Jim Kingdon wrote:

Flight controllers detected spikes in current and vibration in one of
the station's three operating gyroscopes on Nov. 8. Last week, when
the gyroscopes were used again to shift the position of the orbiting
outpost, all three worked fine.

They are talking about the CMG's.

I'm not thrilled about the use of the word "gyroscope" as a gyroscope
is generally a sensor rather than an actuator (hence the "scope" part
of "gyroscope").

On different web sites I saw CMG expanded as "Control Moment
Gyroscopes" or "Control Moment Gyros".

The Russian term "gyrodynes" does seem like a logical one when
considered in that light.

I agree, gyrodyne is a better term to describe the gyro's function.

Anyway, enough discussion of terminology. Let's hope that they can
keep the CMG's limping until they can replace some of them. The
replacement of at least one of them is on the return to flight shuttle
mission according to
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/future/index.html


Space Station, gyrodyne problems. Hubble, gyrodyne problems, most critical
item that limits the time between service missions. Any other NASA
spacecraft with gyrodyne problems?

I wonder how many different "improved" versions of gyrodynes the Hubble has
had without successfully fixing the problem?

Craig Fink