Pat Flannery wrote in
:

John Doe wrote:

I don't think you can fault anyone for this at this point in time. We
have to wait to see how they react in the event they cannot fix the
thruster.

As to why they are keen to test them:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/osf/station/images/issalt.gif
Without the Shuttle reboosts they are slowly but surely getting lower
despite the Progress reboosts.

That plot is not as alarming as it might appear. ISS is now flying through
solar minimum, so it can fly at a lower altitude while maintaining the same
orbital lifetime. And as you pointed out yourself, Zvezda has plenty of
propellant reserves that could be interconnected to Progress to boost ISS
all the way back up to its maximum altitude in a contingency. Right now the
Russians and NASA are taking advantage of solar minimum to optimize
Progress and shuttle payload.


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JRF

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