG/pdfs/environmental.pdf

[Arachno 1D]

Just a query whats an astronauts water consumption like compared with Earth does the atmosphere require more fluid intake?

[DocM]

The ISS per person water budget/day is about 2.8 liters for drinking, food rehydration etc., another 6.8-7.25 liters for hygeine and about 9 liters if they do a spacewalk.

In the US the per-person water usage is about 35 liters a day for similar activities, excluding the spacewalk of course.

[FloatingFatMan]

Is the reduced water usage a consequence of microgravity, or the extreme air-conditioned environment?

[Arachno 1D]

So very little really maybe because they don't exert the body as much in mico gravity and ergo don't sweat it through the skin as quickly?

[DocM]

Mostly because less is wasted.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Kibbles and Bits .....

 

The first official "Asteroid Day" will be held June 30, 2015

 

 

 

On 30 June 1908, an asteroid struck the Tunguska region of Russia, devastating a forested area the size of a large city. Next Tuesday, on the anniversary of the Tunguska blastMovie Camera, a group led by astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May and film-maker Grigorij Richters will host Asteroid Day, a celebrity-studded event in San Francisco and London designed to raise awareness of the potentially catastrophic risk of an impact.

But should we really be concerned about apocalyptic asteroids? There is no doubt that massive space rocks have the potential to harm life on Earth

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Off the wall..."How To" requirements in space....

 

How to barf properly....

 

How to experiment on the "fly"...

 

Underwear selection.....

 

Yo Yo's and how to impress girls....

[Draggendrop Veteran]

This topic ties into a few satellites in LEO which reported a few minor glitches in the vicinity of the south Atlantic Ocean. The problems were minor and repaired but as coincidence has it, data will be presented, by ESA, to the Global Space Innovation Conference 2015, being held in Germany this week, which I found interesting.

 

There has been a lot of flimsy science flung around about the Earth' magnetic field and ESA's data will quash most of it.

 

Without the Earth's magnetic field, the solar wind would strip most of our atmosphere off into space...similar to Mar's thin atmosphere as an example. It protects us from most of the damage from CME's (Coronal Mass Ejections) which cause havoc with satellites and Earth based electrical systems. Satellites with poor shielding  can be damaged.

 

The flimsy science that I speak of are write ups about magnetic pole reversal's happening any time. Are we due.....Yes....last one, from scientific study points to approximately 780,000 years ago, and appears to happen continuously in varying lengths of time. There is a consensus now that it may take thousands of years for it to happen again...not this week....

Is the magnetic North pole moving.....Yes.....for a long time it has drifted around the Canadian arctic... and is now drifting in the direction of Siberia, at an accelerated rate. The pole has been drifting at an accelerated rate for some time now.....and is not a point of panic.....and could change course again. Is the Earth's  magnetic field weakening........Yes.....and in some spots getting stronger. An anomaly of a weak area has been found in the south Atlantic Ocean (area of the couple of sat glitches)....and a stronger field area has also been found in the south Indian Ocean.

 

Earth's magnetic field deflecting charged particles....

 

For the most part it does a pretty good job of deflection, but there are times when the magnetic field get's hit with a monster and outright havoc ensues. An example of this was the Carrington Event on the 1st September, 1859, a rare huge storm.

 

Just before dawn the next day, skies all over planet Earth erupted in red, green, and purple auroras so brilliant that newspapers could be read as easily as in daylight. Indeed, stunning auroras pulsated even at near tropical latitudes over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii.

 

Even more disconcerting, telegraph systems worldwide went haywire. Spark discharges shocked telegraph operators and set the telegraph paper on fire. Even when telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to be transmitted.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/

The above link goes into detail as well as weaker modern examples...good read.....

Which brings me to the ESA SWARM mission...and the data that will be discussed at GSIC 2015

 

 

Launched in November 2013, Swarm is providing unprecedented insights into the complex workings of Earth

[Draggendrop Veteran]

NASA ISS on orbit status report for 22 June 2015

 

 

 

The orbiting Expedition 44 trio is counting down to next week's arrival of the SpaceX CRS-7 mission. The station inhabitants also participated in an emergency drill and advanced microgravity science.

One-Year crew member Scott Kelly is training for the robotic capture of the Dragon supply ship set for about 9 a.m. EDT June 30. Commander Gennady Padalka will be his backup monitoring systems during the rendezvous and approach. Dragon will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sunday at 10:21 a.m.

Padalka, Kelly and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko practiced an emergency Soyuz evacuation drill on Monday. In the unlikely event the crew would need to escape from the space station during an emergency, they would use a Soyuz spacecraft as a lifeboat and return to Earth.

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-22-june-2015.html

 

 

 

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Tuesday, 06/23: Dragon Offset Grapple, Biome, BCAT, PWD Sample Collect and TOCA Analysis
Wednesday, 06/24: Dragon OBT RoBOT, Biome
Thursday, 06/25: Ocular Health, Dragon OBT RoBOT, Sprint
QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[???] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[???] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Standby
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-22-june-2015.html

 

Cheers.....

Note...nice camera gear.....

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

While reading DocM's SpaceX CRS-7 thread, he posted the shipping manifest today for Sunday's CRS-7 launch. In the manifest, I noticed a new addition for the Veggie experiments and thought I would do a quick blurt on it.

Manifest quote....

 

 

Veg-03
Organisms grow differently in space, from single-celled bacteria to plants and humans. But future long-duration
space missions will require crew members to grow their own food, so understanding how plants respond to
microgravity is an important step toward that goal. Veg-03 uses the Veggie plant growth facility to cultivate a
type of cabbage, which is harvested in orbit with samples returned to Earth for testing.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/spacex_crs7_mission_overview.pdf

 

SpaceX CRS-3 launched on 18th of April, 2014. On board was the Veg-01 growing platform to be left on the ISS for continual experimentation of plant growth. The space station has a pressurized environment similar to Earth's at sea level with the proper constituent gaseous mixtures. SpaceX CRS-4 brought back first test samples of the program.

The unit consumes 115 watts of power and has data monitoring built in. This is important due to the fact that a similar setup is at KSC (Florida), doing the same experiments on Earth. LED banks of red, green and blue are adjustable to control light wavelength. The experiments are done on little "pillows" which contain special media types to germinate and grow various plants. As the plants grow, the tray can be lowered to accommodate the plants. Red romaine lettuce was in the first crop test. CRS-7 will be delivering Tokyo bekana cabbage on this trip. As crops are grown for a predefined time, they are harvested and put in deep freeze until the next SpaceX craft departs. The specimens are put in a cryo cooler for return to KSC. Once tests are done and deemed safe, the crew can grow a crop for consumption while waiting for the next experimental plant seed to be sent up.

 

The facility weighs 7.2 Kilograms and measures 53 by 40 centimeters and permits a maximum growth height of 45 centimeters. The root mat has a growing area of 0.16m

[DocM]

The Veggie experiments were developed for NASA by ORBITEC, now a division of Sierra Nevada Corp. SNC are the builders of the Dream Chaser spaceplane. Here's their site link and one of the earlier Veggie pdf's with more tech data.

http://www.orbitec.com

http://www.orbitec.com/documents/VEGGIE.pdf

[Draggendrop Veteran]

DocM found some great data and I'll add some extra data here for the Veggie system.

 

LED Data....(growing lamps)...

There are multiple rows of square lamp assemblies containing all 3 colors with wavelength variability...(pdf has picture)

 

 

Maximum power.....................................................115 W
Light output 640 nm (red)............. 0-300

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Hi....I am going to start a new thread for ISS today...shortly......I may botch it up...so don't laugh too hard...I will try to do what Doc does and place this thread on page one of next thread......without crashing NEOWIN..........

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Starting new thread to make it easier to reference prior data....Thank's

 

Thread 1

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1258256-international-space-station-updates/

 

 

Contents of Thread 1
-PMM module movement
-Videos of visiting space craft
-3D printing
-Station tour videos
-General station spec's
-Effects of space on a "body"
-ISS active cooling and heating
-NASA LDSD
-MMOD and space junk
-Space suits
-Robotic arms and MSS
-General robotics
-ISS EPS (power system)
-Module placements, solar cells, beta angles
-Bigelow modules, crew transport articles
-Camera's, MIR overview
-Laptops and computer ops
-ISS ECLSS environmental controls
-Swarm sat system
-VEGGIE experiments
-General space updates, space anniversary event articles
-Weird, wacky and fun space stuff

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Space Junk....

 

http://spacenews.com/nasas-interest-in-removal-of-orbital-debris-limited-to-tech-demos/

The above photo is an exaggeration of the situation...but it is about to get a little busy up there.....

 

NASA has had an interest in funding prototype debris removal systems and have helped many in this quest. Others have also been pioneering new approaches to the problem as well....But we now come to a dilemma...Who is responsible for the debris?

 

The answer can be decided by Space Law as well as Organizational directives...which will be covered in the next post...but for now...a cheesy answer would be...The country that launched the debris. For now, general directives, which will be covered in the next post...are a 25 year stay, then bring it down....with liabilities.

 

This post will cover some of the available techniques that are out there...What caused this post.....

 

 

NASA adopted a policy in June 2014 to support development of orbital debris removal technology but not of operational systems. Specifically, the space agency backs projects with Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 1 through 4, which means NASA