6 ms·

Nauka's Troubled Flight–Before It Tumbled the ISS

85 points by samizdis 5y ago

mlindner 5y ago
Author info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Oberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Oberg
mlindner 5y ago
Really good summary of a lot of details from the Russian language side of what happened with the module. Though the author seems to use a bunch of what appears to be poorly machine translated quotes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wumpus 5y ago
  He's not a native Russian speaker, despite many years of following the Soviet/Russian space program.
trhway 5y ago
you would hesitate to download and install a Russian app, yet it seems ok to attach a Russian module to ISS :) Supposedly because Russian module for ISS passed stricter checks. According to whom? Russian team has just participated in Olympics without state flag and symbols because of doping testing scandal. The sport and space are among the main pillars of the Russian state self-glorification, and everything goes when it comes to face-saving there. In the second half of the 199x i had an acquaintance who was director of a department building some electronic systems for Russian space. He told me a lot of backstories of how the Russian space sausage was being made. From sourcing parts for the Mir station at the local flea market ("Avtovo" who still remembers) to "what do you want, the whole year the salaries weren't paid and nobody was working, and a month before the launch they pay the salaries and the satellite is hastily built, no testing to speak of, and launched, of course it quickly failed". These days the situation with salaries is a bit better while the rest is pretty much the same, and the surfacing story with Nauka sounds just like one of those backstories. And that is on top of that hole in a Russian module sometime ago - one can see the progression from the hole affecting ISS's air to the badly behaving Nauka affecting ISS's position to ...
- diskzero 5y ago
  It is hard to comprehend how many of the space-related feats of engineering were accomplished by the Soviet Union. On a trip to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, I was stunned by the size of the test stand for the Energia rocket. It is massive, with numerous support buildings, lighting, pipelines and support vehicles. The amount of poured concrete is mind boggling. This stand was only used once. The actual launch stand for Energia is similar in scope and it was only used twice. Of course, during the first Energia-Polyus launch, Polyus seperated from Energia, did a 360 degress rotation and burned up in the atmosphere. It is difficult to reconcile this mixture of competence and incompetence.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  The "I" in "ISS" stands for International. It is a collaboration between the USA, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada, with the USA and Russia being responsible for most of its initial construction. It is one of the crowning achievements of humanity so far and helps to prove that we don't all suffer from the same petty xenophobia that your comment demonstrates.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    It is a scheme to keep Russian engineers from working for Iran and North Korea. Same as the foolish plan to build US rockets with Russian engines.
  - PhantomGremlin 5y ago
    petty xenophobia Was it facts? How does stating the facts of how things were done in the late stages of the USSR space program and are done in the current Russian space program translate to petty xenophobia? If you want xenophobia, didn't the Russians accuse us of drilling holes in their space station module? Or was that just domestic propaganda?
    - pinewurst 5y ago
      Don’t forget their blaming sinister US radars for the failure of their last Mars launch too.
duxup 5y ago
Considering the tensions surrounding NASA and other Russian space events I'm not surprised NASA might avoid pointing the finger a great deal, especially if Russians are going to reveal what happened on their own as described in this article.
- breput 5y ago
  They won't. By all accounts, Roscosmos is completely corrupt and NASA can't afford to lose Russia as an ISS partner. You'll note that even though a SpaceX Crew Dragon was also attached to the ISS at the time, it was not used to counteract Nauka's thrust and the only mention of it was that it could be powered up quickly as an escape pod. Part of that is due to the low lever-arm position of it, but I also believe it was probably never programmed to provide pitch and yaw support, and maybe not even altitude reboost. I am willing to bet that software is being written right now, though.
  - wumpus 5y ago
    Dragon is not so good for reboost, but Cygnus is now qualified to do it.
  - sephamorr 5y ago
    Generally, capsules that burn up in the atmosphere rather than landing are useful for boosting, but if you have to have a heat shield on the bottom of your spacecraft (and the docking port generally on the top), you can't have thrusters that point along the center of mass line of the station. Dragon's thrusters aren't quite so well pointed due to this problem, so boosting with dragon would be very inefficient.
    - breput 5y ago
      You're probably not wrong but there are Draco/Super Draco engines all around the Dragon capsule and some combination of those could probably be used to for any thrust vector.
    - wumpus 5y ago
breput 5y ago
Scott Manley's video[0] is interesting because he (among others) realized that the rotation was way more serious while the official 45° rotation story was still the news. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDBt9rZhMb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDBt9rZhMb4
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  That video is really sped up.
Waterluvian 5y ago
Am I reading this correctly? If these accounts are accurate, we got perilously close to losing the ISS?
- colordrops 5y ago
  Yes
iampivot 5y ago
I guess the hyperdrive motivator had been damaged.
toss1 5y ago
With that long list of problems and failed sensors & software on the Nauka module, the Russian team's hands-on real-time efforts to keep the thing functionally flying seem quite impressive - sharp save-the-day work. That said, allowing the thing to dock before they could implement more stable fixes seems quite unwise - and especially just before a flight path out of communication with the team. Why couldn't they just wait a few orbits or days? Seems as unwise as launching a shuttle in out-of-spec cold conditions, they just barely got away with it this time. I recall seeing a recent high level criticism of NASA losing (again) its safety culture - seems like another supporting data point for that thesis.

85 points by samizdis 5y ago

Author info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Oberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Oberg

Really good summary of a lot of details from the Russian language side of what happened with the module. Though the author seems to use a bunch of what appears to be poorly machine translated quotes.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wumpus 5y ago
He's not a native Russian speaker, despite many years of following the Soviet/Russian space program.

trhway 5y ago

you would hesitate to download and install a Russian app, yet it seems ok to attach a Russian module to ISS :) Supposedly because Russian module for ISS passed stricter checks. According to whom? Russian team has just participated in Olympics without state flag and symbols because of doping testing scandal. The sport and space are among the main pillars of the Russian state self-glorification, and everything goes when it comes to face-saving there. In the second half of the 199x i had an acquaintance who was director of a department building some electronic systems for Russian space. He told me a lot of backstories of how the Russian space sausage was being made. From sourcing parts for the Mir station at the local flea market ("Avtovo" who still remembers) to "what do you want, the whole year the salaries weren't paid and nobody was working, and a month before the launch they pay the salaries and the satellite is hastily built, no testing to speak of, and launched, of course it quickly failed". These days the situation with salaries is a bit better while the rest is pretty much the same, and the surfacing story with Nauka sounds just like one of those backstories. And that is on top of that hole in a Russian module sometime ago - one can see the progression from the hole affecting ISS's air to the badly behaving Nauka affecting ISS's position to ...

diskzero 5y ago
It is hard to comprehend how many of the space-related feats of engineering were accomplished by the Soviet Union. On a trip to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, I was stunned by the size of the test stand for the Energia rocket. It is massive, with numerous support buildings, lighting, pipelines and support vehicles. The amount of poured concrete is mind boggling. This stand was only used once. The actual launch stand for Energia is similar in scope and it was only used twice. Of course, during the first Energia-Polyus launch, Polyus seperated from Energia, did a 360 degress rotation and burned up in the atmosphere. It is difficult to reconcile this mixture of competence and incompetence.
LeoPanthera 5y ago
The "I" in "ISS" stands for International. It is a collaboration between the USA, Russia, Japan, Europe, and Canada, with the USA and Russia being responsible for most of its initial construction. It is one of the crowning achievements of humanity so far and helps to prove that we don't all suffer from the same petty xenophobia that your comment demonstrates.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  It is a scheme to keep Russian engineers from working for Iran and North Korea. Same as the foolish plan to build US rockets with Russian engines.
- PhantomGremlin 5y ago
  petty xenophobia Was it facts? How does stating the facts of how things were done in the late stages of the USSR space program and are done in the current Russian space program translate to petty xenophobia? If you want xenophobia, didn't the Russians accuse us of drilling holes in their space station module? Or was that just domestic propaganda?
  - pinewurst 5y ago
    Don’t forget their blaming sinister US radars for the failure of their last Mars launch too.

duxup 5y ago

Considering the tensions surrounding NASA and other Russian space events I'm not surprised NASA might avoid pointing the finger a great deal, especially if Russians are going to reveal what happened on their own as described in this article.

breput 5y ago
They won't. By all accounts, Roscosmos is completely corrupt and NASA can't afford to lose Russia as an ISS partner. You'll note that even though a SpaceX Crew Dragon was also attached to the ISS at the time, it was not used to counteract Nauka's thrust and the only mention of it was that it could be powered up quickly as an escape pod. Part of that is due to the low lever-arm position of it, but I also believe it was probably never programmed to provide pitch and yaw support, and maybe not even altitude reboost. I am willing to bet that software is being written right now, though.
- wumpus 5y ago
  Dragon is not so good for reboost, but Cygnus is now qualified to do it.
- sephamorr 5y ago
  Generally, capsules that burn up in the atmosphere rather than landing are useful for boosting, but if you have to have a heat shield on the bottom of your spacecraft (and the docking port generally on the top), you can't have thrusters that point along the center of mass line of the station. Dragon's thrusters aren't quite so well pointed due to this problem, so boosting with dragon would be very inefficient.
  - breput 5y ago
    You're probably not wrong but there are Draco/Super Draco engines all around the Dragon capsule and some combination of those could probably be used to for any thrust vector.
  - wumpus 5y ago

breput 5y ago

Scott Manley's video[0] is interesting because he (among others) realized that the rotation was way more serious while the official 45° rotation story was still the news. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDBt9rZhMb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDBt9rZhMb4

aero-glide2 5y ago
That video is really sped up.

Waterluvian 5y ago

Am I reading this correctly? If these accounts are accurate, we got perilously close to losing the ISS?

colordrops 5y ago
Yes

iampivot 5y ago

I guess the hyperdrive motivator had been damaged.

toss1 5y ago

With that long list of problems and failed sensors & software on the Nauka module, the Russian team's hands-on real-time efforts to keep the thing functionally flying seem quite impressive - sharp save-the-day work. That said, allowing the thing to dock before they could implement more stable fixes seems quite unwise - and especially just before a flight path out of communication with the team. Why couldn't they just wait a few orbits or days? Seems as unwise as launching a shuttle in out-of-spec cold conditions, they just barely got away with it this time. I recall seeing a recent high level criticism of NASA losing (again) its safety culture - seems like another supporting data point for that thesis.