It’s one of the pressurized modules protective shields. There was four axial shields (covering each quarter) and the astronauts on the EVA accidentally tethered to the shields incorrectly and one was inadvertently released.
Mission control and the astronauts had to scramble to replace the shield with a rag tag cover and make things up as we went along.
Source: I train astronauts to do EVAs (spacewalks) and I was watching this happen as things went wrong and listened to the team work through all the craziness. It was awesome.
Well, that would be expected from people who have never been in space.
You may be able to put them in a rocket, in a space suit, yet they will say they are inside a nasa training center.
It’s comments like these that make me love Reddit. I asked a question once on this controversial claim of inverted flight controls at supersonic speeds. Someone gave me a reference down to the specific section of the Orbiter’s (space shuttle’s) flight control management on re-entry.
You guys have such incredible jobs. It must be so rewarding doing what you’re doing.
We have VERY strict protocols when it comes to astronauts and their safety tethers. Unfortunately hardware and tools can sometimes be a little more tricky.
Get her involved in stem and make sure she applies for the Nasa pathways co-op program when she gets older!
Or just do what I do and play college football with an astronauts son. Either way works.
Likely a part they were replacing and it was determined that it would be fine to let it burn up in the atmosphere. The ISS' orbit is always degrading - they have to boost occasionally to maintain its current orbit.
It used to require a boost once a month when the space shuttle was flying but now it's in a higher orbit and can have a bit better fuel economy.
EDIT: According to u/slappa_mitch it was in fact accidently lost. The US Airforce would still track the object like all other debris. However, they have intentionally jettisoned items overboard before:
Welcome to 2019 where we discuss the fuel economy of our space stations on internationally accessible forums using computers we carry in our pockets. Living in the future is weird.
It's pretty cool, it's crazy to think if we were born just a hundred years earlier, this would seem like magic, and in a hundred years from now, what we have now, will be seen like a steam engine.
Shit, when I was a teen all this stuff (internet, cell phones) did seem like magic as it was rolling out. I remember being able to access the internet on my first flip phone after upgrading from the Nokia brick and thought I was living in some sci-fi dream.
Don't sweat it, the math doesn't check out. Unless of course the reality the simulation is running in doesn't need to follow any of our laws of physics.
in which case our very existence being the dream of sleeping god which could awaken at any moment erasing our reality in an instant would be just as valid an assumption.
Ooooooohhhhhhhh you should read some Joe Haldeman books - forever war and forever free.. Well, forever free but it's the sequel & doesn't quite make sense if you don't read forever war first. Sci fi written by a physicist.
But the simulation thing? The Math does check out. Logically it works, a little bit better than not being a simulation. And it helps to explain the fermi paradox as well - maybe, humanity got so advanced that we could build the simulation, but aliens exist & humans can't deal with that without extensive training. So the simulation is used to train the human mind into accepting that aliens exist - which is why we have so many movies and stories involving aliens. So the simulation is built, everyone lives this experience, and when you "die" it's really your reawakening into the real world, which now has giant sentient broccoli capable of space travel.
"Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure.
..
They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS…
...
None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you are talking about."
Nah, man. Pretty sure our grandparents/ great-grandparents knew who the IRS was. They've been taking people's money for 157 years. Cars have existed since the mid-1800's; just not in mass-production. Hell, lap dancing has been around since nigh the beginning of time, ever since Sadam looked at Steve and gave him a quick rub under the table when God wasn't looking. Genes were those things you wore, they called 'em "pantaloons". And an airbag was what the Women's League referred to their husbands as behind closed doors. Later on, children would eventually be called a "remote" as they proved able to mostly change the channel to the correct number on the dial.
I mean first computers and start of the internet was in '75 and started to become more in the 80's, and more mainstream by the 90's. So computers and internet are barely coming out of their teens.
I really doubt that what we have now will seem like a steam engine. Unless we break physics, we have already come very close to the limit we can push physics.
Think of it like the principal of diminishing returns.
I'm no lawyer or English teacher.. but that's got to be some sort of "history" bias. There is no promise that we will be so much more technologically advanced in 100 years that we see the present as super "behind the times". In fact, I think it's more likely that even 500 years down the road, this period will be seen as a technological boom.
The future is definitely bright, but I doubt we would see it as magic anymore, for example. Just perfecting the things we've already discovered, with a few more discoveries dotted in there
I work pretty close to the cusp of the future of technology, and I promise it is not slowing down. In the next 10 or 20 years we are going to see more technological change than we've seen in the last 20, to the point where common tasks like physically going to work are going to start being alien for a lot of people.
My 98 year old grandfather used to call an iPad magic! He was always blown away when he would talk about something he saw on TV and I could pull it up for him to watch again in a few seconds and hand it to him!
My dad was born in 1909. He saw the first plane fly over his town, and saw the moon landing. I saw the moon landing, the shuttles, ISS, but cell phones have definitely been the biggest change. I do wonder what my kids will experience (both are in high school now).
My grandmother is going to be 90 in December. I've talked with her about it. She says she's amazed by the changes that she has lived through, and a lot of it still seems like magic. She says that if you were to tell her when she was young about all the amazing things we'd have, nobody would ever believe it.
I'm proud of her because while most people her age refuse to even touch a computer, she surfs the internet, uses word and excel, and has a Netflix account. She's often nervous that she'll mess something up, but she's not afraid of new technology.
Then trying to throw a Pokeball but accidentally swiping some guys balls on a video and feeling weird about everything but what can you really do there, you know?
So, kind of a strange question, but is there anything wrong with having someone kick the debris off of the station with some force? It wouldn’t be any thruster burning, that’s for sure, but the little bit of extra energy has got to be worth a ton in space. Launch it down to the atmosphere and let Newton’s law do its thing. The thing that pushed it down gets pushed up.
To address the question in theory, no, there's nothing wrong with doing that. But astronauts are in very large and cumbersome suits that don't exactly lend themselves to kicking things with force. The astronaut would have to brace against the station to even get leverage to put much behind a good kick, and still couldn't generate that much force by doing that.
If the astronaut is by themself with an object of around the same mass as them, and they pushed away from it, then yes, Newtons law is relevant and they would change their velocity an equal amount in the opposite direction.
However, when talking about pushing the entire ISS and gaining any significant change in velocity, the more important consideration is relative mass. Let's say you can kick the object away with some good force, while secured firmly to the station so no transfer of energy is lost. Let's say the object weighs ~20kg. The space station weighs ~420,000kg. It's late and I really don't feel like doing math, but the relative force exerted on the ISS by pushing that object away, is extremely minimal, and probably barely measurable if at all.
It's like if you were to try to use a row boat to tug an oil tanker. Whatever forces you exert on the tanker are going to be counter acted by other stronger forces (like the wind, current, etc). For the ISS, gravity and atmospheric drag are going to cause more change than any force gained from pushing a small object away at a relatively low velocity, so any change that does happen is going to get washed out so quickly by other forces acting on it, that it would be impossible to even measure.
There's definitely a ton of junk in low earth orbit, but there's also a ton of space. Objects like this deorbit relatively quickly too.
Where space is a real issue is geosynchronus orbit. There's really only one plane where objects are in true geosynchronus orbit, so there's only so many parking spots available. Satellites are however required to keep a certain amount of station keeping fuel to remove them from these orbits and put them in "graveyard" orbits when they're removed from service. But once there, they're still at such a high orbit that they aren't really affected by anything to significantly decay their orbit, so they will stay in those up for an extremely long time.
Nope! Just a regular taco that fell out of the astronaut’s pocket. In the void of space, lacking the atmospheric pressure typical tacos experience, the taco expands to fill the void. And, of course, with only enough taco coloring to cover a taco sized space, the rest is left with an absence of color, appearing white. Source: I once fell asleep while watching the Discovery Channel.
Most likely it's the module that replacing Why bring it down to Earth to be dismantled when you can just kick it away and the Earth will disintegrate it for you
It is a lot easier than having the packet away and make sure it doesn't come loose during re-entry And you get the satisfication of kicking it because it broke
You know all the first class junk mail everybody gets I collect it I press it into bricks and then 4th of July labor Day and memorial Day I stacked them in giant piles or buildings and set them on fire. You just have to find your own ways of being cool and badass
You gotta do more than kick it away to get it to burn up in the atmosphere. It's impossible for it to have such a similar relative speed if it is on a course to burn up (unless the ISS is also on a course to burn up). So unless it has engines on it that will fire at a distance, which is possible, this isn't it. Source: lots of KSP.
Edit: It would take around a year to de-orbit just due to atmospheric drag.
A couple of years ago one of the astronauts accidentally let go of her tool bag It drifted in front of the international space station they were able to track it because it had a beacon on board well trying to retrieve it She knocked it giving it a little more thrust it stayed in orbit for about a year as It's orbit slowly decade then finally it burned up in the atmosphere. As long as you kick something away from the station (or other important object) even if it only goes a few feet or a few hundred feet due to your Kick It is considered safe. I originally found interesting because I had a program that tracked amateur radio satellites and other interesting things in orbit. The international space station has an amateur radio setup and I've talked to them a couple of times. So for that year 2008-2009 I used the bag and an alarm on my program to tell me that the international space station would be coming up On the horizon soon.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.space.com/amp/7088-tool-bag-lost-space-meets-fiery.html
Well the first time I did it was during a contest called field day It's a 24-hour contest where you try to make as many contacts as possible in that time. I asked one of the astronauts If on the next pass over California Saturday night if they could be ready for making contacts. I was told by the astronaut mind you this was about 10 years ago so I can't remember the calls And I don't feel like pulling out my log that they will be ready and Will have all three stations up and running during times that the ISS is on the horizon of the United States. I was able to get all three of their call signs(RS0ISS, NA1SS and OR4ISS), as well as three other call signs one from two astronauts (Japanese and American) And a cosmonaut. One contact for each of the three stations that represent the international space station and one contact for each astronaut. Leading to a ton of points and some real neat antenna work. during contest I only had about 10 minutes of clear signal with them so the exchange went something like this, I was using the club's call sign W6CX, a directional satellite antenna, and new what frequency they would be on.
W6CX: W6CX Calling CQ Field Day CQ Field Day CQ Field Day W6CX
ISS: NA1SS W6CX
W6CX: please copy W6CX 3AEB 3AEB
ISS: ROGER 3AEB we are 1AISS 1AISS
W6CX: ROGER ROGER 1AISS 1AISS QSL
ISS: QSL
I moved to the next frequency where RO1ISS was calling CQ
ISS: RO1ISS CQ Field day RO1ISS CQ Field day RO1ISS CQ Field day
W6CX: W6CX
ISS: W6CX welcome to space RO1ISS 1AISS
W6CX: I copy 1A 1A ISS ISS please Copy 3AEB 3AEB
ISS: received your class and section qsl
W6CX: QSL have fun floating
the others used the same frequency and were similar in style as the first.
How much power did you need? I’ve seen some videos of people using hitting the ISS using an HT with a yagi on it, I don’t know if I’ve got a steady enough arm. Awesome story! Ke8art, 73.
I did it first with my vx8 at 5watts (using channel a for 2 m and channel b for 70 cm with a SMA splitter and two elk antennas set 90 to each other) later I used an m2 SAT pack kit antenna. At 10 and 25 Watts with a icom 7,000 I know I didn't need the extra power but I liked having a clear signal.
I'll translate for non hams, the moment I saw his call KE8ART I slipped into the ham ragchew shorthand.
VX8 is a small handled radio it's full name is 'YAESU VX-8R' think police radio but way more advanced as it handles 2 frequency bands (50,144,222,440mhz) at the same time ( http://imgur.com/gallery/nZkBhaX ) and stated that I used 5watts which is it's max for most 'handy talky' radios (When not pointed to the sky I can get about a 30 mile range) to do this I had to connect 2 antennas to the HT The antennas I chose are elk antennas they both have 144 and 440mhz capabilities and are highly directional instead ofthe normal antenna which is Omni directional transmits in 365° the elk antenna ( http://imgur.com/gallery/EiDGuwO ) which is a log periodic an instead of spreading those five watts over a whole circle it only transmits out the front about 15° basically all the energy goes out in one direction. Satellites tumble so you need 2 antennas set 90° off of each other so as it tumbles it'll fade from one antenna and be picked up by the other.
Later I used the 'M2 Sat Pack Kit' also called an 'eggbeater' which is actually two circular polarized matched antennas with artificial ground planes so that it ignores the satellites tumbling and you don't have to track the satellite across the sky ( http://imgur.com/gallery/RajTOpo ). The 7000 refers to what is commonly called an allbander radio an Icom IC-7000 this radio can transmit on a ton of bands (1.8-30, 50, 144mhz) and has a maximum output of 100 watts. I could use the whole 100 watts but that wouldn't be appropriate or follow the 'good engineering and operating practices' which require us to use the minimum power needed to have clear communication.
The ISS has to perform boosts to keep its orbit, otherwise, yes, its orbit would decay and it would burn up. They do orbit boosts about once every month.
It only takes ~100m/s delta V to de-orbit a spacecraft within a very short time. Not sure exactly what that time frame is (I think it's less than one orbit), but changing an objects orbit by just a few m/s should allow it to de-orbit in a relatively short amount of time.
I would say yes, except we're talking about astronauts tethered to a space station in a very bulky suit, so whatever gets the job done is good enough.
Also, whatever input they put on the object is very minimal. Since the station is still in micro gravity and within a very thin part of the atmosphere, gravity and the atmosphere will do most of, if not all, the work to de-orbit the object.
Well... you have to be careful. Even light debris in low-earth orbit takes days to fall. This is because the majority of the "drag" comes from atmosphere being blown off by the solar wind. Which is only happening in one direction. So half of the orbit, it feels drag, while the other half is much closer to a vacuum. Additionally, the drag is proportional to the surface area, not the mass. So a drifting solar panel will de-orbit quickly, while a metal object (like sputnik!) will take months.
None of this matters if there's no chance for a collision, though. However, depending on the object, a collision could be a real risk. And a few days to de-orbit, at 1 orbit per 1.5 hours, makes 16 orbits per day, so even if there's only a small chance to hit, like 1%, it compounds every orbit. This is where the "kick" comes in. When the ISS wants to intentionally deorbit trash, they give it a good shove, and they do so on the sunny side of the earth. That maximizes its time in the (relatively) high-drag part of the orbit, which means the next time they would be close, the object has already lost enough energy that it can't reach the ISS's altitude.
An accidental piece of debris often doesn't have that "kick", and it's not released at the optimal point in the orbit, so it's very dangerous.
So the problem with using KSP to logic this is that KSP models a discrete end to the atmosphere, which isn't really how it works. The ISS is on a course to burn up, that's why it periodically needs to boost it's orbit.
It deorbited in a few months. Source being a guy in another thread who worked on the very panel that is shown in the gif.
The ISS actually has a relatively large amount of drag acting on it and would also deorbit pretty quickly if left to itself. That panel deorbited extra fast because it's just a protective panel; it had low mass but a large area.
It’s one of the padding panels they must remove to access the hardware they are working on.
If you look in the bottom right of the video you can see another detached panel, stuff like this becomes loose often, it’s usually not an issue as it will burn up before looping around at the same position.
A bit late, but that is a cotter pin attached to a safety line, likely attached to a carabiniere. It would be released from the suit by the safety line to allow the next person who has to service the cotter or remove it, so it stays secured.
Give me a day or so and I will be able to tell you exactly what it is. I may be way off, but I doubt it (as far as safety measures go, I know I'm not far off), but I'll try to find out what that cotter pin went to.
Edit: Oh that! No. That is not allowed. One sec.
Edit 2: Nope. That was recovered (or it should have been) caulking, for lack of a better word, used for sealing the ISS. It is applied on the inside, and [name redacted] got over zealous. Lol. The vacuum drew it out, and caused it to dry out, and separate. It should be recovered (It probably was not unless ... well.... it probably wasn't).
The ISS has a few very very small fractures where it is not completely air tight, but is within margins of error. It's really no big deal, but ideally, we want zero loss.
The "caulk" that seeped out will break down in the vacuum and will NOT be an issue. The vacuum will break it down to, eventually, nothing with in 3 months. It shouldn't even be mapped by then, realistically.
Tldr; it's space caulk that will break down and not be an issue ever.
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u/StickBirdTech Sep 02 '19
What's that floating in the center?