Can 2 Shuttles dock to ISS at once?

Hallerb wrote:
shutt;le at station longer than a month and return it safely.

I think that the concept of the "safe haven" is more likely going to be the
station acting as a garage with spare parts and a big arm to allow crews to
access any part of the shuttle to fix this, as opposed to an airport where
crewmembers can wait for the next flight if their plane as been declared unfit
to fly back to earth.

"Michael R. Grabois ... change $ to \"s\"" wrote:
You *can't* reinflate the tires because you can't *get* to the tires in the
wheel wells, because if you open the gear doors you can't get them closed.

I don't like those "you can't do this" statements. Surely there must be some
way to re-inflate the tires while docked at station. The device may not be
available now, but if NASA were tasked with allowing a shuttle to stay at
station long enough, the engineer woudl find a way to get this done.

are working on a way to power the orbiter via the ISS, but that's still a few
years off. Until then, you're stuck.

If NASA were tasked to put a high priority to this, I suspect it would take
just a couple of months to develop the interface and one or two flights to
test it. And if they were told this was *really* urgent, they could just go to
the nearest hardware store and buy a long extension cord :-) :-) ;-) :-) :-)

I suspect that when there isn't a high priority on an item, engineers dream up
extremely complex solutions as a mental exercise (since they know that their
fancy ideas have no chance of getting budgets).

Hi, Mr. Mezei... you know, you aren't fooling anyone.

Red Suit wrote in
:

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote:
possible due to collision with the FGB. A nose-out-of-plane docking
isn't possible due to collision with the Quest airlock.

Would there be a collision even if the nose was pointed towards quest
with the tail where PMA3 currently is ?

Yes, the Quest high-pressure gas tanks would penetrate the crew cabin in
that orientation. You'd have to relocate them first using multiple EVAs,
per the discussion in the rest of the thread.

to PMA-3 on Node 3, provided you "clock" PMA-3 for a
nose-out-of-plane docking.

Can the CBM be "clocked" ?

I believe it can be clocked. My basis for this is that the *planned*
clocking of PMA-3 on Node 1 port, and Node 1 nadir, changed a couple of
times during mission planning *after* both Node 1 and PMA-3 were already
built.

Doesn't it have to be berthed in one
specific orientation so that connectors are aligned ?

There may be reach issues with the external umbilicals, which have to be
connected via EVA. Other than loss of the moding indicator lights, I don't
know what the impacts of that would be. But we are talking about an
emergency situation here, so some compromises may be acceptable.

Can the PMA
actually be clocked within itself keeping the CBM orientation the same
?

No.
--
JRF

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I believe that NASA is developing a system that does provide power
from ISS to Shuttle. The question is whether this system should be
flown on every shuttle flight, or stored at ISS.


"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message ...

A free flying Shuttle has a limited lifetime (2 to four weeks?). What
is the lifetime of a Shuttle docked at ISS?

Also 2-4 weeks, at least until a means is implemented to transfer ISS power
to the shuttle, allowing the fuel cells to be shut down and the cryo to be
preserved.

(Explorer8939) wrote in
om:

I believe that NASA is developing a system that does provide power
from ISS to Shuttle.

Right. In fact, it was presented to the Joint PRCB this last Monday.

The question is whether this system should be
flown on every shuttle flight, or stored at ISS.

The answer is yes. :-) Seriously, no matter how this is implemented, there
will be *some* equipment on both sides of the interface.


--
JRF

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"Michael R. Grabois ... change $ to "s"" wrote
in message ...
On 26 Oct 2003 22:15:37 GMT, (Hallerb) wrote:


You *do* realize that the "safe haven" concept is for when the shuttle
cannot
come home and survive but can still dock, right? Apparently not.

You can't keep the shuttle hanging around for a year while you think up
tile
repair scenarios, for example, or you've suffered failures that take
away
deorbit capability.

And nothing is irreplacable - Endeavour replaced Challenger, for one.


Well columbia isnt being replaced, and the next lost orbiter will likely
ground
the other two permanetely. I dont believe there has been ANY serious talk
of
more orbiters.

Just because it's not being replaced doesn't mean it's irreplacable.

Lets imagine atlantis stuck at station and needing a repair that will
take 2
moinths to accomplish. Wouldnt it be good NOW to figure out how to
reinflate
the tires and work around whatever other critical system problems would
prevent
a 2 month station stay?

You *can't* reinflate the tires because you can't *get* to the tires in
the
wheel wells, because if you open the gear doors you can't get them closed.


Let's say the tires have gone down a bit - what are the chances of being
able to land the orbiter without it being completely trashed?
I would wager ti would be worth the attempt - although you would likely wish
to do this unmanned, and send the Astronauts down in another orbiter or
Soyuz.