Hubble rescue mission change

Jeff Findley wrote:

make this work. Plus there are all othe other problems like how to grab
Progress (you'd want a grapple fixture for the RMS to snag) and how to
depressurize it and open the hatch.


Consider one of the early satellite servicing missions where the
satellite wasn't stable to be grabbed by the arm and it was an EVA
astronaut who went to grab it.

Since sending a Progress to Hubble would be a last resort to try to save
a shuttle, I would think that NASA would give astronauts more leaway in
terms of what they can and cannot do. AKA: forget the "book", let them
do what needs to be done as long as ir is reasonable.

So, the arm bring an astronaut within touch of progress. Astronaut
attaches some cable to both the arm and progress. Then punches hole to
depressurise it (or simply opens the equalisation valve on the hatch).
Air is pushed out, and progress tries to move away from shuttle but the
cable holds it. Once all is depressurised, hatch opened, EVA astronaut
takes out whatever needs to be taken out and then detaches the cord from
progress and arm brings astronaut and the goodies back to the shuttle.

Heck, if the space hammer is too hard to use because of 0G, the russians
might punch a small hole in the progress just because launch.

One issue might be any avionics/systems in the pressurised section which
might need air for cooling.


BTW, I haven't kept up with Hubble. What are the current plans for
deorbit ? Have they actually installed a de-orbit engine to it ?

On Dec 23, 7:41*am, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:
wrote in message

...

On Dec 22, 2:24 am, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
The problem with the progress idea is pressurisation. I do not think
there
are facilities to unpressurise it on orbit unless its connected to a
docking
port.

It kind of makes it hard to dock a Progress or a Soyuz to a stranded
shuttle orbiter when they use two different types of docking
mechanisms. Rigging up tethers to an unmanned vehicle, *never mind
depressurizing it are the least of the problems to consider in this
scenario. As Jorge has pointed out, launching a Progress or a Soyuz
down into a 28.5 degree inclination and at the Hubble altitude is well
out of the Soyuz launcher's capability.

What about a Progress or Soyuz launched from Guyana?

http://spaceports.blogspot.com/2007/...21968/from/ET/

From the above article by James Oberg:

* *Although the purpose of the new launch pad is mutual profit
* *through commercial payload delivery to space, Russian
* *officials make no secret of their long-range goal for the
* *facility. It is human space flight - more Gagarins, on
* *Russian-European spacecraft - using a new access highway
* *to space that bypasses existing political bottlenecks in
* *Kazakhstan and in Florida.

Of course, wishful thinking on the part of the Russians wouldn't be enough.
You'd have to have a Progress or Soyuz nearly ready to launch in order to
make this work. *Plus there are all othe other problems like how to grab
Progress (you'd want a grapple fixture for the RMS to snag) and how to
depressurize it and open the hatch.


Where are the facilities to process the Progress or Soyuz down in
Kourou? As Jorge also correctly pointed out, they don't exist either,
and there is currently no provision for such in the near term. This
really is just wishful thinking. If you're going to go down this
route, why not imagine SpaceX's Dragon really advanced in schedule to
be there ready to go next May. At least that craft has provision for
an RMS grapple fixture, and has a bay that can carry unpressurized
cargo.

Or we can realistically assume that the flight will go without any
serious mishap, as it most likely will, and this'll all be a moot
point.
-Mike

John Doe wrote:
Consider one of the early satellite servicing missions where the
satellite wasn't stable to be grabbed by the arm and it was an EVA
astronaut who went to grab it.

Since sending a Progress to Hubble would be a last resort to try to save
a shuttle, I would think that NASA would give astronauts more leaway in
terms of what they can and cannot do. AKA: forget the "book", let them
do what needs to be done as long as ir is reasonable.

But again, this is just a one-off mission.
After this, all the future Shuttle flights will go to the ISS - so you
don't need a immediate rescue option unless something goes very wrong
indeed during ascent and it can't even make it to the station.
Also, the timeline is getting pretty short to be making any big rescue
plans now; something like this would need several months to work out,
particularly if it involved the Russians.
The really nasty scenario is if something goes wrong with Atlantis that
traps it in orbit, and it's suspected that the same thing may happen to
Endeavour if it is launched to rescue the Atlantis crew.



BTW, I haven't kept up with Hubble. What are the current plans for
deorbit ? Have they actually installed a de-orbit engine to it ?


Hubble isn't scheduled to deorbit naturally (after this mission's orbit
boost) till around 2030, so they decided to just put off dealing with
the problem for a while.
If Orion ever gets into operation, it could attach a deorbit motor to it
or modify its orbit into one that would hit a designated place by the
use of its service module engine, then detach and use the engine again
to climb back into a orbit from which it would return from at the end
of the mission.
Alternately, it could be destroyed (broken up into small pieces that
would burn up on reentry) by a Navy ASAT missile, which is probably the
cheapest and simplest way of dealing with it, particularly if it starts
to tumble after all of its gyros fail somewhere down the line.

Pat

On Dec 24, 3:45�am, Pat Flannery wrote:
John Doe wrote:
Consider one of the early satellite servicing missions where the
satellite wasn't stable to be grabbed by the arm and it was an EVA
astronaut who went to grab it.

Since sending a Progress to Hubble would be a last resort to try to save
a shuttle, I would think that NASA would give astronauts more leaway in
terms of what they can and cannot do. �AKA: forget the "book", let them
do what needs to be done as long as ir is reasonable.

But again, this is just a one-off mission.
After this, all the future Shuttle flights will go to the ISS - so you
don't need a immediate rescue option unless something goes very wrong
indeed during ascent and it can't even make it to the station.
Also, the timeline is getting pretty short to be making any big rescue
plans now; something like this would need several months to work out,
particularly if it involved the Russians.
The really nasty scenario is if something goes wrong with Atlantis that
traps it in orbit, and it's suspected that the same thing may happen to
Endeavour if it is launched to rescue the Atlantis crew.



BTW, I haven't kept up with Hubble. What are the current plans for
deorbit ? Have they actually installed a de-orbit engine to it ?

Hubble isn't scheduled to deorbit naturally (after this mission's orbit
boost) till around 2030, so they decided to just put off dealing with
the problem for a while.
If Orion ever gets into operation, it could attach a deorbit motor to it
or modify its orbit into one that would hit a designated place by the
use of its service module engine, then detach and use the engine again
to climb back into a orbit from which it would return �from at the end
of the mission.
Alternately, it could be destroyed (broken up into small pieces that
would burn up on reentry) by a Navy ASAT missile, which is probably the
cheapest and simplest way of dealing with it, particularly if it starts
to tumble after all of its gyros fail somewhere down the line.

Pat

werent they talking of attaching a grapple a remote controled vehicle
could grab and use to deorbit

wrote in message
...

Where are the facilities to process the Progress or Soyuz down in
Kourou? As Jorge also correctly pointed out, they don't exist either,
and there is currently no provision for such in the near term.

True.

This
really is just wishful thinking. If you're going to go down this
route, why not imagine SpaceX's Dragon really advanced in schedule to
be there ready to go next May. At least that craft has provision for
an RMS grapple fixture, and has a bay that can carry unpressurized
cargo.

Or we can realistically assume that the flight will go without any
serious mishap, as it most likely will, and this'll all be a moot
point.

Especially since Space-X just won the bulk of the COTS contract with Orbital
winning quite a few flights as well. Since we're assuming a "throw out the
book and do what you can" type of approach, you'd launch whatever you've got
that could get close enough to the shuttle's orbit that it could be snagged
by the shuttle crew. In this case, whatever you launch has to be capable of
maintaining its attitude so the shuttle can snag it (assuming that its fuel
cells, RCS, and SSRMS are all operational). This is a lot easier than the
ISS case where ISS is passive and the COTS craft has to do all the
maneuvering.

This is essentially the "care package" approach that James Oberg wrote about
after the Columbia disaster. You need to get enough provisions (O2, CO2
scrubbers, food, and etc) up to the shuttle to keep the crew alive until a
shuttle rescue mission could be launched. It doesn't have to be pretty, it
just has to work.

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
news
Alternately, it could be destroyed (broken up into small pieces that would
burn up on reentry) by a Navy ASAT missile, which is probably the cheapest
and simplest way of dealing with it, particularly if it starts to tumble
after all of its gyros fail somewhere down the line.

I wouldn't think this would work well. The most dangerous thing on Hubble
is likely to be the mirror. Unless a Navy ASAT missile can fragment the
mirror into small enough pieces as to become harmless, forget about this
approach.

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson

Jeff Findley wrote:
I wouldn't think this would work well. The most dangerous thing on Hubble
is likely to be the mirror. Unless a Navy ASAT missile can fragment the
mirror into small enough pieces as to become harmless, forget about this
approach.


If it hit it at the mirror end, the velocity of the impact should pretty
thoroughly shatter the glass mirror from the shockwave of the impact
propagating through it.

Pat

bob haller safety advocate wrote:
werent they talking of attaching a grapple a remote controled vehicle
could grab and use to deorbit


But that would be difficult to do if it's tumbling.

Pat