Zvezda Ready to Launch

dlgree1 writes "Nasa has anounced here that the Zvezda Service Module is ready to launch tomarrow on a modified proton rocket. The Zvezda Service Module is the ISS's life support and early living quarters aboard. Zvezda should dock with the ISS on July 26 at 00:44 GMT. Nasa has set the launch of the first ISS crew for October 30, 2000 which will begin the perminant habbitation of the space station."

Didn't I hear

[dagoalieman]

that there were concerns over the quality of the node's parts?? I know it's an early living module, but still...

Re:Didn't I hear

[TOTKChief]

Zvezda isn't a true node. It's a living module/propulsion module. It'll house folks until the hab module gets up there closer to assembly complete.

Launch is in about 40 minutes. I'm staying up to watch to see if I have a job tomorrow. =) Now, were I a civil servant, I'd be okay, but I work for a contractor that's sub-contracting to a small Canadian company building a payload that should go up in late 2001/early 2002. If Zvezda blows up, I don't think much will get done at work tomorrow.

Getting the Russkies on was a good idea, but we should have kept the concept of the Zarya procurement intact -- Boeing gets the contract and subs out to a Russian company to build. Zarya was built on-schedule and done very well; Zvezda has had too much governmental involvement to be built properly. -g-

GFM -- damn, if this blows up, I think I'll have to become a full-time coder instead of just a part-timer and a full-time aero
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Re:Didn't I hear

[cyclone96]

As a fellow NASA Station contractor, I would have loved to have Zvezda procured under a Boeing contract like Zarya. Zarya was finished on time, and on budget (unlike many of the Boeing built modules), and has been working well other than some minor glitches in the electrical system.

Unfortunately, that just wouldn't cut it politically. Part of the deal with bringing in the Russians is that they would help defray the cost of the Station by contributing Zvezda - if it would have been built under a Boeing contract, it would have been US money, not Russian, paying for it and this was not the arrangement Congress and the Executive Branch was wanting NASA to execute for all modules.

Of course, that was laid out in 1993 and its become pretty obvious that they didn't defray the cost of anything. The cost of the contingency vehicles NASA has/is building ended up costing more than Russia paid for Zvezda.

Whatever. Building things of this magnitude aren't easy - technically and especially politically (does anyone outside of NASA realize just how difficult the political aspect of this program is?). I'm just happy the pace of launches is going to start picking up.

it took them long enough...

[nemoc]

It's about time! Russia has already held up the launch, what, three times now? This is a bit surprising, though, since I just read at canoe [canoe.ca] that the date was expected to be announced tomorrow.
I want to know how well this is going to be inspected before launch. Do we really want the ISS failing because somebody didn't want to save face? (Let's hope ISS works better that IIS 8p ).

Re:Didn't I hear

[TOTKChief]

The politics of ISS are a big pain in the ass. I just can't wait until someone figures out that the SPIP requires each International Partner to do all the integration work for payloads manifested on their modules . . . that will make for a fun time.
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