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I'm concerned that they'll have a hard time closing the reentry vehicle, that its hinge and hermetically sealing systems will become jammed open as well. There'
by LeifCarrotson 6y ago
I'm concerned that they'll have a hard time closing the reentry vehicle, that its hinge and hermetically sealing systems will become jammed open as well. There's no one available to wipe the gravel and dust off the sealing surface with their finger...
I'm not involved in the project, but I do work on terrestrial automation projects, often involving CNCs - chip management to prevent swarf accumulating on your hard stops and tapers is a real problem! Here, we have plenty of compressed air as well as gravity to clear chips, and preventative maintenance schedules for the stuff that the automated cleanup processes missed, and we remove parts to cleanrooms for important measurement stages, but that spacecraft is basically floating in a cloud of gravel...not a good environment for precision seals!