NASA Mulls SpaceX Backup Plan For Crew of Russia's Leaky Soyuz Ship (reuters.com) 61
NASA is exploring whether SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft can potentially offer an alternative ride home for some crew members of the International Space Station after a Russian capsule sprang a coolant leak while docked to the orbital lab. Reuters reports: NASA and Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, are investigating the cause of a punctured coolant line on an external radiator of Russia's Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, which is supposed to return its crew of two cosmonauts and one U.S. astronaut to Earth early next year. But the Dec. 14 leak, which emptied the Soyuz of a vital fluid used to regulate crew cabin temperatures, has derailed Russia's space station routines, with engineers in Moscow examining whether to launch another Soyuz to retrieve the three-man team that flew to ISS aboard the crippled MS-22 craft. If Russia cannot launch another Soyuz ship, or decides for some reason that doing so would be too risky, NASA is weighing another option.
"We have asked SpaceX a few questions on their capability to return additional crew members on Dragon if necessary, but that is not our prime focus at this time," NASA spokeswoman Sandra Jones said in a statement to Reuters. It was unclear what NASA specifically asked of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capabilities, such as whether the company can find a way to increase the crew capacity of the Dragon currently docked to the station, or launch an empty capsule for the crew's rescue. But the company's potential involvement in a mission led by Russia underscores the degree of precaution NASA is taking to ensure its astronauts can safely return to Earth, should one of the other contingency plans arranged by Russia fall through.
"We have asked SpaceX a few questions on their capability to return additional crew members on Dragon if necessary, but that is not our prime focus at this time," NASA spokeswoman Sandra Jones said in a statement to Reuters. It was unclear what NASA specifically asked of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capabilities, such as whether the company can find a way to increase the crew capacity of the Dragon currently docked to the station, or launch an empty capsule for the crew's rescue. But the company's potential involvement in a mission led by Russia underscores the degree of precaution NASA is taking to ensure its astronauts can safely return to Earth, should one of the other contingency plans arranged by Russia fall through.
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For someone who has been at /. for a long time, you really don't have much of a grasp on reality, do you? It is Russia against all of NATO, and the US/NATO who built up the Ukraine military for 8 years after the US/NATO-backed coup in Kiev in 2014. On top of that, Russia holds most of the 4 eastern Ukraine provinces and is steadily degrading Ukraine/NATOs ability to function by targeting the power grid. But I understand that the Russiophobia propaganda being focused on you is working perfectly. You are doin
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I'm sorry, what planet are you living on? The Russians are holding on to major areas they set out to capture in the first place? Like Kyiv? They're freezing out Europe? Some grumbling about energy prices is not the same as freezing out all of Europe. They're causing plenty of human suffering in Ukraine but, so far, it looks like the Ukrainians can take it. It mostly seem to be Russia's slave soldiers who are being frozen like Napoleon and Hitler's troops in Ukraine, not the Ukrainians.
As for 0.3%, how do yo
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You're also leaving out that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has also motivated Sweden and Finland (formerly neutral nations not participating in any military coalition) to join NATO as active members. Putin has now basically increased its defensive border (against NATO) by 20%, and exposed its Murmansk regional ports and oil fields to potential NATO attack. Invading Ukraine accomplished literally the opposite of increasing Russia's security.
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Good point. It's going to take Russia a long time to dig out from all of this.
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In what universe are you living in? Russia has lost a staggering number of soldiers in only 10 months. Current estimates put their losses at over 102,000 killed or wounded. That is more losses than occurred in the nine years when they tried to control Afghanistan. The Russian military has suffered such egregious losses they resorted to forced conscription to try and fill their rank
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and hasn't been able to accomplish a single goal,
They did seize & reduce the city of Mariupol. If the Russians continue to hold that region, that would deny Ukraine future access to the natural gas & oil fields in the Sea of Azoz(?).
Nevertheless, you are absolutely correct that Russia has basically shot itself in the foot, and will suffer economic and strategic consequences for decades afterwards..
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Russia are the aggressors, 100%. Ukraine is now the brave defender holding off the forces of evil. This means Russia has lost it's major claim of glory that keeps them surviving the long winters of depression: that Russia stopped Hitler once. The tables have turned, and Putin is now the same as Napoleon and Hitler. There is no glory for Russia here even if they win.
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Russia is not even going to be able to declare a Pyrrhic victory from the invasion.
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they lost less than 8% (900) of its known total tank force (12,000 tanks and 36,000 armored vehicles) and most of them were abandoned antiques (few modern tanks, artillery and other pieces of modern warfare were lost).
That's because they had few modern tanks. Total estimates of production of their latest models are less than two dozen. They've literally had to resort more recently to fielding tanks without reactive armor, i.e. complete deathtraps that can be killed by practically anything.
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Not sure who to reply to in this thread, which mostly seems to be trolls replying to trolls. I have to ask though, who exactly did the US/NATO supposedly lead a coup against in Kyiv (which is the correct spelling since Kiev is the anglicized version of the Russian spelling/pronunciation while Kyiv is the anglicized version of the Ukrainian spelling/pronunciation and Kyiv is in Ukraine)? There seem to be two possibilities: either it was Russia that there was a coup against, in which case what actually happen
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https://consortiumnews.com/202... [consortiumnews.com]
The US alone has pumped something like 100 billion into the fight, and is assisting with logistics and intelligence, not to mention weapons and ammunition. NATO countries have contributed billions more and many countries have sent "volunteers" to fight Russia. If this was a fight between Russia and Ukraine it would have been over in a few weeks. Now as the electric grid is ground to dust, it is going to get harder for the US and NATO to stay out of the fight if they want to
Re: What? No respect for Russian stuff? (Score:2)
They are volunteers in the truest meaning of the word, so I'm not sure why you put quotes around it. Unless you're taking about the Russians? Because sarcasm would make sense there. Literally recruiting people from prisons, something Russia doesn't even deny.
Also, even without assistance from the US, Russia would still have failed against Ukraine. One of the most critical elements of a functioning army is logistics, which Russia utterly fails at.
I mean who the fuck sends a 40 mile long tank convoy but negle
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When the eastern Ukraine is fully integrated as part of Russia, and western Ukraine is begging for peace so they can get Russian help in rebuilding their electric grid, I wonder what you will be saying to yourself? The EU is getting fed up with being the US lapdog and self immolating, and is already hinting that NATO must offer Russia more security guarantees, including banning Ukraine from joining NATO. You are in for a big surprise when all of a sudden the western propaganda campaign falls apart in the fa
Re: What? No respect for Russian stuff? (Score:2)
So you're saying that the 40 mile long tank convoy was fake? That's a first, because Russia doesn't even deny that failure either, rather they just pretend they were doing something else.
Also Russia doesn't deny that the Moskva sank. So either one of two things happened there: Russia, in an act of sheer incompetence, set its own flagship on fire and then sank it (how the fuck do you sink a steel ship by setting it on fire?), OR, a country with no navy at all sank it, in addition to at least 6 other Russian
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Re: What? No respect for Russian stuff? (Score:2)
You have to love Russia's version of events though: "No, Ukraine didn't sink it, we're just incompetent."
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Putin listened to the rebels on Donbass in the same way the Bush listened to the exiles from Iraq. He probably honestly believed that Ukrainians on the streets would welcome the invading armies. It makes sense, because he has few advisors he trusts and none of them would be willing to say that Ukrainians don't like him, that would only lead to an epidemic of people falling out of windows.
This is all about ego with Putin. He lost his shit when Ukraine got rid of his hand picked oligarch puppet.
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He lost his shit when Ukraine got rid of his hand picked oligarch puppet.
But Russia's 2014 military campaign in Ukraine was pretty much a resounding success. They got back control of a historic, major Black Sea naval port, created two buffer regions at the Ukraine border, and arguably handicapped Ukraine in a manner to become a thriving EU satellite nation. Of course, they threw those gains away by an incompetent, failed invasion in 2022.
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No one really expected that invasion though, it was a surprise, with maybe a few days suspicion that those little green men without insignia were soldiers. The new post-Yanukovych government was probably still unorganized and weak. Crimea lost quickly but the "rebels" in Donbas region were countered quickly and did not spread far even with Russian soldiers helping.
Personally, I think Crimea should be an independent country, but not likely to ever happen. It's been passed back and forth by invaders for cent
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The US and EU and other nations are providing support to Ukraine, sure. Including logistics and intelligence, yes. Training as well. But they're not fighting in Ukraine no matter what bizarre ideas you have about volunteers. Providing support is not the same as fighting in the war. So, once again, it is not "Russia against all of NATO". It's Russia against Ukraine, just as it is Ukraine defending against Russia, not against Russia/Belarus/Iran/North Korea (even if some of those nations have gone further tha
Re: What? No respect for Russian stuff? (Score:3)
Two Jewish guys from Odesa meet up, one asks the other: "So what's the situation? What are people saying?"
"What are people saying? They are saying it's a war."
"What kind of war?"
"Russia is fighting NATO."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes, yes! Russia is fighting NATO."
"So how's it going?"
"Well, 70,000 Russian soldiers are dead. The missile stockpile has almost been depleted. A lot of equipment is damaged, blown up."
"And what about NATO?"
"What about NATO? NATO hasn't even arrived yet."
Is there a concern if you put more people (Score:3)
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It's not a truck carrying potatoes.
It needs one chair per crew member, accelerations are pretty high, vibrations are pretty high, etc., etc.
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They can sit on top of each other.
One can only hope and pray you're childless, safety champ. It's quite something you're still alive given that attitude.
It's well known that sarcasm is hard to distinguish from cluelessness on /., but I think you're responding to sarcasm here.
Re:Is there a concern if you put more people (Score:5, Funny)
It's not a truck carrying potatoes.
Well, that's obviously the problem here. If it's not potato-, beet-, or cabbage-based technology, Russia cannot currently maintain it.
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Who cares?
Big picture, you send a Dragon up with ONE crewman on board. When you get up there, the people who need to get down get on the Dragon, it lands.
If you can't manage to rearrange people with just one Dragon, send two.
Re:Is there a concern if you put more people (Score:5, Funny)
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They come home riding on the back of the scorpion.
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Crew Dragon was designed for a crew capacity of four,
Re: Is there a concern if you put more people (Score:5, Informative)
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Came here to say this. For whatever reason NASA specified that the Dragon capsules contracted to go to the space station should only have four seats. However the capsule was always designed to carry seven, in two levels of seats. I don't think any of the existing crew dragon capsules have more than four seats, however, and it how easy they could add three more I don't know, if it's even possible to do at this stage..
No concern, it was designed for seven people (Score:2)
When Dragon was designed, it was designed to replace the human transport capabilities of the Space Shuttle system, which was a crew size of seven. In the post-Columbia disaster era, all new proposed US crew vehicles were planned to carry seven people. After some time passed, NASA declared, keeping in mind that ISS was de-scoped (some planned modules, like the centrifuge module were not completed/launched) and "completed" by a minimal set of final shuttle flights, that it would not need to fly more than 4 pe
They'll do it (Score:2)
For a fraction of the price the Russians do.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk is another useful idiot for Russia who openly supports Russia's attack on Ukraine
Musk may be a bit of a dope yet "openly supports Russia's attack on Ukraine" is a rather outrageous statement unsupported by any publicly available evidence I'm aware of.
Musk's gear is currently providing crucial support to Ukraine. Starlink is being used enmasse at the front to coordinate and facilitate the suffering and death of Ruzzian invaders.
even using the same "talking points" to justify the invasion.
Referenced article is not a justification for invasion but merely a dopey peace plan.
Re: Why not? (Score:2)
Finally someone with some sense. Musk making dumb comments occasionally and having a brief public spat with Ukrainian officials is meaningless. What is meaningful is the hundreds of millions of dollars he has spent supporting Ukraine with Starlink service and materials. Support which Ukrainians have said has been crucial both in the battlefield and in having some semblance of normality for civilians who have their Internet service destroyed by Russian missiles.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Interesting)
SpaceX Crew Dragon (Score:3)
According to Wikipedia, the SpaceX Crew Dragon, by default, is configured to carry up to four passengers [wikipedia.org], but it can be reconfigured to carry as many as seven.
So it's clearly feasible to send one, with a pilot aboard, to return three passengers to Earth. The problem, if any, will be Russia's willingness to allow its cosmonauts to touch down in American waters, rather than on the steppes of Kazakhstan ...
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I believe the assumption here is that since the capsule was designed for 7 people, the life support, environmental support, and other systems can safely return 7 astronauts to earth in an emergency. Even if it only has 4 seats installed. Not a bad thing to know in the event of some major catastrophic failure on the space station requiring an emergency departure, especially considering there are 7 people onboard ISS at this moment, and 3 don't have a viable way off the station.
So they probably wanted to know
Re:SpaceX Crew Dragon (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SpaceX Crew Dragon (Score:4, Informative)
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There's no need for a pilot, it's designed to fly and dock autonomously.
The 2nd crew mission should have carried 7 seats (Score:2)
The generic seats not needed for the return trip could then be removed from Dragon and stored. I'm pretty sure the don't have quick disconnect fasteners, but I'm sure the cosmonauts and astronauts are all smart enough to install additional seats in a docked Dragon capsule. Even if the seats aren't a perfect fit, at least they won't have to ride home in the trunk.
Surprised? (Score:3)
What would surprise me even more was if we started talking to China about their capabilities...
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What would surprise me even more was if we started talking to China about their capabilities...
Somebody get Jeff Daniels on the phone.
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If there's going to be a Council of Elrond, then Jeff Daniels should be Glorfindel.
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I'm surprised I ignored this when I saw "SpaceStation springs a leak! Watch story now!" just thinking "Naw. That's boring. Next.", if I even thought that much. It wasn't until I heard about the prospect of russia being possibly tasked to come to the rescue here that it finally clicked
You have it backwards. The leak is a coolant leak on the Russian Soyuz (not the space station itseld), and the prospect being discussed is for the US to come to the rescue.
Keep in mind that this is just contingency planning. The Soyuz may still be useable without the coolant loop, and no alternate planning would be needed.
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>>> Keep in mind that this is just contingency planning ...
Absolutely. I'd imagine that NASA's contingencies look something like (in order):
1. Use the existing Soyuz to bring astronauts back, if analysis shows that the temperature will remain within reasonable limits.
2. Have the Russians launch an empty Soyuz to bring astronauts back
3. Leave astronauts on the ISS until #2 can occur, possibly with crew rotations.
9. Build suits for the astronauts based on estimated measurements, launch them in an em
American Components, Russian Components (Score:2)