Space station crew hears crunching sound

Jim Kingdon wrote in
news

A debris hit itself wouldn't sound like this would it? At these
speeds (several km/s), we're talking more about vaporizing than
crumpling, right? Now, maybe the results of a hit would be crumpling
in something not directly hit.


"These speeds" being the difference between ISS speed and debris speed, of
course.
Could be anything from devestating to feather-like, depending on the speed
relative to each other.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
"Doug Ellison" wrote in
:

"JimO" wrote in message
...

Later, Foale used video cameras on the station's 57-foot-long robot
arm to scan the external areas of the outpost from which the noise
seemed to come in search of potential damage.


Lesson not learnt from Columbia (frankly, this should have been learnt
a LONG time ago)

ISS should, or MUST have a facility for total self video inspection -

Even if the ISS program *did* learn that lesson from Columbia, how do you
expect them to launch and install all those cameras *while the shuttle
fleet is still grounded*?

As I said

"I know nothing could have been done about this since columbia, but it's the
same lesson."

nothing can be done now - but the lessons learnt here are the same as for
columbia

Doug

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message ...
(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) wrote in
:


They did. But the arm can't quite see everything.

Just wondering, I know the SRMS is going to be augmented with a 'boom' for
self contained inspection. Any talk about augmenting the SSRMS?

(Al Jackson) wrote in
om:

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) wrote in
:


They did. But the arm can't quite see everything.

Just wondering, I know the SRMS is going to be augmented with a 'boom'
for self contained inspection. Any talk about augmenting the SSRMS?

The main areas the SSRMS can't see are on the Russian segment - no
convenient places to station it. The original plan was for ESA to build an
arm called ERA that would be stationed on the SPP. I don't know if that's
still going to happen.

--
JRF

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

"JimO" writes:

"JimO" wrote in

MORE from the on-orbit status report:

Early this morning the CDR reported an anomalous "metallic" noise,
apparently coming from the outside of the SM. At about the same time, the
ground noted a slight disturbance on the USOS CMGs.

And later retracted the report, saying that there was no disturbance,
and the CMGs were operating within normal limits. I suppose we should
believe the later report, but I'd like to hear their explanation for the
earlier now disclaimed one.

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

(Al Jackson) wrote in
om:

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
(Nicholas Fitzpatrick) wrote in
:


They did. But the arm can't quite see everything.

Just wondering, I know the SRMS is going to be augmented with a 'boom'
for self contained inspection. Any talk about augmenting the SSRMS?

The main areas the SSRMS can't see are on the Russian segment - no
convenient places to station it. The original plan was for ESA to build an
arm called ERA that would be stationed on the SPP. I don't know if that's
still going to happen.

The embarrassing thing is, the ERA has been built and tested. It's just
lying in storage pending flight 9A.1. One interesting feature of the arm
is that there's an external control panel for use during EVA.

"These speeds" being the difference between ISS speed and debris speed, of
course.
Could be anything from devestating to feather-like, depending on the speed
relative to each other.

Good point. The "feather-like" case would be particularly possible if
the debris was something which had originally escaped from ISS
(dropped tool, or whatever).

I believe that debris which is in an unrelated orbit will generally
impact at high relative speed (say, more than 1 km/s), but I couldn't
quickly find something to confirm or refute that.

And of course meteoroids will have a high relative speed, as they are
not in earth orbit.

There's some background at
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...ct_030205.html

Chris Jones wrote in message ...
"JimO" writes:

"JimO" wrote in

MORE from the on-orbit status report:

Early this morning the CDR reported an anomalous "metallic" noise,
apparently coming from the outside of the SM. At about the same time, the
ground noted a slight disturbance on the USOS CMGs.

And later retracted the report, saying that there was no disturbance,
and the CMGs were operating within normal limits. I suppose we should
believe the later report, but I'd like to hear their explanation for the
earlier now disclaimed one.

There are many "disturbances" that are seen by the CMG system (usually
dozens per minute). What looked like a possible disturbance in real
time during the calldown by the crew turned out to be the normal
amplitude of noise seen by the system after the ground had a chance to
post process the data a bit. It may have been the crew moving rather
rapidly down the stack to see what happened.

"Reivilo Snuved" wrote in message
...

The embarrassing thing is, the ERA has been built and tested. It's just
lying in storage pending flight 9A.1. One interesting feature of the arm
is that there's an external control panel for use during EVA.

Any chance of ERA being launched sooner than 9A.1? SPP isn't going to be
launched, and ERA doesn't depend on it, so it may be worthwhile to put it on
a logistics flight at some stage.

--Chris

[snip]
ISS should, or MUST have a facility for total self video inspection - there
may be damage to a module and they cant see it, that's just not right.

I know nothing could have been done about this since columbia, but it's the
same lesson.

Perhaps the docked Progress can undock briefly, observe the area, and
re-dock?

Doug


Sounds like a job suited for the SPRINT Aero Cam. In fact, shuttle
inspections
could benefit from it as well.
http://spaceboy.nasda.go.jp/lib/shut.../g/doi_098.jpg