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Moscow...we have a problem.



 
 
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  #21  
Old November 12th 11, 11:10 AM posted to sci.space.history
Mike DiCenso
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 150
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

On Nov 11, 2:34*pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
On 11/11/2011 07:49 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:





In article932c2f1a-167d-4973-873b-
, says...


Also another thing; my wistful speculation also depends on the
Russians regaining enough control of the spacecraft to use reaction
control thrusters to keep the Phobos-Grunt stack in orbit until a
Shuttle mission could be flown. I doubt a mission could be flown
within the time constraints of the launch window, and so recovery for
relaunch would be necessary.


What was the smallest turn-around time for a shuttle? *My guess is that
it was the Spacelab mission that was re-flown because the first attempt
was cut short due to fuel cell problems.


http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts83.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts84.htm


STS-83 returned on April 8.


STS-84 launched on May 17.


That's more than a month, and this was definitely a special case since
it was essentially a reflight of an aborted mission. *Typical turn-
around times were quite a bit longer than this.


Sorry, but the shuttle was not a fast turn-around vehicle. *In a
situation like this, where there is a "need" to launch in only a few
days, the shuttle simply could not accommodate this requirement. *LEASAT
F3 rescue mission took several months to plan and fly. *In this case,
the Russians don't have months to spare, they have only a few days.


Jeff, you're missing Mike's point by a country mile: he explicitly
conditioned the rescue mission on Russia being able to gain enough
control of the spacecraft to boost it into an orbit that would last long
enough that a fast turnaround shuttle mission would *not* be required.
You spent several paragraphs going down the fast-turnaround rabbit hole
without even reading what he wrote. I trimmed his response down to the
relevant paragraph so you can read it (perhaps for the first time).

My point stands, though: NASA would not agree to take the risk of this
mission even if the shuttle were still flying, and even if Phobos-Grunt
were boosted to an altitude where fast turnaround were not required.- Hide quoted text -


Thank you, Jorge. At least someone actually reads what a post actually
says. Sadly, you're probably right about the pussified post-Challenger/
Columbia NASA. STS-49 was the last time NASA would do something
awesome like that.
-Mike
  #22  
Old November 12th 11, 01:37 PM posted to sci.space.history
Val Kraut
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 329
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

Jeff, you're missing Mike's point by a country mile: he explicitly
conditioned the rescue mission on Russia being able to gain enough
control of the spacecraft to boost it into an orbit that would last long
enough that a fast turnaround shuttle mission would *not* be required.



Long Forgotten - but in the days when Shuttle was first being developed and
the cost was still projected in the $10M per launch range, NASA was planning
a program called Space Tug. The Tug would ride in the bay with a primary
payload and loft that payload to final orbit. Depending on how much fuel was
left the tug would return to the Shuttle for capture and reuse, or would
dock with a second dedicated tug and be returned. One of the requirements
was for the Tug to capture a tumbling, out of control satellite and retrieve
it for repair in space or return to Earth. At least 4 study sets were funded
covering hypergolic and cryogenic propulsion systems - JSC and MSFC both
managed studies. We actually had a prototype capture device on a Peter Pan
type rig. Unfortunatley the Tug died as Shuttle Overruns consumed the NASA
budget. The concept would have allowed a Tug to capture a failed satellite -
loft it to a safe orbit and await a return shuttle mission. The original
dream of shuttle capabilities was greatly trimmed as the reality of the
design became clear.



Val Kraut


  #23  
Old November 12th 11, 11:27 PM posted to sci.space.history
Jorge R. Frank
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,089
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

On 11/12/2011 04:10 AM, Mike DiCenso wrote:
On Nov 11, 2:34 pm, "Jorge R. wrote:
On 11/11/2011 07:49 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:





In article932c2f1a-167d-4973-873b-
, says...


Also another thing; my wistful speculation also depends on the
Russians regaining enough control of the spacecraft to use reaction
control thrusters to keep the Phobos-Grunt stack in orbit until a
Shuttle mission could be flown. I doubt a mission could be flown
within the time constraints of the launch window, and so recovery for
relaunch would be necessary.


What was the smallest turn-around time for a shuttle? My guess is that
it was the Spacelab mission that was re-flown because the first attempt
was cut short due to fuel cell problems.


http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts83.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts84.htm


STS-83 returned on April 8.


STS-84 launched on May 17.


That's more than a month, and this was definitely a special case since
it was essentially a reflight of an aborted mission. Typical turn-
around times were quite a bit longer than this.


Sorry, but the shuttle was not a fast turn-around vehicle. In a
situation like this, where there is a "need" to launch in only a few
days, the shuttle simply could not accommodate this requirement. LEASAT
F3 rescue mission took several months to plan and fly. In this case,
the Russians don't have months to spare, they have only a few days.


Jeff, you're missing Mike's point by a country mile: he explicitly
conditioned the rescue mission on Russia being able to gain enough
control of the spacecraft to boost it into an orbit that would last long
enough that a fast turnaround shuttle mission would *not* be required.
You spent several paragraphs going down the fast-turnaround rabbit hole
without even reading what he wrote. I trimmed his response down to the
relevant paragraph so you can read it (perhaps for the first time).

My point stands, though: NASA would not agree to take the risk of this
mission even if the shuttle were still flying, and even if Phobos-Grunt
were boosted to an altitude where fast turnaround were not required.- Hide quoted text -


Thank you, Jorge. At least someone actually reads what a post actually
says. Sadly, you're probably right about the pussified post-Challenger/
Columbia NASA. STS-49 was the last time NASA would do something
awesome like that.


Even if NASA wasn't "pussified" (your words), they wouldn't do it. NASA
was using "funny" accounting to make the previous Palapa, Westar,
Syncom, Intelsat, etc rescues look economical. After Congress imposed
full-cost accounting on such proposals, a proposed rescue of Orion III
was disapproved since it wasn't worth the cost. Same thing here. No
matter how you do cost accounting of the price of a shuttle mission,
there is no way it will become cheaper than building and launching
another Phobos-Grunt, no way the Russians would pay for a shuttle rescue
mission in any case, and no way the US government would pay to rescue a
foreign unmanned spacecraft in any case.

Even disregarding the (considerable) risk, this isn't an "awesome" idea,
it's just plain stupid. And that's from the biggest shuttle-hugger left
on this group.
  #24  
Old November 13th 11, 02:02 PM posted to sci.space.history
Ken S. Tucker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 740
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

On Nov 12, 2:27 pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
On 11/12/2011 04:10 AM, Mike DiCenso wrote:



On Nov 11, 2:34 pm, "Jorge R. wrote:
On 11/11/2011 07:49 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:


In article932c2f1a-167d-4973-873b-
, says...


Also another thing; my wistful speculation also depends on the
Russians regaining enough control of the spacecraft to use reaction
control thrusters to keep the Phobos-Grunt stack in orbit until a
Shuttle mission could be flown. I doubt a mission could be flown
within the time constraints of the launch window, and so recovery for
relaunch would be necessary.


What was the smallest turn-around time for a shuttle? My guess is that
it was the Spacelab mission that was re-flown because the first attempt
was cut short due to fuel cell problems.


http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts83.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts84.htm


STS-83 returned on April 8.


STS-84 launched on May 17.


That's more than a month, and this was definitely a special case since
it was essentially a reflight of an aborted mission. Typical turn-
around times were quite a bit longer than this.


Sorry, but the shuttle was not a fast turn-around vehicle. In a
situation like this, where there is a "need" to launch in only a few
days, the shuttle simply could not accommodate this requirement. LEASAT
F3 rescue mission took several months to plan and fly. In this case,
the Russians don't have months to spare, they have only a few days.


Jeff, you're missing Mike's point by a country mile: he explicitly
conditioned the rescue mission on Russia being able to gain enough
control of the spacecraft to boost it into an orbit that would last long
enough that a fast turnaround shuttle mission would *not* be required.
You spent several paragraphs going down the fast-turnaround rabbit hole
without even reading what he wrote. I trimmed his response down to the
relevant paragraph so you can read it (perhaps for the first time).


My point stands, though: NASA would not agree to take the risk of this
mission even if the shuttle were still flying, and even if Phobos-Grunt
were boosted to an altitude where fast turnaround were not required.- Hide quoted text -


Thank you, Jorge. At least someone actually reads what a post actually
says. Sadly, you're probably right about the pussified post-Challenger/
Columbia NASA. STS-49 was the last time NASA would do something
awesome like that.


Even if NASA wasn't "pussified" (your words), they wouldn't do it. NASA
was using "funny" accounting to make the previous Palapa, Westar,
Syncom, Intelsat, etc rescues look economical. After Congress imposed
full-cost accounting on such proposals, a proposed rescue of Orion III
was disapproved since it wasn't worth the cost. Same thing here. No
matter how you do cost accounting of the price of a shuttle mission,
there is no way it will become cheaper than building and launching
another Phobos-Grunt, no way the Russians would pay for a shuttle rescue
mission in any case, and no way the US government would pay to rescue a
foreign unmanned spacecraft in any case.

Even disregarding the (considerable) risk, this isn't an "awesome" idea,
it's just plain stupid. And that's from the biggest shuttle-hugger left
on this group.


Agreed, (we've attended a shuttle launch).
Back to topical, check out this...
http://www.vancouversun.com/technolo...782/story.html
A space is NOT s 'turn key' operation, it takes years to get it
running
again.
Ken.
  #25  
Old November 14th 11, 01:01 AM posted to sci.space.history
Kathy Rages
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

In article ,
Mike DiCenso wrote:

Also another thing; my wistful speculation also depends on the
Russians regaining enough control of the spacecraft to use reaction
control thrusters to keep the Phobos-Grunt stack in orbit until a
Shuttle mission could be flown. I doubt a mission could be flown
within the time constraints of the launch window, and so recovery for
relaunch would be necessary.


No, they would have to regain enough control to get the Phobos-Grunt apogee
down from its current ~10,000 km altitude to ~500 km. A rescue mission
doesn't just have to match altitudes; it has to match velocities. There
never was any way a shuttle could get itself into Phobos-Grunt's current
orbit.

--
Kathy Rages


  #26  
Old November 14th 11, 04:43 AM posted to sci.space.history
Mike DiCenso
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 150
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

On Nov 12, 3:27*pm, "Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
On 11/12/2011 04:10 AM, Mike DiCenso wrote:





On Nov 11, 2:34 pm, "Jorge R. *wrote:
On 11/11/2011 07:49 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:


In article932c2f1a-167d-4973-873b-
, says....


Also another thing; my wistful speculation also depends on the
Russians regaining enough control of the spacecraft to use reaction
control thrusters to keep the Phobos-Grunt stack in orbit until a
Shuttle mission could be flown. I doubt a mission could be flown
within the time constraints of the launch window, and so recovery for
relaunch would be necessary.


What was the smallest turn-around time for a shuttle? *My guess is that
it was the Spacelab mission that was re-flown because the first attempt
was cut short due to fuel cell problems.


http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts83.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts84.htm


STS-83 returned on April 8.


STS-84 launched on May 17.


That's more than a month, and this was definitely a special case since
it was essentially a reflight of an aborted mission. *Typical turn-
around times were quite a bit longer than this.


Sorry, but the shuttle was not a fast turn-around vehicle. *In a
situation like this, where there is a "need" to launch in only a few
days, the shuttle simply could not accommodate this requirement. *LEASAT
F3 rescue mission took several months to plan and fly. *In this case,
the Russians don't have months to spare, they have only a few days.


Jeff, you're missing Mike's point by a country mile: he explicitly
conditioned the rescue mission on Russia being able to gain enough
control of the spacecraft to boost it into an orbit that would last long
enough that a fast turnaround shuttle mission would *not* be required.
You spent several paragraphs going down the fast-turnaround rabbit hole
without even reading what he wrote. I trimmed his response down to the
relevant paragraph so you can read it (perhaps for the first time).


My point stands, though: NASA would not agree to take the risk of this
mission even if the shuttle were still flying, and even if Phobos-Grunt
were boosted to an altitude where fast turnaround were not required.- Hide quoted text -


Thank you, Jorge. At least someone actually reads what a post actually
says. Sadly, you're probably right about the pussified post-Challenger/
Columbia NASA. STS-49 was the last time NASA would do something
awesome like that.


Even if NASA wasn't "pussified" (your words), they wouldn't do it. NASA
was using "funny" accounting to make the previous Palapa, Westar,
Syncom, Intelsat, etc rescues look economical. After Congress imposed
full-cost accounting on such proposals, a proposed rescue of Orion III
was disapproved since it wasn't worth the cost. Same thing here. No
matter how you do cost accounting of the price of a shuttle mission,
there is no way it will become cheaper than building and launching
another Phobos-Grunt, no way the Russians would pay for a shuttle rescue
mission in any case, and no way the US government would pay to rescue a
foreign unmanned spacecraft in any case.

Even disregarding the (considerable) risk, this isn't an "awesome" idea,
it's just plain stupid. And that's from the biggest shuttle-hugger left
on this group.


Oh please, it has nothing to do with economics. With the Intelsat VI
rescue everyone went in there knowing that the 120 or so million that
Intelsat paid NASA wouldn't cover anything but the most basic marginal
costs for the mission. But thank goodness that we did fly that
mission, because it helped uncover some serious deficiencies with the
EVA program training that paid off huge dividends in upcoming first
Hubble Space Telescope repair mission, and eventually much later the
ISS' construction.

So while going to fix a stranded comsat, like Orion III, might not be
worth approval, taking a risk and repairing or retrieving a big
science mission like Phobos-Grunt is worth it, just like we risked a
lot on each HST repair. It's also always something that ****ed me off
that the DoD never offically asked NASA to send a shuttle flight to
rescue the third Milstar that was stranded in a useless low orbit by a
malfunctioning Centuar upper stage in April 1999. That was not only a
multi-billion dollar mission wasted, but critical lost military
capability as well.

Those are the kind of missions that are worth a Shuttle rescue.
-Mike
  #27  
Old November 14th 11, 04:47 AM posted to sci.space.history
Mike DiCenso
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 150
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

On Nov 13, 5:01*pm, (Kathy Rages) wrote:
In article ,
Mike DiCenso wrote:



Also another thing; my wistful speculation also depends on the
Russians regaining enough control of the spacecraft to use reaction
control thrusters to keep the Phobos-Grunt stack in orbit until a
Shuttle mission could be flown. I doubt a mission could be flown
within the time constraints of the launch window, and so recovery for
relaunch would be necessary.


No, they would have to regain enough control to get the Phobos-Grunt apogee
down from its current ~10,000 km altitude to ~500 km. *A rescue mission
doesn't just have to match altitudes; it has to match velocities. *There
never was any way a shuttle could get itself into Phobos-Grunt's current
orbit.



Where do you get that, Kathy? Phobos-Grunt is in a 207 × 347 km (129 ×
216 miles) altitude orbit, not 10,000 km (6,000 miles). If only it
were in the higher orbit, there wouldn't be any concern over it
falling back to Earth in about 1 to 2 months.
-Mike
  #28  
Old November 14th 11, 01:06 PM posted to sci.space.history
Bob Haller
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,197
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

all of these issues could be elminated by a universal docking adapter
and space tug.......

for out of control sats tumbling perhaps a catcher of some type so
docking could be accomplished.

  #29  
Old November 14th 11, 04:31 PM posted to sci.space.history
Ken S. Tucker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 740
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

On Nov 14, 4:06 am, bob haller wrote:
all of these issues could be elminated by a universal docking adapter
and space tug.......

for out of control sats tumbling perhaps a catcher of some type so
docking could be accomplished.


Like a orbiting Taxeco station with a space tow truck...ok as long as
the washrooms are clean.
Ken
  #30  
Old November 14th 11, 05:16 PM posted to sci.space.history
Brian Thorn[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,266
Default Moscow...we have a problem.

On Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:06:54 -0800 (PST), bob haller
wrote:

all of these issues could be elminated by a universal docking adapter
and space tug.......


And some way to launch one very quickly. Phobos-Grunt will deorbit by
the beginning of January.

That's going to be the idea-killer. All satellites and launch vehicles
are planned and booked years in advance and there is not really a
practical way to have one on standby 24/7 (rockets just don't behave
the same way airliners do.) And if we did invent some practical high
launch rate, short-notice launch system, that would probably make your
requirement moot anyway.

Since there are multitudes of different orbits and even phasing
incompatibilites in the same orbits, you won't be able to station a
tug in orbit, either... it would takes years or a generous supply of
unobtanium fuel to get the tug to the right orbit, far too long to
save a renegade satellite.

The only place such a scheme would work would be in GEO, but there the
risk to life below is about nil, so it isn't worth the trouble.

Brian

 




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