How NASA Steers the Int'l Space Station Around Asteroids & Other Debris 44
willith writes "I got to sit down with ISS TOPO Flight Controller Josh Parris at the Houston Mission Control Center and talk about how NASA steers all 400 tons of the International Space Station around potential collisions, or 'conjunctions,' in NASA-parlance. The TOPO controller, with assistance from USSTRATCOM's big radars, keeps track of every object that will pass within a 'pizza-box'-shaped 50km x 50km x 4km perimeter around the ISS. Actually moving the station is done with a combination of large control moment gyros and thrusters on both the Zvezda module and visiting vehicles. It's a surprisingly complex operation!"
Re:Surprisingly complex (Score:2, Funny)
"I would have been surprised if it wasn't complex, its a space station"
Exactly, it's not rocket science.
Collision probability threshold levels (Score:4, Funny)
One thing the article talks about is the various alert levels assigned to objects in that "pizza box" possessing a non-zero probability of collision with the ISS.
Yellow: greater than 1 in 100,000
Red: greater than 1 in 10,000
Brown: greater than 1 in 2
Re:Collision probability threshold levels (Score:4, Funny)
Brown: greater than 1 in 2
Brown? Seems a strange colour to choose for impending... oh, got it.
Re:surprisingly complex (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I mean it's not not rocket science is it?