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Neat. Debbie Downer: Looks like it fairly easily could have been made with like 50% less mass. Perhaps that wouldn't have mattered though.
by lysace 2y ago
Neat.
Debbie Downer: Looks like it fairly easily could have been made with like 50% less mass.
Perhaps that wouldn't have mattered though.
- echoangle 2y agoTrue, I wonder how that would not be a factor, surely they always have stuff they could send up to the ISS as a backup. So if they would have made this 500g lighter, they could have sent 500g more food, for example. I also can't imagine that the resupply flights are volume limited instead of mass.
- imglorp 2y agoNASA's 2-year cert for electronics requirement is puzzling. I understand rules about mission critical electronics: you want to (a) depend on it and (b) avoid fire, magic smoke, and blowing breakers on the Station. But for a non-critical application, you don't care about (a) and the risk of (b) from a 5V/2A microcontroller with a worm drive motor seems reasonably remote.
- echoangle 2y agoDid you mean to post this under my comment? I don’t see the connection.
- imglorp 2y agoYes - it might have been 500g lighter if it wasn't fully mechanical.
- echoangle 2y agoTrue, but even for a fully mechanical one, the one shown seems very heavy. It looks like weight wasn’t a real concern, which is strange. The plates are very thick and a lot of material could have been removed to reduce weight.
- NortySpock 2y agoOn the other hand, rocket launches produce a lot of vibration, and you don't want it to require fixing on orbit. Astronaut labor time I once saw calculated to cost something like $1M USD/astronaut/day in terms of long-tail logistical support. Once it's up there, it's a negligible percent of the total spacecraft mass, and might be useful for later astronaut photographers.
- someguydave 2y agoNobody involved wants to take the risk, no matter how trivial
- polishdude20 2y agoThey've got the camera mounted to it using a long moment arm in one of the photos. The tracker needs to be really rigid to hold it I'd think.
- lysace 2y ago"Long" = like 70 cm.
- dylan604 2y agofairly easily how? bold statement with no explanation of your ideas on where the wasted mass is. the front/back plates? looks like your standard 3/8" aluminum plates. could they have used 1/4"? other materials like plastic/carbon would probably not have passed NASA requirements. plastic/carbon could chip into small pieces which is a very bad thing on the ISS. so you're left with a metal, and aluminum is pretty safe choice. it's clear there are several holes in these plates that are not tapped and are there solely as a means to reduce the weight. moving the pieces closer for a tighter fit resulting in a overall smaller unit size? this thing is meant for ease of use. extra space affords that, and making it more compact complicates its use.
- echoangle 2y agoYou could have made a lot of holes on those plate to reduce weight while still having it very rigid. Those plates are extremely oversized right now.