JF Mezei wrote on 12/27/2013 :
On 13-12-27 16:30, Brian Gaff wrote:
So will they ever be able to get the old unit back to see what went wrong? I
don't see any obvious way to do it unless they want to take it apart on
orbit or something.

I doubt very much they would allow anything that had ammonia in it to go
indoors and travel with a soyuz down.

Perhaps if they could have put the unit into a sealed plastic bag, they
may have been able to bring it in the airlock and then put it into a
sealed briefcase before re-pressurizing the airlock. That might have
provided sufficient protection against any ammonia leaking into cabin
atmosphere.

Does Dragon offer any downmass already ? when is the next dragon ?

NET Feb 22, 2014 according to NASA.gov

The spacesuit that malfunctioned in July was supposed to be down mass
on that flight. That may still be planned, even though it worked well
this time around. I imagine that the ground folk are making sure
there's space for the pump in the down manifest. That's one of the
reasons it was put in storage, I believe. (External storage, that is.)

The pressurized portion of Dragon will be filled with science racks.

I think the pump would be too big for the Soyuz return capsule even if
it hadn't been filled with ammonia; downmass on that vehicle is rather
limited due to the cramped space, IIRC. No science racks on that ride;
I don't know how many "shoeboxes" of samples they can return.

/dps




--
I have always been glad we weren't killed that night. I do not know
any particular reason, but I have always been glad.
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain