Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

MSNBC // Technology & Science // SPACE NEWS
Silent suspense surrounded birth of space station
Russians recall glitch that required fast thinking after 1998’s initial
launch
http://www.msnbc.com/news/996722.asp
By James Oberg, NBC NEWS SPACE ANALYST
Nov. 21 — Five years ago, when the very first section of the
international space station reached orbit, the entire program could have
teetered on the edge of failure. It was Nov. 20, 1998, and the project was
saved only through the last-minute intervention of some unsung Russian space
experts, who never told NASA how close they had come to disaster. Or at
least that’s the story told at the Russian space command center at
Krasnoznamensk, southwest of Moscow, where military personnel do the actual
communications with all 120 active Russian spacecraft.
From Krasnoznamensk, data are transmitted to the better-known
Mission Control Center in the northern Moscow suburb of Korolyov, where on
Nov. 20, 1998, foreign dignitaries and journalists were celebrating —
perhaps prematurely — the successful launch.

JimO wrote:

Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

From the article:
"The module was the FGB, Russian for “Functional Cargo Block,”
code-named “Zarya.” Based on a design flown before (including one
spectacular Russian space station failure in May 1987 that the Russians
had not told NASA about), the hardware was part of the military side of
the Russian program and had special high-security radio links with Earth."
Does this refer to Polyus?

Pat

Pat Flannery writes:

JimO wrote:

Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

"The module was the FGB, Russian for "Functional Cargo Block," code-named
"Zarya." Based on a design flown before (including one spectacular Russian
space station failure in May 1987 that the Russians had not told NASA about),
the hardware was part of the military side of the Russian program and had
special high-security radio links with Earth."
Does this refer to Polyus?

Yes, Polyus was launched on the first Energia on May 15, 1987.

Pat Flannery wrote in
:



JimO wrote:

Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

From the article:
"The module was the FGB, Russian for “Functional Cargo Block,”
code-named “Zarya.” Based on a design flown before (including one
spectacular Russian space station failure in May 1987 that the
Russians had not told NASA about), the hardware was part of the
military side of the Russian program and had special high-security
radio links with Earth." Does this refer to Polyus?

Yes. The FGB was used as the orbit insertion/maneuvering stage for Polyus.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:

Yes. The FGB was used as the orbit insertion/maneuvering stage for Polyus.


It's fascinating to speculate what would have happened it Polyus got
successfully into orbit, rather than malfunctioning and heading into the
ocean- I get the impression that the militarization of space would have
started pronto.

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
It's fascinating to speculate what would have happened it Polyus got
successfully into orbit, rather than malfunctioning and heading into the
ocean- I get the impression that the militarization of space would have
started pronto.


Agreed, it might have set off all the wrong sort of 'space race'.

In article ,
"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote in
:



JimO wrote:

Russia's Secret: Did Space Station Nearly Die The Day It Was Born?

From the article:
"The module was the FGB, Russian for “Functional Cargo Block,”
code-named “Zarya.” Based on a design flown before (including one
spectacular Russian space station failure in May 1987 that the
Russians had not told NASA about), the hardware was part of the
military side of the Russian program and had special high-security
radio links with Earth." Does this refer to Polyus?

Yes. The FGB was used as the orbit insertion/maneuvering stage for Polyus.

Interestingly, at the tail end of Space Station Freedom, as it was
morphing through Space Station Alpha on it's way to ISS, the final
"restructure/rephase" was to consider the option of using a
Lockheed-designed "service module" to perform the task later given to
FGB. It was not divulged how and why Lockheed had designed such a
module nor were we encouraged to ask; it was enough that we were told:
"It works and this is what it can do . . ." Obviously (moreso now than
in the summer of 1993), this was a core vehicle used for various
classified NRO payloads that NASA was essentially begging for permission
to use for early attitude and orbital control. It's unclear if NRO
simply refused or if they place so many roadblocks in the way of its use
that NASA was forced to go to the Russians on this aspect of the program.

Anyway, just another tidbit from the dusty archives of SSF/ISS trivia I
carry around with me . . .

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Columbia Loss FAQ:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Interestingly, at the tail end of Space Station Freedom, as it was
morphing through Space Station Alpha on it's way to ISS, the final
"restructure/rephase" was to consider the option of using a
Lockheed-designed "service module" to perform the task later given to
FGB. It was not divulged how and why Lockheed had designed such a
module nor were we encouraged to ask; it was enough that we were told:
"It works and this is what it can do . . ." Obviously (moreso now than
in the summer of 1993), this was a core vehicle used for various
classified NRO payloads that NASA was essentially begging for permission
to use for early attitude and orbital control.

This probably gives the recon satellites the ability to change their
orbital parameters on-station; both to evade interception and to make
their time of passage over interesting photo targets less predictable.

It's unclear if NRO
simply refused or if they place so many roadblocks in the way of its use
that NASA was forced to go to the Russians on this aspect of the program.

It would have meant people would get a detailed look at its design, and
a lot of its capabilities could have been deduced from that.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote in
:

Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Interestingly, at the tail end of Space Station Freedom, as it was
morphing through Space Station Alpha on it's way to ISS, the final
"restructure/rephase" was to consider the option of using a
Lockheed-designed "service module" to perform the task later given to
FGB. It was not divulged how and why Lockheed had designed such a
module nor were we encouraged to ask; it was enough that we were told:
"It works and this is what it can do . . ." Obviously (moreso now than
in the summer of 1993), this was a core vehicle used for various
classified NRO payloads that NASA was essentially begging for permission
to use for early attitude and orbital control.

This probably gives the recon satellites the ability to change their
orbital parameters on-station; both to evade interception and to make
their time of passage over interesting photo targets less predictable.

More the latter than the former; neither superpower actually deployed ASAT
capability. But photorecon birds are generally in sun-synchronous orbits,
so that their passage over a given target is near the same local time every
day. That makes photo analysis easier but also makes overflights
predictable. As you say, periodic maneuvers will change the overflight
times.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Pat Flannery wrote


This probably gives the recon satellites the ability to change their
orbital parameters on-station; both to evade interception and to make
their time of passage over interesting photo targets less predictable.


Both the "KH-11-like" electro-optical and the Lacrosse radar imagers
have been tracked fairly closely for the past 15 years or so by the
amateur community. Neither kind maneuvers much after reaching the
operational orbit -- the Lacrosses hardly at all. The "KH-11s"
typically carry out small orbital maintenance maneuvers at intervals
of months(*) plus a larger orbit raising that seems to separate major
mission phases. Given warning, they could dodge a few times, but
at the expense of mission capability.

The classified LEO satellites that have shown significant propulsive
capability are the Titan-launched NOSS-2-A objects, now known to be
TLDs hosting SLDCOM and COBRA BRASS payloads, and USA 53 and USA 144.
There's a fair chance that USA 53 was a stealthified KH-11, so Bus 1
is a good candidate for its propulsion package. USA 144 is a
considerable puzzle, but may be a successor to USA 53.


(*) The maneuver times are quite predictable, BTW. They occur on an
ascending node when the perigee drops below a certain value and the
argument of perigee precesses through zero.