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Space

Zvezda ISS Service Module Launches 114

Posted by emmett from the up-it-goes dept.
fence writes: "The Russian Aviation and Space agency successfully launched the International Space Station's Zvezda service module. The Zvezda module was launched from the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan aboard a Proton rocket. Check out NASA Spaceflight web for live updates on Zvezda's progress."
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Zvezda ISS Service Module Launches More

Zvezda ISS Service Module Launches

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  • Politics: If you want to call Chechen (and "volunteers" from the Arab countries) rebels "freedom fighters, please use the same when you refer to guys who blew up World Trade Center and those who blew up Oklahoma State Building.

    ISS construction: Two out of three ISS modules currently up there are Russian made (Unity[USA],Zarja[Russia],Zvezda[Russia]). NASA never had a space station in operation (Skylab was a flop), while USSR and, then, Russia were running two (Saljut and, then, Mir) and for a very long time. Result is that Russia is the only one of all ISS partners that has all "know-how", and it should not come as a surprise that the most important modules are made by Russia.

    Trolling: Russian airspace engineers are the best, just consider work conditions they had to put up with all those years.

  • You think Pizza Hut's dishing out click-through revenue for their rocket-ad [go.com]?

    Damn I'd really liked to have seen a penguin on the side of that puppy instead.

    -C
    --

  • russian economy has never been stronger because of increasing prices on oil market. it has nothing to do with checnya, industry in checnya is ruined.

    and btw yes russia came first to space. but that doesnt matter. both russians and americans stole german technology. without german v2 rockets russians nor the americans would be in the space in 50-ies and 60-ies
  • Now I like to pretend to be fairly well-informed about space technology, but I don't know what a proton rocket is.. I can't even try to figure it out from the name. When I follow the link, it goes to a page about Pizza Hut logo on the rocket.. But that really doesn't help much.

    Does anyone know what a proton rocket it, roughly how it works? Thanks

  • Yes, the capitalist/Communist thing was a joke. It was a reference to Pitr on Userfriendly...too subtle I guess...my apologies.

    Joe Carnes
  • Lotsa protons in the fuel and oxidizer, both.
  • Doh, okay, I'm an idiot... From the name I thought it used some sort of nuclear (having to do with protons, anyways) propulsion.. a bit of digging told me what I should have known all along, it's just a Russian rocket design..

    Excuse my stupidity..

  • I'm not sure that this is what is meant by the commercialization of space.
  • > Zvezda has a Sparc station running it,

    he he, i can see it now ...

    "This is Misson Control, today's shuttle launch will send the crew of Discovery to the new module of the ISS to hit STOP-A and reboot the onboard SPARCstation ..."

    > much more advanced then the 80386s that the
    > US modules use.

    aren't they '386s which are hardened against the higher radiation, etc in space??

  • Don't forget that NASA had a 2nd Skylab built and waiting on the ground. It was ready to go up in case the first Skylab was lost. That was the good old '60s/'70s way of doing business. Why build one when you can build two for only 20% (or so) more? It's the tooling that costs the money more than the actual fabrication.

    FYI, the 2nd Skylab is now in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Makes for one hell of a big exibit.

  • I found this very impressive list:
    1. The first artificial Earth satellite.
    2. The first biological space traveler, Laika.
    3. The first man in space, Yuri Gagarin.
    4. The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova.
    5. The first craft to orbit the Sun.
    6. The first craft to flyby Venus.
    7. The first craft to flyby Mars.
    8. The first craft to flyby the Moon.
    9. The first craft to land on the Moon.
    10. The world's first space station.
    11. Many other firsts.

    It would be nice to know how many failures the Russian rockets have had, compared to the western (USA and Europe) rockets. Some of the Russian failures were apparently covered by the Soviet government, so it may be difficult to find reliable figures.

  • Actually, if it hadn't been for the Russians the Americans would have been holding up the show. The lab module (Destiny) was not ready to go 18 months ago. A lot of time has been spent trying to get the software straightened out. Granted, if the service module had gone up we would have been farther along, but the delay did help cover up some problems on the US side.

  • NASA Administrator Dan Goldin looked like some sort of plantation owner...

    Funny you should mention that, because the photo of STS-106 astronauts Wilcutt and Altman on the Shuttle update page [nasa.gov] looks like an outtake from "Strange Brew" or some similar lowbrow buddy flick. [STS-106, launching in Sept, will install Zvezda on the ISS]

    Suddenly I'm struck by the remarkable resemblance between NASA's antics and SCTV. The lost Mars missions, and all the rest would fit perfectly into a "Second City Space Administration" with Daniel Goldin as "Guy Caballero".

    In fact, that wouldn't be a bad revenue stream. SNL is still raking in the bucks, even though it's longer in the tooth than John Glenn. SCASA could never be nearly as tired. [This revenue model has been a natural, but overlooked, option since the second season of Miami Vice, when the budget per episode was more than the annual budget of the real Miami police unit it was -loosely- based on]

    Innovation, man! To heck with this insistence on dignity! An irreverent comedy could get the memes and the dinero (as in bucks, not Robert) rolling.

  • Re:Zvezda is cool (Score:5)

    by TOTKChief ( 210168 ) on Wednesday July 12, 2000 @04:55AM (#941356) Homepage

    Interestingly, despite the perception that Russian space tech is backwards (it's more advanced then the US, cheaper, and actually happens), the Zvezda is an example of how this isn't true.

    In some ways . . . but the biggest problem with Zvezda is the acoustical environment. You're supposed to build hardware to fit the NC40 curve (in other words, about what you'd hear if you had a normal office and not a cube =) for sustained noise patterns . . . and they haven't. It wouldn't seem loud to us, maybe, but we won't be up there 24/7 like the 'stronauts will.

    Zvezda has a Sparc station running it, much more advanced then the 80386s that the US modules use.

    NASA's computer policy is a bit weird (insert your own Mac bash here), but I don't know that they're totally off-base; you want something that's stable and is not prone to bit-flipping because of the various radiation environments seen by the ISS.

    It also has multiple advanced environmental systems that the US doesn't have, including the infamous oxygen candles (redesigned) that started the fire on Mir.

    I will happily admit that long-term environmental stuff is something the Russians are good at. It's not the best living environment, but it won't kill you, either. They understand "good enough".

    It is much more air-tight then any US spacecraft ever built, too. The shuttle leaks air like a sieve compared to Mir, a station with the same basic design for it's main module.

    That's simply a cost-benefit analysis. It's easier to carry on-board oxygen than it is to design hardware that has a certain leak rate. STS is designed for an on-orbit time of 28 days at maximum . . . Mir had a five-year life plan IIRC to begin with. STS carries its own atmosphere up with them; Mir/ISS/Salyut/Skylab had to be built more tightly to ensure that they weren't leaking atmosphere like crazed men.

    What, you want STS to be more expensive?

    The Russians were first in space, have spent more time in space then the US, and have cheaper manned access to space by a couple orders of magnitude (less then $10 to launch a Soyuz versus $500 million to launch the shuttle), but the US press has indoctrinated us into thinking they are less safe and backwards.

    Much of that is due to the various roles of the spacecraft, though. It's not a great comparison; Soyuz is primarily a crew ingress/egress vehicle that has limited cargo capacity; the Russians use a Progress module, a modified Soyuz, to launch cargo. That lowers the launch costs, because the Progress launches can be done with more risk, etc.

    The Russians do have superior heavy-lift capability. However, that heavy-lift isn't used for launching manned spacecraft. NASA, in its infinite wisdom, hasn't entered the unmanned cargo-ferrying realm . . . but then, we haven't had a space station since Skylab.

    Nothing could be further from the truth, but as long as the cold-war press machine is remembered, with its fabricated stories of Soviet space hoaxes (all disproven) and implied safety problems, most people will improperly assume the US is number one in this regard.

    The US is still the premier space power; more great scientific research has happened because of NASA efforts than of Russians. We've been to the moon; they haven't. The Russians are better in doing some things; overall, I'd rather fly up on American hardware than Russian hardware, although I'd rather use their rockets.

    Side note: there is talk about hiring Russian rocket scientists and bringing them to the U.S. Many of the guys and gals at RSC Energiya work second jobs so that they can stay in their chosen field; some of the upper engineers drive taxis. Yeesh, but man, they can build 'em some rockets.


    --
    <><
  • Skylab was a useless box. Its scientific value was as a test platform for some future shuttle technologies. Nothing more. It was built out of the 3rd(?) stage of the rocket it launched on and its duration was crap (about 6 months IIRC) and its value for reasearch into long term life support (which Russia got lots of from Mir) was zilch.

    NASA has no experiance with space stations?

    No. They don't.
    • The first attemp was made with Venera 3 (contact lost after entry of the Venus athmosphere).
    • Venera 4 was working for about 94 minutes in the atmosphere,
    • Venera 5 and 6 as well for shorter periods of time.
    • Venera 7 landed and keept sending datas for 23 minutes, Venera 8 for 50 minutes.
    • Probably the most famous were Venera 9 and 10, since they were able to sent a few pictures back to earth. (black and white)
    • Venera 11 and 12 failed (no data after landing).
    • Venera 13 and 14 were successesfull, first color pictures. (Venera 13 survived over 2 hours! Venera 14 did not so well and some experiments failed).
    • The last landing attemp was made with Vega 2 wich failed (experiments were accidently activated 20km above surface. I guess the lander went out of power before it reached the surface.)

    This is a short summary of this page [friends-partners.org].

  • Oh, I have forgotten:
    Most of the probes were launched with proton rockets as well, so this is not completely off-topic :-).

  • Re:Zvezda is cool (Score:3)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Wednesday July 12, 2000 @09:45AM (#941361) Homepage
    Wow, this is a great example of how we've been brainwashed about this.

    During the last 5 years, Russia has had an almost constant presence in space. NASA has occasional Shuttle missions, but the Russians had ROUTINE space freighter launches that re-supplied Mir. This invalidates your 'trying to get something, ANYTHING into earth orbit' statement.

    And in regards to the costs of NASA being higher because they were 'making sure astronauts come back in one piece', consider the numbers. 4 Cosmonauts have died (3 on Salyut 1 and 1 on Soyuz 1) but 7 american astronauts have died. Yet the Russians launch more often then we do.

    Funny how your argument crumbles in the face of facts...
  • NASA has had more than "occasional shuttle missions"... seems like every other week a Titan is lofting somebody's satellite. Meanwhile, Russia's Protons have had an _extremely_ spotty service record, as far as explosions-upon-launch are concerned. And don't tell me about "Mir resupply missions"... for the last year, at least, they've flown maybe 2 of those, because Mir has spent that time unmanned. NOT THAT THEY SHOULD BE CONCENTRATING ON RESUPPLYING MIR ANYWAY when they can't meet their ISS obligations on time. Point me to a website with some contradictory facts, and I'll eat my words.

    Sure, NASA's backup support module will cost more than Zvezda. However, it'll also meet safety specs at launch time, and won't need to be refurbished for the next two years just to bring it up to code. And they managed to put it together and get it launch ready in under a year.

    I have a lot of respect for the Russians' achievements in space, and the fact that we're working with them instead of against them is wonderful. However, their insistence on keeping the increasingly expensive and decrepit MIR in orbit instead of fulfilling their ISS obligations is really unfortunate. I'm really glad that Zvezda's up there. Let's hope it works.

  • He said more or less none. If I were to count Skylab, it would probably be in the "more" category (as in more than 0) but "less" is a close option (as in so far less than Russia as to almost count for nothing?)
  • > but the biggest problem with Zvezda is the acoustical environment.

    Yeah, heard this on Discovery last night as well. They are sending the first crew up there with earplugs to avoid damaging their hearing. They are going to try to fit some noise-reducing things like fan muffles to try and reduce the noise level, but they said that they basically missed the operating noise-level targets. It was likend to being on a busy freeway 24/7. Not an ideal environment for an extended misson.

    The other thing I saw they were lacking was micro-meteroid sheilding. I would think this is a far more severe problem? Imagine that sparc station getting hit with an object the size of a b-b travelling at, what, about 30,000 mph? (yeah, I know... I need more coffee, ok?)
  • Cripes.

    There are alot of disimilar comparisons here, that's one of the first mistakes people make when they try and compare Russian equipment and mindset to western equipment and mindset.

    The leaking shuttle: Yes, the U.S. Shuttle leaks air at a fairly high rate, especially when compared to the Saylut/MIR/Zvezda design, or even most other manned spacecraft. If you had any engineering background, you'd realize that the cylinder hull structure of Saylut/MIR/Zvezda, is optimum for building a _strong, air-fast hull_ that is light. The U.S. Shuttle's pressure hull is more akin to a rhombus, much more complex, and if you wanted to add a few more tonnes of reinforcing material to it, you could have it just as airtight as MIR or Zvezda. Of course, it's much more wisely spent saving on that weight, and using it for more payload capacity, and a little more canned air.

    Soyuz vehicles, being cheaper. Well, yes they are, but a Shuttle can be reused. A shuttle could _Carry_ a Soyuz in it's entirity in it's payload bay.

    A shuttle can ferry about 21,000kg of junk. Or about the weight of three loaded Soyuz TMs. Shutt;es have an orbital duration of about 1 month at maximum, and the airframe lifespan... well we're still using them, you figure it out.

    A soyuz, can ferry about.. well 600kg of junk crew of three included, in it's tiny 9cubic meter of inhabitable space cabin. And stay independent on it's own in orbit for about 14 days. And it is single use.

    Comparing these vehicles is pointless.

    Oh GOd, the Russians bought a SPARCstation off the shelf for their station, vs our 386s. A sick truth: It dosent really matter. A PDP-12 could do the job. The original fit for the space shuttles were 5 IBM microcomputers with a whopping 99k of magnetic core memory. And the shuttle can practically fly itself from launch to landing using these. If it works, why bother changing it? I hate to tell you this, but the laws that apply to home computers, have no grounds in the aerospace industry. 80% of the computers used in the defense systems date from before 1985.

    America and Russia, each has their strengths.

    We have better systems integration, flight designs, and lead time on new technology and manufacturing innovations.

    Russia has strong reliability in a few launch systems (because they've been around since 1965) and practical long-time manned orbiting stations, They also have more experience in Nuclear Reactors for SpaceFlight, and Nuclear-Electric Ion engines. Then again, this is the country that drove it's Space Program nearly broke trying to copy our shuttle. It cost them nearly $14 billion dollars to make their BURAN shuttle system. (double our 8 million budget) And what did they do? Fly it once, unmanned. Now all their shuttles are Resturants and Tourist attractions.

    Dont bother trying to elevate either America or Russia above each other. It's a useless argument. Just be happy we're working together.
  • Moving space stations to radically different orbits requires radical amounts of energy. (I have no knowledge about the relative orbits of Mir and ISS.)

    For example, if the station circles Earth to the opposite direction, you'd basicly first have to stop it from 11km/s and then accelerate it again to 11km/s to the other direction. The required fuel would be almost twice the amount that was needed to send the station up there in the first place. Well, perhaps less, as the rockets could have better efficiency than the launch rockets. But remember that Mir is not just one module...

    Then there are of course the technical incompatibilities - ISS might use new docking systems (probably not though), or have some other critical differences.

    But, I guess the main point is that MIR is just too old and outdated. Think about attaching a 10-year-old used 340MB hard drive to your new computer. Not worth the effort.

  • Is anyone else concerned they named a life support and docking module after the word for Star? I mean, they're great things, but I wouldn't want to live inside one. Do they know something we don't about it's likelihood of erupting in nuclear fusion driven flame ? ...

  • From the press kit...

    The Data Management System is the first European hardware to be delivered to ISS. It was developed and manufactured in Europe by an industrial consortium led by Daimler-Chrysler of Bremen, Germany. ESA is supplying the system to the Russian partner in return for two flight-unit docking systems (no exchange of funds) for use with a later ESA element, the Automated Transfer Vehicle.

    Two parking spots on the station in exchange for a computer system sounds like a deal to me.

    Perhaps the same CPU that's in my 300M [chryslercars.com]....

  • I'll show you how I got triple digit karma, baby.
    --Shoeboy
  • Zvezda(rus) - Star
    Baikonur(turkic) - ????
    Kazakh-stan(turkic) - Kazakh country (also Paki-stan, Afgani-stan, Yanki-stan)
  • You're right, Russia has had over a decade of experience with space stations, whereas Nasa has more or less none. This is one of the critical reasons Russia has to play a large part in ISS. They actually know how to make a space station work. The problem is, they're broke.

    I've seen some suggestions that the project would go a lot better if Russia was put into a contractor position (Which is what happened to get the first Russian module up there), where they're doing the work, but the US is financing it. That way you get Russian experience without worrying about them scrounging up the cash. Unfortunately that isn't a very viable option because of politics and pride.

    The international teamwork is a nice ideal, but in the end, the US is funding the vast majority of ISS. Other countries such as the EU members, Canada, and so forth are putting in pieces here and there, but it doesn't add up to much, I'm afraid. What would be nice is to see the burden spread evenly, but it just doesn't work that way, because most countries don't have the space program the US does. Perhaps that will change in the future. China is working ardently on getting a man into space, iirc, and the UK has designs on putting a probe on Mars. So, who knows.

    One way or another, it should be an interesting decade.
  • Pizza Hut apparently paid 1 Million $ for their logo to appear on the side of the rocket. The image is here: [pizzahut.com] It seems like corporate sponsorship of space programs is going to be on the increase. In the current issue of the New Scientist [newscientist.com], there is an interview with one of the head honchos for MirCorp, who seems to suggest that it won't be long before each of the Mir modules is corporately sponsored. Suggestions anyone. Perhaps Hoover should sponsor the module that lost pressure ? I should think it's a pretty good vacuum in there.... :-) M.

  • Zvezda is cool (Score:4)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @09:56PM (#941373) Homepage
    Interestingly, despite the perception that Russian space tech is backwards (it's more advanced then the US, cheaper, and actually happens), the Zvezda is an example of how this isn't true.

    Zvezda has a Sparc station running it, much more advanced then the 80386s that the US modules use. It also has multiple advanced environmental systems that the US doesn't have, including the infamous oxygen candles (redesigned) that started the fire on Mir. It is much more air-tight then any US spacecraft ever built, too. The shuttle leaks air like a sieve compared to Mir, a station with the same basic design for it's main module.

    The Russians were first in space, have spent more time in space then the US, and have cheaper manned access to space by a couple orders of magnitude (less then $10 to launch a Soyuz versus $500 million to launch the shuttle), but the US press has indoctrinated us into thinking they are less safe and backwards.

    Nothing could be further from the truth, but as long as the cold-war press machine is remembered, with its fabricated stories of Soviet space hoaxes (all disproven) and implied safety problems, most people will improperly assume the US is number one in this regard.
  • It's known about four Russian cosmonauts killed in two accidents. One was a parachute failure, the other was depressurized landing capsule. These two were impossible to cover since Russians used to announce their missions shortly after the launch (if the launch was successful, that is :)
  • There are people who have stayed up at Mir for as long as a year. One of them was a female NASA astronaut who made the cover of Time when she came back. I don't think that anyone could survive in micrograivity for a decade and be viable Earthside.
  • Simply, the Russian space program has a lot more experience with building (and using) long duration life support systems than we do. They've also had more experience in boosting large payloads to orbit including a couple of other space stations (The Salyuts) preceding Mir.

    And remember that the Proton series was designed when we were building big and fast rockets (rememberr Saturn) for the moon race. Unlike the U.S. however they didn't just throw away that technology once the moon race was over. They also didn't waste it on a clearly pointless stunt like being the "2nd men on the moon."

    Think about this, there are Russian crews that have already spent enough time in space equivalent to one of the more optimistic missions to Mars.

    It makes sense to include the pioneering nation in space travel for an International Space Station. And it also makes sense to include a nation which has done time and develop technology that you haven't.
  • Suppose the shoe was on the other foot with the Russians building the space station and the Americans "holding up the show". Would you be sympathetic to calls from Russian "rednecks" to shutdown Skylab? (Assuming of course that it hadn't already dropped out of orbit)

    As far as "commercialisation", I thought this was the start of what American space libertarians have been pushing all along, i.e. let the corporates save us from NASA et. al.

    As far as Chechnya is concerned... do some more reading. The story isn't quite as black and white as a 60 second TV blurb on NBC would have you believe.
  • He meant $10 million vs. $500 million...
  • BTW, in Russian 'star' means old. There're even famous anekdote based on this play of words. Naming has always been a problem :)
  • It's a development of a 1960s ICBM design from the Chelomei consortium. The two-stage ICBM was originally designed to carry up to 100MT warheads to the USA. However it was never deployed and Proton became the heavy lift launcher for the USSR. It's name comes from a series of heavy scientific satellites that were its first payloads in 1965. Proton uses nitrogen tetraoxide and dimethyl hydrazine as fuel and does not need cryogenic storage like most US and European rockets. The rocket has three stages for orbital launches. The first has 6 RD-253 producing a total of 8.45 meganewtons of thrust for just over 2 minutes. The second stage, containing 4 RD-0210 engines then fires for 3 and a half minutes producing 2.11 meganewtons. Finally the third stage fires for a further 4 minutes using a single RD-0210 engine to produce 556 kilonewtons. Proton has been used in the past to launch the Salyut and Mir stations, the Mars73 missions and the Venera Venus landers. Proton is now built by Krunichev State Research and Production Center in Moscow and is railed to the launch site in Kazakhstan. The reliability of Proton is about 98% Best wishes, Mike.
  • The way fuel prices are in the UK at like $6 a gallon it wont be long before it is though :)
  • Helping to make everyone's day a little more surreal.

    HELP! HELP! .sig Thief!! Someone stop him!!!

    Bad Bad naughty JoeLinux! That's my .Sig, go get your own! >:)

    Kintanon

  • That female astronaut would be Shannon Lucid [nasa.gov], but she didn't stay there for a full year. Valery Polyakov scored 438 days in a single mission. Sergei Avdeyev scored 748 days in three missions.

    don't moderate up, google's everybody's friend

  • I believe the point of using 80386s in the shuttle was 1) they were old and "proven" and 2) they are much simpler.

    Reliability is job #1.

    But I don't doubt that economy notwithstanding Russians could whup our ass in space travel.
  • NASA has no experiance with space stations? Try Skylab, know your facts.
  • Everything you wanted to know on Russian space program, but were afraid to ask :)
  • My box has full Russian support. I can write Russian anywhere, everywhere I want to. The unicode charmap even sorts it alphabetically correctly now. My Russian mp3s have Russian names on them. I have tons of Russian filenames in my filesystem. It's pretty cool.

    Karma Police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
    He buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio

  • AFAIK, it might have included Marshal Nedelin case.

    Marshal Nedelin was the high ranking Army official responsible for the space program. At some point (I don't remember the exact date) he and a group of other officials and engineers were killed when watching the botched space launch.
  • hmmm...

    as far as I know, the other two are liberia and burma, not anywhere near south america.

  • I think Kazakhstan is now its own country. Why does Russia launch its rockets / space stuff from another country? After they split years ago, I think Russia would build its own new launch facilities. I wonder what type of commission Kazakhstan gets for every launch.

  • ...lost during launch because of manufacturing irregularities in the engine (nozzles I believe).

    Wasn't it turbopump problems? I thought there were metal shavings left in some of the propellant lines...which chewed up the turbine blades...

  • I think i've heard of that country in Risk before...

  • But if that holding tank was any indication of general design practices, Skylab was incapable of indefinite occupation.

    Thats not really a strike against it, though. Skylab was not built to be replenished. It was built on a very tight budget out of left over Apollo hardware.

    Given the facts that it was: a) NASA's first space station, b) built with a very small budget, c) made heavy use of old hardware (for instance, the EVA hatch was an old Gemini hatch), and they built TWO flight-worthy vehicles, it was one of NASA's most impressive achievements.

    The russians didn't match it until Mir in 1981.

    ISS won't match it for total habitable volume for quite some time.

    And at the end of Skylab 4 (the last mission) there were supplies for another 60 days of operations.

    It's too bad nasa has forgotten all they learned from the building and operation of skylab...they've managed to make almost all of the same mistakes all over again with ISS...Lets see if it takes another on-orbit mutiny to remind them of the final Skylab lession...

  • Russia now leases the Baikonur Cosmodrome from Kazakhstan. Why spend a fortune building a new facility when they can spend a pittance on a lease to a poor country like Kazakhstan?? Especially these days, when Russia can barely afford to keep any government project adequately funded.
  • I seen that recently on a TLC documentary...if i remember right almost 100 were killed in that one incident.

  • I just have one question (Score:4)

    by dragonfly_blue ( 101697 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @09:09PM (#941398) Homepage
    Where can I download this mod_zvezda?

    *ducks to stop moderators from knocking his teeth out*

  • Russia pays a lease for the launching facility. The location of the facility can sometimes cause problems. In recent months, two protons were lost during launch because of manufacturing irregularities in the engine (nozzles I believe). The proton doesn't use a very environmentally safe fuel, so Kazakhstan threatened to cut Russia off from Baikanur unless they assessed the environmental damage and performed cleanup of their lost rockets.

    I was happy to see that the launch went smoothly this time.

  • Yeah, heard this on Discovery last night as well. They are sending the first crew up there with earplugs to avoid damaging their hearing.

    It is more likely that the 'stronauts will be outfitted with headphones. You'd think NASA would do something wise, like tie 'em into the comm system . . . but that would be too logical. They didn't ask me.

    I don't think it will bother them for most events, other than sleeping. Zero-g sleeping is highly, highly recommended (so saith Owen Garriott, who used to be a VP at my company), but you're impinging on the head whilst sleeping. -grrrrr-

    They are going to try to fit some noise-reducing things like fan muffles to try and reduce the noise level, but they said that they basically missed the operating noise-level targets. It was likend to being on a busy freeway 24/7. Not an ideal environment for an extended misson.

    What's really frustrating is that the General Accounting Office is who went public on that, not NASA. But then, NASA PAO stands for Propoganda and Arrogance Office in my book.

    Good luck fitting muffling material in the spaces where it could be useful. Most of those spaces need to be kept clear of non-essential material to shutoff things like vacuum lines, etc. It's a simple safety trade-off.

    What's the line: "Russian parts, American parts, all made in Taiwan!" I don't think Taiwanese QC is that bad. -g-

    The other thing I saw they were lacking was micro-meteroid sheilding. I would think this is a far more severe problem? Imagine that sparc station getting hit with an object the size of a b-b travelling at, what, about 30,000 mph? (yeah, I know... I need more coffee, ok?)

    Ehhhh, they're okay for shielding on Zvezda. Remember that a Progress ship *ran over* another module, and Mir still survived. What *will* delay the schedule will be the U.S. Lab shielding (Assembly Flight 5A, scheduled for 01/18/2001 -cough- -hack- -hack- yeah right) problems. They supposedly have 33 of 40 built . . . after the subcontractor went bankrupt. How you go bankrupt on a cost-plus-fee contract is beyond me . . . "Impressive, most impressive indeed."

    FWIW, orbital speed for STS is 17,500 mph or so. ISS is higher up, with a higher velocity, but I don't think I want to dust off my spacecraft design text to pull out the average vel. equations . . . not when I have less important things to do. -g-


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    <><
  • The Nasa Spaceflight Web link you give commits this sin.

    Or are you trying to get their administrator's email box /.ed..?

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that NASA's testing methods are much more vigorous compared to the Russians. The russians had, what? Two manned protons blow compared to one Challenger, which happened due mostly to freak weather conditions (of course, you could say that Russia is one big freak weather condition, but I don't want to start a flame war here). I think NASA values it's astronauts more than Russia values it's cosmonauts (insert bad russian accent: "We just lost another Proton sir... oh, and five cosmonauts." "Go down to the 'Warehouse' (turns out to be a local bar) and get us a few more." :-) I think it's just the 'Made in USA' attitude of quality that shows that we Americans have more 'quality' than the next country... even the Japanese can burgle our computer designs and build a decent console system, but I would rather buy my next computer from Gateway! (of course, most of the chips would be Taiwanese... but that is another matter altogether...)

    WorldMaker
  • Oh, I can really see NASA giving the russian space program plenty of free promotion. Just wait till the site goes down every time something good happens, and marvel at their connectivity and bandwidth when disaster strikes.
  • Tairan, you're absolutely right. Baikonur is now in another country - Kazakhstan, and is leased to Russia. We have our own launching facilities at Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar, which have been used quite heavily, even in Soviet era, when Baikonur was in the same country. I can't tell you exactly why Zvezda was launched from Kazakhstan, but very probably this is because Baikonur is much better located for the orbit Zvezda has to be put on.
  • The "weeeehhhhhhhoooouuuuuWW!!!!" sound was the collective NASA team releasing their breath an wiping their brow with their sleeve. If this flight had gone like most of their test flights they would have been SCREWED! -"Buckawow-wow!"
  • Not only are the only Proton pads at Baikonur (the Guinea deal fell through and Plesetsk doesn't have any), but Plesetsk is at such a high latitude, the payload hit for launches to the inclination the ISS is in would be prohibitive.

    Plesetsk will probably never be as succesful a launch place as Baikonur as long as the earth keeps rotating in the direction it does, it's simple physics.
  • is this unmanned? russia is the leader in unmanned spaceflight methinks.

    Yes, it is unmanned for now, but it is intended to support people later. No, Russia is more often considered the leader in manned spaceflight, with their extensive experience with Mir. The longest a person had remained in space in a NASA spacecraft in the last two decades is about 2 weeks, compared to Mir which was continuously occupied for about 10 years.
  • The relationship between the US and Russia on this project is quite complex, and politics is playing a much larger role than it should be. Russia needs to be given a fairly important role in the project, and Zvezda is evidence of that.

    Even though Zvezda being late pushed back many US components, the US wouldn't have been able to replace it without a lot of R&D money, because the US simply isn't as far along in this area as Russia.

    The money makes things interesting too. Russia needs to be a big part of the project, but can't afford to be. So what I imagine we'll see happening is the US will contribute a fair amount of money to keep the Russian space program afloat.l

  • Civ II (Score:4)

    by bguilliams ( 68934 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @10:08PM (#941409)
    Now that all 3 modules are up there, we can relax and oppress the other countries. We have plenty of time before 2020 to finish the rest of the ship and launch for Alpha Centauri...

  • Re:Location of Russia's launchpad (Score:3)

    by nickol ( 208154 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @10:11PM (#941410)
    I thought everybody knows this. The closer to equator is the launch place - the less fuel you need. Kazakhstan is to the south from Russia. Russia has its own launchpad at Plesetck
  • This is too late, anyway: On this page http://www.mcc.rsa.ru/smtv.htm [mcc.rsa.ru] you may have been watching Zvezda launch live using Real Player format. Regrettably this /. story has appeared after the module was put in orbit.
  • 6. The first craft to flyby Venus.

    7. The first craft to flyby Mars.
    Maybe, the fate of Venera 1 or Mars 1 is unknown (contact lost en route to Venus/Mars). Anyway, the first Mars flyby with a *working* craft was Mariner 4 (US), 14th July 1965. The second Zond 2, 6th August 1965 (SU). The first successful Venus flyby was Mariner 2 (22th August 1962, US). (I was too lazy to check the other facts...)
    It would be nice to know how many failures the Russian rockets have had, compared to the western (USA and Europe) rockets.

    Check out Mark Wades's great Encyclopedia Astronautica [friends-partners.org]. It lists success/failure for nearly every launch system.

    E.g. the Proton 8K82K [friends-partners.org] wich is used here (I guess, since the 8K82K has been used vor the Zarya as well) has had three failures and 26 successfull launches (the statistics were up the year 1989).

  • Hmmm, you may be on to something. Some anagrams [wordsmith.org]:

    • Khazakhstan
      AH SHANK KATZ
      KAHN HAS KATZ
    • Baikonur
      A RUBIN OK
      IRA BUN OK
    • All of em!
      A BAZAAR KATZ DUNK SHE HONK VIZ
      A HAVANA KATZ BRED HO ZIZ SKUNK
      A HAZARD BEAN KATZ HO VIZ SKUNK
      A BRAVADO SANK KATZ HE HUNK ZIZ

    Conspiracies everwhere! Beware hidden meanings!

    John

  • Ummm... No! (Score:3)

    by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @10:27PM (#941414) Journal
    When they they can't feed their population, do you think that the same people are going to be putting all their attention into their work?

    A lot of the money is coming from the west. They know paid work is hard to find, so they will probably put quite a lot into it.

    They purposely made their rockets big and fast,

    Rather than slow with a low payload. Gosh what idiots. But um...... you may not realise this, but Russia was sending rockets up before the US. It is possible that the US went for a different design from the Russians to be contrary, or maybe even they had different design aims because they don't need to be compatible.

    They chose SECAM to our NTSC so we would be incompatible

    SECAM makes more sense when you have 50Hz supply. Don't know why they didn't use PAL though.

    Comrade, am not using Capitalist pig-dog Unix system

    Why should they? That would involve buying computers that can run UNIX or porting UNIX to their machines. They might as well write their own OS.

  • Re:Finally. Certainly took them long enough. (Score:3)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Wednesday July 12, 2000 @02:09AM (#941415) Homepage
    "I hesitate to point it out, but no Russian space engineers have yet to completely fsck up a simple metric conversion function"

    If anything, the chances are that this will happen as the United States is the only country in the world (besides a couple in S. America) which still uses the archaic Imperal system.. the Russians must thunk down to the US level of measurement to make their components interoperable, thus opening the possibility of a metric conversion problem.

    If the US had converted to Metric with Canada in the 1950s and 1960s, NASA would've directly saved a few hundred million on their probes, not to mention other benefits (mainly in the sciences).
    ---
  • Lets also not forget that this module is so loud that crew members have to wear earplugs until the russian engineers can come up with muffelers for certain components. It also isn't up to snuff in its ability to take hits from mico debries, this also must be fixed in the next couple of years. not to mention that there are serious venelation problems in the zaria module thats been up there for a couple of years now. yes alot of what they have up there is cool, but it also has some VERY serious problems that should have been worked out long ago.
  • When launching, you want to be as close to the equator as possible. This gives you the fastest rotational speed, and therefore the least acceleration required to get to escape velocity, and therefore the maximum amount of materials launched into space.

    This is why ESA launches are from Guiana.

    This severely limits the number of possible locations for the launch facility, and when you consider that they already have one in Kazakhstan, it's not going to be worthwile building a new one, even if they do have somewhere suitable.

  • that they were going to show us pictures of a Proton exploding. In the meantime, re-Christen Zvezda with a new name, attach it to Mir as a hotel for Rich Americans, and laugh at us all the way to the bank.
  • If, maybe, could have. The Russians did. It's not bygone possibilities that matter, it's accomplishment. The simple fact is that they are way ahead of us in space-station knowhow.
  • The Russian economy has never been stronger, owing greatly to the recovery of lost natural resources in areas experiencing seditious activities (most notably Chechnya, which you seem to know a little about).

    I wish it was true, but it is not!

    Russian economy and agriculture is still something like 50% below what is used to be 10-15 years ago - before the country was divided and plundered in the name of capitalist ideals that the country's people and leaders had almost no clue about. When the Russian gov't tells the world that "things are looking up," they mean "compared to a total disaster" - one cannot fall down from the floor.

    As far as Chechnya goes, their oil is of a very high quality, but there isn't much of it, and the whole infrastracture is destroyed.
  • Yep, but Plesetck doesn't have a Proton launch
    pad complex. Not to mention the facilities for
    assembling the rocket and doing the final launch
    preperations for a payload the size of Zvesda.
  • One thing that you forgot the mention is durability. When MIR was launched in 1986 it was supposed to have a 5 year life time, about what the ISS is supposed to have, and the damned thing is still around.

    Although the Russians are sound technically and scientifically, they lack one major component. They aren't sound economically. This prevents them from being completely on par, if not ahead of us, scientifically and technically.
  • Skylab was only a flop because it was abandoned.

    After the 3 manned skylab missions, it actually exceeded the experimental goals, 60% more earth observation passes, and 27% more solar viewing time, but then it was shut down, waiting on the completion of the shuttle, but due to the almost inevitable delays in a big project could not get it completed in time. They'd already given up on Saturn launchers, so when the increased solar activity caused the orbit to decay, they could not get anyone up there to correct the orbit.

    If they'd decided to keep on building Apollo/Saturn 1B's, then probably Skylab would be like Mir, and exceed it's design life in orbit, instead of the 6 it actually did.

  • Zvezeda brought to space by Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut....making it great!

    :P

  • You mean Nasa knows how to throw space stations at Australia.

    I used to feel it a shame that we couldn't somehow keep Skylab up longer. Then at some point, I got a chance to see a decent cross-section. There was this big waste holding tank at the bottom, and no apparent way to clean it out. Skylab was designed for a fixed mission life. No doubt it was overdesigned, and could have sustained more missions. But if that holding tank was any indication of general design practices, Skylab was incapable of indefinite occupation.
  • OT, I don't know about where you live but all of the pizza huts here in colorado have been merged with taco bell. So I would be saying that I am going to the pizza bell, or the taco hut.

    And, no I haven't seen Gorbichov there yet.
  • mikerich has quite a bit more info but one thing that he forgot that is quite important to the design of the proton rocket. Most rockets designed by US companies has been one engine, multiple stages, no failure. This idea is fine, but if there is a failure in that one engine then the rocket is hosed. Russian designed rockets are multiple engines per stage, little failure. That way if one of the many engines happens to fail, and not blow up, the rocket still has the ability to succeed.

    Imagine taking many smaller rockets and strapping them together and placing an outer coating on it, and that is the Russian design. We are starting to do that, the Space Shuttle has three engines in the rear so if one fails then the shuttle isn't lost. This design also allows for higher payloads because it is much easier to expand the design, unlike US rockets where we redesign the entire rocket instead of just adding more smaller ones.
  • I know Mir has outlived its intended lifespan, but the Russians seem hell-bent on keeping it in orbit. Has nobody considered attaching it to the ISS? What kind of logistical problems might there be? If nothing else, it seems like it'd provide temporary living quarters, etc.

    Or maybe it's just a Dumb Idea(TM).

  • Skylab 4 resupplied Skylab, the first time that an oribiting platform was resupplied from the ground.
  • Try imagine how silly the US names look to those whose native language isn't related to latin.

    Houston, John F. Kennedy Space Center...

    Houston actually is almost identical with 'without trousers' in Finnish :)
  • Very interesting comment. I do think you are spot on with the choice of the Russians for the living quarters of the station. They've definitely shown that Mir's life support systems have been very resiliant. Haven't they operated 10 years beyond their expected lifetime of 4 years?

  • The ISS will not fail. We've got 85% of the hardware sitting around the assembly building waiting to be stuck on the shuttle. Our politicians wouldn't allow it.

    NASA even had their own version of the living quarters already built and ready to launch in case the Russians failed to launch Zvezda.

    And I disagree that the Russians should not have been allowed to participate. How else were we going to get the experience necessary to operate the station effectively and efficiently. Sure, we could have figured it out for ourselves, but that's stupid. It's the NIH syndrome. Even though the Russians were two years late, I can bet you it would have taken us a hellava lot longer to figure out what they already know. We are stronger with the Russians than without them. NASA knows this, and that's why they have been so patient.
  • Looking at the Russian names, it always makes me think that you have to unscramble the letters to form new words - maybe that's how the cosmonauts keep themselves entertained during the journey :-)

  • Zvezda = Low-tech? (Score:5)

    by Whyte Wolf ( 149388 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @09:20PM (#941435) Homepage
    I've seen some documentaries about the Zvezda module and the technology that went into it. The module itself is the main service module for the International Space Station. this means that it handles all the life support and waste-recycling responsibilities for the entire station--among other responsibilities.

    The most interesting thing though is that despite the fact that the Russian space program is apparently years behind the US in terms of technology, Zvezda actually represents a level of accomplishment that NASA engineers have yet to acchieve.

    The Russians have been perfecting life support and environmental systems for decades; meanwhile NASA has been busy pushing the envelope in computers and flight systems.

    Most of the reports I've seen detailing technical specs for Zvezda report it as if the Russian tech is backwards. I disagree. Zvezda isn't low tech, but simply an area NASA and the US hasn't developed as well as the Russians. I don't agree with the belief that the world threw Russia a bone with the comissioning of Zvezda--we simply used the know-how that their scientists have.

    For all its flaws, what I really like about ISS is the international teamwork that's at work here.

    Wish I was up there :)

  • Re:Finally. Certainly took them long enough. (Score:3)

    by Floyd Tante ( 210193 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @09:23PM (#941436)
    LOL!

    The Russian economy has never been stronger, owing greatly to the recovery of lost natural resources in areas experiencing seditious activities (most notably Chechnya, which you seem to know a little about). It was the Russians who opened the door to space, as you might recall. Both Sputnik and Yuri Gargalin beat the US by years, proving how embarassingly bad the US space system was (and in many ways, still is). I hesitate to point it out, but no Russian space engineers have yet to completely fsck up a simple metric conversion function.

    This being said, inclusion of the Russians is seen as a must by all reasonable men, and I applaud those in charge who managed to overcome their fears of "Sovietism" -- and the supposed violence it entails -- and chose rather to develop a truly International space station. It was a lesson learned by the UN and it's predeccesor, the League of Nations: you cannot spurn Russia in any attempt at internationalism. Though it is coldly regarded by the Westerners who know Russians only as villians in cheap spy movies, Russia has shown time and again that it has more than ample strength, intelligence, and most of all Freedom, to compete with any nation, on this planet or beyond.

    -- Floyd
  • Less then $10 to launch a Soyuz versus $500 million to launch the shuttle

    Do you really mean it costs them less to launch a soyuz than the drive to work costs me in gas??

  • I'm sure this will interest someone

    This article [sheflug.co.uk] is all about using Linux on the ISS.

    A link from that page goes to LEAP [cantrip.org] - The linux equiped astronaut project. Essentially aiming to save the poor astronauts from Windows, by porting all the useful applications. (The OS has since changed to Solaris, but there's still no reason not to push an open OS)

  • There is more information on Zvezda here [spaceref.com] on Spaceref.com [spaceref.com].

  • With regards to failures, when I was in Moscow in 1980 (on a Russian language immersion course that failed to achieve its goal since everyone I met wanted to practice their English), I visited a culture and technology fair which included a Space program display. The main feature was a complete mockup of a Soyuz craft that you could explore (but the lineup and time considerations prevented me from doing so alas), and behind it was a wall of photos of Astronauts in the Soviet Space program. I asked and was told it was a memorial to those who had died in the cause of exploring space. There must have been at least 100 faces up there, probably more than that (I seem to recall it was more like 300 but it is all very fuzzy in my mind now).

    If this is true, then they have paid a far higher cost for their achievements than the great folks at NASA have ever faced.

  • Re:Russian (Soviet) space accomplishments (Score:3)

    by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Wednesday July 12, 2000 @09:03AM (#941452) Homepage
    The first craft to orbit the Sun.
    Not true! Ogg make craft from log, float in lake. Ogg catch many fish. Ogg craft orbit sun six years. (Take 365.2475 days orbit sun.)
  • Did anyone else who watched the launch notice that NASA Administrator Dan Goldin looked like some sort of plantation owner or Harry Truman or something? Light colored suit, white hat with a broad brim, boots...

    I could practically hear him; "Now that, son, is how my pappy used to launch rockets."

    ----

  • ...and have a shot of vodka to celebrate.

    great job!

    BTW, is this unmanned? russia is the leader in unmanned spaceflight methinks.

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