Astronaut Watches Russian Space Station Module Fall From Space In Fiery Demise (space.com) 25
On Monday, astronauts said goodbye to a cornerstone of the International Space Station and captured stunning images of the compartment burning up in Earth's atmosphere. Space.com reports: A Russian Progress cargo vehicle towed the module, called Pirs, away from the space station and down through Earth's atmosphere to ensure the module burned up completely and reduce the odds of any large chunks making it to Earth's surface. Russia had launched its Pirs module in 2001; since then, the module, which served as a port to the space station, hosted more than 70 different capsules and supported Russian cosmonauts conducting extravehicular activities, or spacewalks. To make room for Russia's new science module, dubbed Nauka, which launched on July 21 and will arrive at the station on Thursday (July 29), Pirs had to go. Yesterday's fiery retirement ceremony marks the first time a major component of the International Space Station has been discarded. The attached Progress vehicle, which had arrived at the space station in February, controlled Pirs' re-entry to ensure that the module was destroyed as thoroughly as possible. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared the photographs on Flickr.
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A corrupt tyrant, in charge of a communist country? Find me one that isn't, dumbass. Goes with the territory.
Educate yourself next time. You might look less ignorant.
We really need to stop calling these TOTALITARIAN asshats "Communists". China, Russia (USSR), North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba etc were NEVER actually Communist. They were/are totalitarian/one party states. As somebody said when the Berlin Wall fell and the Right was all giddy about the "victory of Capitalism" - "Communism has not been tried and failed - Communism has never been tried." ACTUAL communism is an economic theory in which the means of production are eventually owned by the workers as a dire
To make room (Score:2)
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It is in outer space, there is room by definition. The Wikipedia article says the same, I guess design of the station is not as modular as I have thought, or there may be other reasons besides design limitations: obsoletion? politics?
Uh, how 'bout it's fucking old?
This is akin to replacing a roof on a home that's 20+ years old. Kinda makes sense to do it before you start getting leaks.
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This is akin to replacing a roof on a home that's 20+ years old. Kinda makes sense to do it before you start getting leaks.
would be fun to see an old roof enter the atmosphere at 16K+ mph.
Everyone's an astronaut (Score:2)
In the English language, people who go to space (other than as tourists) are called astronauts. This article continues the silly convention of referring to Russian astronauts as cosmonauts. Or even worse, it calls them "Russian cosmonauts" as though there might be any other kind. This would be a great time to rid ourselves of a cold war relic in language that is related to dehumanizing the enemy. There is even a reference in this post to European Union astronauts. I don't think there is a rational exp
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See: ...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
People from 18 nations flew on Soviet and Russian capsules (including one from Afghanistan, Frenchmen, Americans, Germans, one from Syria,
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In the English language, people who go to space (other than as tourists) are called astronauts. This article continues the silly convention of referring to Russian astronauts as cosmonauts.
On a related note, the term "actress" is now dead. They're apparently all (gender-wut?) "actors" now. Don't ask me.
As far as "cosmonauts", it does have some rather obvious and sound reasoning behind it. From Wiki:
By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts. The word is an Anglicization of kosmonavt (Russian: Russian pronunciation: [ksmnaft]). Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian kosmonavt, such as the Polish: kosmonauta (although Polish also uses astronauta, and the two words are considered synonyms).
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It is in outer space, there is room by definition. The Wikipedia article says the same, I guess design of the station is not as modular as I have thought, or there may be other reasons besides design limitations: obsoletion? politics?
Unavailability of connector ports.
Re:To make room (Score:5, Interesting)
Pirs, the module that was discarded, was the 3rd oldest module from the ROS (Russian Orbital Section). It was used as (among other things) an airlock, and above and beyond the base age of the module, the pressure cycles from nominal to vaacum take a toll on the structure and equipment of the module. So, age was a factor.
The new module that is coming up, Nauka, has all the capabilities (and more) of Pirs. Therefore, there was no technical reason to retain the old module.
There are some physical constraints to consider as well. The ISS orbits at an altitude that's not far enough up to be entirely free of the effects of atmospheric drag, so it requires periodic boosts to raise its orbit. This is accomplished using thrusters, which consume fuel. The more massive the station is, the more fuel it takes to do so. Because of the technical capability overlap mentioned above, in this regard Pirs was unecessary excess mass.
The mass distribution of the station matters as well. If all the mass were evenly appllied around the fore-and-aft axis of the station, then applying thrust in the forward direction from the aft of the station would put the thrust vector exactly through the center of mass, which would make controlling said thrust vector easy. However, the mass is not thus equally distributed - which the station control systems can deal with, but the further away the center of mass is from the thrust vector, the harder it is to control (and at some point, it would become impossible). There are only so many places for modules to connect (ports) along the fore-and-aft axis of the station. Thus, to keep the mass distribution closer to this axis, the less massive Pirs.had to at least be moved out of the way to make room for the more massive Nauka. And, since there was no reason to retain it, per the above, it could be removed from the station entirely.
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The new module that is coming up, Nauka, has all the capabilities (and more) of Pirs. Therefore, there was no technical reason to retain the old module.
Except that they did it three days before the new module was scheduled to dock, and the new module has experienced one complete propulsion system failure already. I think I'd have waited until the ISS crew could see the light in its windows. They're liable to end up with no Russian module, and it's not like they can slap a new one together in a week if things go wrong.
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ISS management did retain the Pirs for several days past the originally scheduled departure due to the issues with Nauka. The fact that they proceeded with the undocking would suggest that they feel the issues with Nauka are sufficiently resolved to allow for a safe docking with the ISS (at which point, the Nauka engines would probably not be used again due to the off-axis docking arrangement for this module). There are also probably constraints on having both modules free-floating within close proximity to
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This.
They couldn't have just kept it around as some kind of storage shed to pack away junk that they don't need now but might come in handy? Like the people who keep junker cars or have used shipping containers sitting on their property.
Re:To make room (Score:5, Informative)
The shortest answer is "No."
The longer answer is that they would need a place to stick it. There is no back porch on the ISS; They need a hard point that can handle the mechanical load of 3.5 tons being accelerated for station keeping. If they just let it float it will drift away and become a debris hazard. If they tie it to a tether it will create additional drag and require more fuel for station keeping. If the module reached the end of the tether it would cause a small acceleration of the station, messing up microgravity in the labs. It also would be additional surface area receiving solar and earthshine radiation. That heat has to be exhausted to the radiators. That requires power too.
I always hated that we threw viable functional kit away in space, e.g. Shuttle external tanks, MIR, Spacelab, etc. The hard truth is that getting them to a parking orbit where they'll be stable without someone tending to them generally costs more than it would to fly new purpose built hardware.
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There is no back porch on the ISS
What about a garage, or a tool shed?
The (unfortunate) end of an era (Score:1)
For a brief moment, it looked like we might be able to set aside geopolitical animosity and unite as one species. the greatest powers of the world, hand-in-hand towards a new era of exploration for humanity.
What a pity that we threw it all away.
Easily Stunned (Score:2, Informative)
It might have been stunning if some dude waved out of the old compartment as it floated away. "Where's Bob? Did you tell him we were gonna let the old part float away today?"
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Re: Easily Stunned (Score:2)
Agreed. I was hoping to see a time lapse of it drifting away and getting pulled into the atmosphere as a fireball. Instead I saw what looks to me like a docking in rewind, and then a photo of it burning up.
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I imagine it took a handful of ISS orbits for the module to drop far enough into the atmosphere and burn up - the only way to watch the entire process (assuming it was even possible) would've been from the ground.
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Years ago in Sky and Telescope they published a picture of a jetliner which was almost *exactly* outlined by the full moon. Although that feat has been duplicated since (e.g. here [cnn.com]), at that point people had been attempting to get that shot for years without success.
The image was stunning, not because it captured anything rare, but because it captured something that was hard to capture.
All things "Space" are cool but... (Score:2)
Is it really a "stunning image"?
Things from space fall, they burn up. Can we all agree that this is well known, well documented, and mundane at this point? I mean, if something HUGE and spectacular happens, sure. But this? This isn't "stunning".
Hey! (Score:2)
Has anyone seen Dimitri?