Russian Cargo Mission To ISS Spinning Out of Control 120
quippe writes: Many sources report that a Russian spacecraft, launched successfully (video) from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier Tuesday, is in big trouble now after having a glitch shortly after liftoff. There is a video on YouTube (credit: NASA) of the space ship spinning out of control. Recovery attempts haven't gone well so far, but they will continue. If they can't regain control, the ship will likely burn up when it falls back into the atmosphere. Current speculation points to greater-than-expected lift by the third-stage, because the apogee is 20km higher than planned. The ship does not seem to pose a threat to the ISS at the moment.
I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
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No, it was just a failing iPad App.
Apologies for posting something on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
(2) more force, unless purely rotational = higher speed
(3) higher speed = higher orbit
(4) 20km higher orbit is not much -- consistent with a small engine (like a thruster) causing it
So, (5) keep guessing what the problem is
My guess: a thruster stuck open...
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Not a hard guess considering they state in the OP that likely culprit is too much lift provided by third stage.
You may as well guess that they're going higher than planned.
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One potential guess is that one of the engines of the third stage burned for too long. Third stage has quite weak engines, and it has a lot of them as it's third stage's job to put the object on correct trajectory.
If you have those engines that have significant angle of attack vectors on the actual heading for purpose of setting the direction burns for too long, it's quite possible that object will enter a spin in addition to getting punched to a higher orbit.
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If this was a simple case of the capsule being put into a spin, and then all forces on the capsule stopping, it would be trivial to send the capsule a signal to "fire thruster x for y seconds" to stop the spin. I am sure this is done all the time.
Yet the spin continues...
The logical conclusion is that something is continuing to impart rotational force to the capsule. Something stuck doing this. With the only somethings that checks all the b
Not to worry (Score:2)
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Now.
Imagine Dragon the difference if it wasn't a robotic mission.
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Jeb could correct the spin. That Kerbal is a master of space flight.
I's horrible (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I's horrible (Score:5, Funny)
Crimea river.
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Nice word-play. A good one-liner when a Russian starts whining. Now I just need to get a good one-liner for when an American starts whining, and I'll be on my way to a full set.
Re: Not to worry (Score:2)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Stargata episode 200. It is round it has to spin. Spinning is so much cooler than not spinning.
Will Putin personally fly out (Score:2, Funny)
and fix the ship with a big wrench?
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Somewhere is the ocean probably. Happy?
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How could you possibly know this early? If it hasn't already fallen then it's in orbit, which means atmospheric drag is what will eventually bring it down. And atmospheric drag, especially on a tumbling structure at that altitude, and on a presumably elliptical orbit, is extremely chaotic. Add in the 11+km/s of orbital velocity and you'd have to somehow estimate its final reentry time within a few minutes to even guess which continent or ocean it will be over.
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How could you possibly know this early?
Because the earth is ~70% water by surface area? Chances are it will hit the briny.
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Great. Where? I'll do you one better - there's a 100% chance it will hit the Earth. Only very slightly less useful information.
And actually, without knowing the orbit we can't even state that 70% probability: 70% of the total surface area doesn't translate to 70% of the surface under it's flightpath. I can draw plenty of great circles that traverse far less than 70% water. And a fair number of those those pass over Russia...
Calm down with the "threats" (Score:4, Informative)
The ship does not seem to pose a threat to the ISS at the moment.
The resupply ship is not even remotely in the same orbit as the ISS. Progress 59 will never pose a threat to the ISS unless they regain control, adjust the orbit 200km higher, rendezvous with the ISS and attempt a docking.
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Dr. Mann, do not attempt docking, I repeat, do not attempt docking!
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Da. Mann.
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http://threewordphrase.com/mis... [threewordphrase.com] NSFW (although not really that bad... just weird...)
Solution... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Solution... (Score:2)
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At least they can still get a man into orbit. Puts them way ahead of the U.S. And their safety record is a shitload lot better than NASA's.
Re:Partners in space (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the ratio of serious accidents on the Soyuz compared to the shuttle, it's actually higher. Soyuz has gotten very lucky several times in nearly killing its occupants, and had several complete would-have-been-deadly failures in modern times on unmanned launches.
Just looking at crewed vehicles, here's some of the more significant Soyuz accidents since 1971:
18a (1975): second stage separation failed, the craft accelerated toward earth, the crew hit over 21g on abort, rolled down a hill, and stopped just short of a cliff. Serious injuries.
23 (1976): Landed off target, broke through a frozen lake, and sank to the bottom; with great difficulty, the crew was ultimately rescued in time.
33 (1979): Engine failure in orbit; the mission had to be aborted but the craft was thankfully low enough to achieve reentry in a reasonable length of time.
T-10-1 (1983): Rocket engulfed in flames on the launch pad. The emergency escape system was activated just two seconds before the craft exploded.
Expedition 6 (2003): Malfunction during reentry, causing the craft to reenter too hard and way off target. Landed on its side and left one of the crew with a broken shoulder.
(2008): Separation failure on reentry, causing incorrect reentry orientation for part of aerobraking and a rough landing; another crew member injured. Russia responded by blaming the problem on a superstition that having more women than men in a spaceship at any given time is unlucky and banning the practice for all future missions, and no, I'm not kidding though I wish I was.
It's not even accurate to say that the last fatality from a Soyuz was in 1971, in that a Soyuz-U launch in 2002 failed 29 seconds after launch, fell back on its pad and exploded, killing a man on the ground.
Soyuz's "spotless safety record for decades" is anything but. They've gotten really lucky, many times. And now Russia has made bug cutbacks in their space program due to the current economic climate, yet still wants to pursue grandiose programs like their own space station and even moon base. What do you think the result will be?
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You're really bending over backwards and splitting hairs there, to the point of misrepresenting what the person you answered to is saying.
He specified "cosmonauts" as in people who ride in the vehicle.
Fact is that when it comes to getting people to space, Russians are clear number one in the world right now, with no real challenger in sight. That's why even extremely rich space tourists go to them instead of financing development of vehicle of their own like Elon Musk is trying to do right now.
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That's why even extremely rich space tourists go to them instead of financing development of vehicle of their own like Elon Musk is trying to do right now.
Not really disputing the facts here, but this isn't really an apples-to-apples.
It is like calling somebody stupid for building their own plane when it is far easier and cheaper to just buy a ticket on an airliner. That would be true if the only goal were to get from point A to point B, but people who build things usually have other goals.
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The guy who I answered to, if you click on his commentary, is basically here to take a big dump on Russian space tech. He's going all the nine miles of spin doctoring, from conflating casualties among people being launched to people getting hit by debris on the ground to listing accidents and suggesting that this is comparable to accidents with lethal outcome. All while ignoring that in this apples for oranges comparison, he doesn't offer similar list for the other side.
Which from a point of view of someone
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"Objective" was supposed to be "obstacle". It's late evening here. Apologies.
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Yup. Wasn't really disputing your overall point. I think the Russian designs are praiseworthy for their simplicity/stability. Sometimes their QC fails a bit, but the fact that these haven't resulted in casualties speaks to the robustness of the design. NASA is moving towards simpler designs themselves.
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The 6 I mentioned (starting at 18a) were manned missions. As in, people riding in the vehicle.
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You are once again intentionally misunderstanding. As in claiming that "people riding in the vehicle perishing" is the same as "people riding in the vehicle which has a failed launch and kills people outside the vehicle by crashing on top of them".
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Constellation basically cancelled itself by going way over budget with almost nothing to show for it except a useless suborbital launch of a glorified Space Shuttle solid rocket booster and no hope of ever maintaining a semblance of a budget going forward. And Obama didn't end the shuttle program -- he just executed the end of the shuttle program as scheduled and planned by the Bush administration and Congress before he took office.
Re: Partners in space (Score:2)
O did NOT cancel the shuttle. You neo-cons did. In addition, ares 1 was not going to be ready until 2017-2018. And Ares v would fly around 2030, no earlier.
It is fools like you that continue to kill NASA.
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Please describe how what he said will kill NASA.
Also, what about his post makes you think he is a Neo-Con, not just an idiot?
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Tomatoe, tomahto
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OH BOY! A BASE ON THE MOON! Yeah, sure, maybe it would have happened by 2029 at the rate NASA works these days, have you seen how the Senate Launch System keeps missing its milestones? And what exact value is a base on the moon? A lot of scratchy moon dust to give everybody silicosis? Helium-three (giggle) for (hahaha) fusion power (giggle *SNORT*)?
An orbital space station is much more useful because we need to learn to do things in zero-gee (like, say for getting to Mars), and the moon ain't gonna do that
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And where would one investigate spinning a spacecraft up for artificial gravity? Exactly, in space. Not on the moon.
Lunar surface science could address some issues not addressable in space but they're really not the interesting ones. Things like manufacture with or refining of regolith can be done here in Earth (or in space if you want reduced or zero gravity) using simulants for far, far cheaper. And working on the moon increases your costs and risks by an order of magnitude. It's just not the answer. Even
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At this point there's no point in going to the moon unless you're going to do something there. I'd argue that we should go to the moon and do something there, however, and that is to build a radio telescope array on the far side. Maybe several of 'em. And by "build an array" I just mean "land a number of array elements" which will communicate with one another and build a mesh network. Then we land a number of communications repeater elements to get the signal to where we can use it, etc etc.
Doing anything e
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Personally, I think we're far better off abandoning the Senate Launch System and contracting with private companies for launches, companies that aren't required by politics to have contractors and subcontractors all over the country to hit some Senator's state or Congressman's district.
Re: Partners in space (Score:2)
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Umm, the Millennium Falcon wasn't real. It wasn't a cargo ship. It was a plot device.
I know the computer graphics were pretty good and all but Leia's hair style should have given it away.
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I have seen plenty of women wearing that hair style...
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Seagoing cargo ships are manned. Cargo planes are manned.
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And Cargo spacecraft are not--unless you count the Shuttle, which is no longer flying.
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Yes. Yes we were.
Saw this on the news (Score:2)
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Since there are only 2, that is a big problem.
Re:Saw this on the news (Score:5, Informative)
False. Solar Panels did deploy - that's about the last bit that is certain. Shortly after that there was a problem deploying KURS docking system antennas (not all deployed) and soon after the ship ended up tumbling.
44 pieces of debris has been detected near Progress and 3rd stage.
Current guesses include
- Collision with 3rd stage of the rocket, resulting in debris
- Explosion in the propulsion system of Progress, resulting in debris
Seems like Russians have given up (no response to commands over multiple attempts) and it will burn up sometime after May 7th.
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Collision with the 3rd stage sounds eminently believable. This would be, what, the 4th major 3rd stage separation failure they've had in the past 15 years? Pathetic that they can't get that fixed. It's not like the Soyuz family has been Russia's workhorse for the past half century or anything.
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If Voyager, MRO, Gallileo and Rosetta are spaceships, so is this busted pickup truck. .. or is the distinction you wish to draw between spaceSHIPs and spaceCRAFT?
Blessing went wrong (Score:1)
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There was a great talk on C-SPAN by Bill Ingalls, the NASA photographer. He took a great photo of one of the blessings by an Orthodox priest: https://www.nasa.gov/content/a... [nasa.gov]
Video is here
.
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Maybe there were too many women involved in building the craft compared to the number of men; they should ban that too [ctvnews.ca]. Or to "prevent sexual tension" [dailymail.co.uk], perhaps they should just get it over with and ban women from approaching within several kilometers of all facilities at all related to rocketry. Then they'll finally fix Soyuz's reliability problems!
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It got closer to God?
Lost contact with the ground (Score:2)
Um, planning? (Score:2)
"Current speculation points to greater-than-expected lift by the third-stage, because the apogee is 20km higher than planned. The ship does not seem to pose a threat to the ISS at the moment."
Sounds like a safe-ish orbit if all goes haywire after the third stage is done. Good flight plan.
Too bad it didn't get on course, but obviously a major malfunction.
I bet the CEO of SpaceX is happy this morning... (Score:2)
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Old? Yes, but in rocket science old = proven. Conservative people like that they are paying for proven tech that works.
Expensive? No, Soyuz and Progress are damn cheap.
Unreliable? Well, two failures out of ~150 missions is pretty good reliability for an unmanned cargo vessel.
Proton failures with booster going full Kerbal were much bigger deal. This is obviously a setback, but nobody can claim that Progress is unreliable based on this alone. Besides, main theory appears to be third stage shutdown problem, re
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You're kidding, right? Soyuz has had dozens of major failures. Even killed a guy in 2002 when the rocket failed seconds into launch and fell back on the pad. Also, the manned Dragon costs per seat are $25M. For Soyuz it's $75M. Hardly cheaper. Same for cargo comparisons, Soyuz is said to be as little as $6000-7000/kg++, Falcon 9 is $4500/kg, and Falcon Heavy is supposed to come in around $1700/kg.
++ - Doubtful in general; looking up actual delivered contracts makes one question whether that's actually that
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I hope SpaceX is keeping their guard up though, a myriad of US defense contractors, foreign launch companies and government officials probably have prepared statements, budget bills and press campaigns ready and waiting for when SpaceX finally has a failure. If SpaceX can even maintain their current prices/reliability let alone do half of what they are working towards they're on track to shake the space launch industry to its core and a lot of people are very unhappy about it.
Easy fix (Score:3, Funny)
That's an easy fix. Just turn on non-physics time warp for a moment and turn it back off. Bam, no more rotation. Easy as pie.
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Mad Libs anyone? (Score:3)
Stability issues confirmed (Score:2)
Progress 59 Reentry Bingo (Score:2)
Alternative (Score:2)
Should they start rolling out the trampoline?
In Soviet Russia Cargo Boxes Open You! (Score:2, Funny)
In Soviet Russia Cargo Boxes Open You!
You're right - I do feel better.
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In Soviet Russia (taking into account Mach's Principle) uncontrolled spaceship rotates you!
Re:Yesterday's News (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Dice, please let us know when you have something that wasn't reported in the major news outlets a day ago.
If you are coming here for cutting edge news, then you are in the wrong place.
The only reason I come back here is for the discussions about the stories. While I typically seen the major news pieces in other locations (and with more in-depth reporting than will ever be on /.) I haven't seen a site that comes close(*) to the /. comments section for it's structure, moderation and (gasp) insightful comments.
Many times I let the comments brew for a few hours and then read the ones that have risen to the top of the moderation system. That can give me a lot more insight into the background of a story than anywhere else.
* Yes I look at Soylent News every so often, but there is a tenth of the commenting there than there is here.
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Yesterdays news with a better takeaway than you'd get from the current news folks.
Dive in. If nothing else, the other users will make you a better poster, and if you pay attention, a better thinker.
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That can give me a lot more insight into the background of a story than anywhere else.
Unless the story is about politics, then the comments (including the +5s) are in the groupthink sewer here the same as they'd be anywhere else. /. is at its best on stories about science, space, and technology. Most of the rest are clickbait.
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Unless the story is about politics, then the comments (including the +5s) are in the groupthink sewer here the same as they'd be anywhere else.
Not sure I totally agree with that.
From my experience even the groupthink comments still have to back up their arguments with some justification rather than just a "Because I said so" argument. (and anyone who tries to present a "Because I said so" argument is going to be called out pretty quickly.) Thus even if I am not in the groupthink, I am still learning the basis for the groupthink.
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Honestly I did not see this particular story anywhere yesterday on any major national feeds and I am not seeing it running much today even though it is an ongoing situation. Everything is buried by baltimore. Who had this covered?
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I saw it on Ars before I saw it here. It is also on the front page of CNN
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For anyone who wants the latest news, Russia has given up on trying to recover it [telegraph.co.uk], saying recovery is impossible and it will be left to break up in the atmosphere.
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Soylent News seems to be worth watching and checking in on occasionally, since it's slowly getting better and better comments (and they have folks actively developing and enhancing the back-end too), but yeah, it's nowhere near the level of commenting we get here.
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I would expect in this case it is more of
Dammit Jeb, you're supposed to shut off the engines before staging!