Power situation in the ISS Russian Segment has degraded

BTW, when I was a ISS GNC flight controller, these were first proposed
and we liked them for one operation reason and disliked them for one
other:

1. Like - if oriented correctly, they could give some additional
momentum storage in the correct axes where the CMGs are ocassionally
marginal, reducing the probablity of a jet firing that _would_ ruin
ug.

2. Dislike - a bearing failure the rapidly spun down one of these bad
boys would impart a horrendus amout of momentum in a very short period
of time, probably necessitating a jet firing to control.

None of these discussions got farther than idle discussions in the
section meeting, as the system was just being proposed and there had
been no serious work done on figuring out how to operationally
integrate them into the program.

PS - we also wondered if they were placed in the place of batteries
way out S/P6-way, if they could impart enough torque upon failure to
damage the truss??

On 08 Jul 2003 03:01:08 GMT, (Hallerb) wrote:


Not a solution now, but why can some of the battery capacity on ISS
not be replaced with something much more reliable?


I am thinking flywheels. Spin them up when you have excess energy and

The vibration would kill microgravity research.