Thought I'd open a thread just about this, since there's one in orbit and at least two new ones planned. Looks like the new Nauka modules thrusters remained on and gave controllers a fit this week. It's finally out of fuel, but ISS controllers are still evaluating the effect on the station. In the meantime this bumps the Starliner test flight that should have happened today into next week. For once a delay Boeing isn't at fault for.
Read that when I was looking for the launch time this morning of the Boeing . "Software glitch" they say.. Another Russian moduale Prichal due at the end of the year. And be a node for russian expansion. Axiom looks interesting since its being designed as a successor that can be detached at a latter date to be its own station
futher lookin into it, seems the 2 new russian modules will likely be detached like the Axiom modules at the end of the ISS lifespan ( Whenever that is). Can't wait for the picture of a Space X Starship docked to it.. Puny Station..
I think I read an article a long time ago where they'd wanted to use a few spaceshuttle tanks as modules for a space station.. now that would have had some real estate then...
I've seen some interesting designs from single-tank to one rotating wheel-of-tanks for artificial gravity. I recall that NASA looked into it at one point and found that one of the problems was if the tanks had been left in space too long, the foam insulation would have "popcorned" and caused a potential hazard. I don't know about the early tanks but the later lithium-aluminum super lightweight tanks probably lacked adequate micrometeorite protection, so blankets would have had to have been brought up and fitted. Then the interior space would still need to be contstructed. None of this was non-doable, but I think the main thing was that the shuttle could only put a tank in orbit if it had no other cargo, which never happened, unless STS-1 counts. Columbia could lift less than the rest of the fleet, so it could not have done it, either. Shuttle-C, the wingless cargo-only variant might have been able to do so even while hauling payload, if it had been built. I am kind of a fan of Shuttle-C. It would have given the US a nearly-saturn-v like capability and allowed all sorts of things we're still waiting on, in the early 90's (including the Shuttle derived launcher we ARE finally going to get, SLS). The First Bush administration was all in on both Space Station Freedom/Alpha as well as moon and mars missions. But the SEI program that came out of all that talk cost over half a trillion dollars. Congress was not amused. Dan Quayle, who was involved, well you couldn't make Quayle more akward than he was. Richard Truly was fired, which was a pity, he was a great astronaut and in many other ways. Mars, moon, heavy lift, etc was all shelved for decades. We would have even lost the space station (keeping this on topic!) if it had not been for Clinton using the idea to bring the Russians on board as a slightly naive swords-into-ploughshares thing (they can make both, actually). And so we have ISS. but no shuttle-c
And the sls is a once a year 2 billion a shot launcher. I don't see it getting to 5 launches. Rather the dragon/falcon 9 combo, that makes a great reusable taxi for the iss for almost the cost of a tanks of Gas. For a starship based station, you'd just have to disassemble the inner tank baffles and you'd have a 9m x 50m tin tube. Which is almost twice as bog as skylab was. And you can toss a few up quite easily .. Eventually.
since they plan to refuel, I can see them needing a human-tended, if not permanently crewed fuel depot station, and that would make sense, yes.
It was indeed something like shuttle-c that they were talking about, maybe even more simple, saw it in an science mag decades ago, could even have been only the tank, SSME's mounted to it and the two SRB's but it was all a very long time ago, before the internet even..
Gene Meyers of Space Island Group is still looking at that. Mark Holderman wanted a GEODE station—he of Nautilus X. SLS could make it to orbit with a lighter payload. Easier to use it as a tank station than to put landing legs and a heat shield on it as per Starship. Those two approaches could be complementary. JARVIS as a steel upper stage for New Glenn isn’t the only time the name was used. There was a low cost booster that was to use two simplified F-1 engines (Saturn V) also named Jarvis. Dynetics Pyrios SRB replacement was to be similar. I think Bezos wanted to recover an F-1 from the ocean floor. Since he is having problems with his methalox engines…he should work with Dynetics. It would have to be a fly-back though since throttling would be iffy. Instead of re-usability, you could still compete with a low part count. Nauka https://www.space.com/nauka-space-station-module-tour-astronaut-home-movies The Challenge Where spaceflight began
Yeah it was the older Jarvis i was thinking of, but now that I think of it, during that time there were some really wild designs, like NLS and the kind of the all The Comet
Bezos might have named his new Jarvis after Iron Man’s assistant. Keeping the engineers away from suits who just say “no” should have been done from the start. I still like the idea of side mount payloads. Seeing the precision of Falcon landings…which are timed to not land simultaneously…makes be wonder if wide payloads can be spread across multiple linked rockets. Like a flying wall of metal plate. More on the spin: https://phys.org/news/2021-08-impact-space-station-requires.html https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.A34644 Let's see Dom Toretto have a 500 ton object with the rigidity of a slinky do a 540 like ISS did!
Starliner delayed again, no new launch date set. It's a test. At least they can get these issues figured out now before there are people in their.
Looking at a news story here and there looks like Northrop may be in talks to provide cargo to the planned Axium components to the ISS. This is significant in many ways, as if/when the ISS is retired, Axium should be able to detach and go it alone, which will leave at least some commercial space station supplied.
the russians took some flak for the recent issue with their mission to the space station that knocked it off kilter so they've come up a completely bullshit attempt at payback. A small leak was detected in a soyuz module where a hole had been drilled and filled with glue. Well the payback was tass reporting a claim that it was made by a mentally unstable America flight engineer. https://www.space.com/russia-blames-nasa-astronaut-soyuz-leak It's the sort of bullshit that is up there with some other recent claims. For started had it been drilled there would have been an immediate depressuriation which would have triggered all sorts of alarms (and I doubt the glue would have been able to seal it time).
It's sad to see political posturing threaten to screw up what has been one of the greatest peace time multi-national endeavors, but the work will go one, one way or another.
What ISS may look like coming down Not sure I agree here: https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/how-not-to-design-a-space-station Dragon re-entry https://www.al.com/news/2021/10/see...ll-over-alabama-from-dragon-x-spacecraft.html