Author Topic: Expedition 24 thread (June 2 - September 24, 2010) - Includes ETCS Updates (Read 309242 times)

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #180 on:** 08/01/2010 04:42 am »

They are on that beepy air-to-ground comm now. Tracy sounds understandably tired.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #181 on:** 08/01/2010 04:48 am »

They are "waking people up" to find a missing jumper cable's location.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #182 on:** 08/01/2010 04:55 am »

10 minute LOS. Really want to find that cable before they can let them go to sleep.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #183 on:** 08/01/2010 05:04 am »

Tracy "Are you ready for some good news".

MCC-H "Oh gosh yes!"

Tracy "We've found the cable."

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #184 on:** 08/01/2010 05:06 am »

Worried about losing S-Band string 1, and need to work a proceedure in case they lost String 2 overnight, and needed to power up String 1 again.

Tracy "Feels like we're in a Sim right now!"

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #185 on:** 08/01/2010 05:30 am »

Tracy's still up. Not much by way of comms at the moment.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #186 on:** 08/01/2010 05:59 am »

Aforementioned jumper - installation is complete.

All reasonably calm, but I've got to go and head out with the Army, so if anyone wants to take over any items of interest, please do.

aquarius · « **Reply #187 on:** 08/01/2010 06:32 am »

MCC-H telling the crew they can sleep as long as they like.

mtakala24 · « **Reply #188 on:** 08/01/2010 09:28 am »

According to the NASA news release, there are 2 spare pumps onboard.

arkaska · « **Reply #189 on:** 08/01/2010 09:46 am »

Official NASA news update:

One of two ammonia-fed cooling loops on the International Space Station shut down at 8 p.m. EST Saturday night after a power spike was detected on the loop’s Pump Module. The Pump Module, that enables ammonia to flow through the loops, remains down, and with the loss of the cooling loop, several systems were forced to shut down, including two of the station’s four Control Moment Gyroscopes, one of two redundant strings of S-band communication, one of two redundant strings of the station’s Global Positioning System, several DC to DC current converters in Tranquility and a set of components that route commands to station equipment.

When the cooling loop went down, the crew was awakened by several caution and warning alarms and began powering down equipment to balance the cooling loads that were transferred to Cooling Loop B, which is active and in good condition.

Tracy Caldwell Dyson remained awake into the early hours Sunday to work troubleshooting procedures while the rest of the crew went back to bed. The crew is in no danger, but will need to work additional troubleshooting on Sunday to keep the station in a stable configuration, including the installation of a jumper cable to maintain proper cooling to the Zarya module in the Russian segment.

The station is equipped with two spare Pump Modules that are housed on spare part platforms on the truss of the station should a replacement of the Loop A Pump Module be required.

arkaska · « **Reply #190 on:** 08/01/2010 10:05 am »

Ground tried to turn alpha pump on but the problem resurfaced and the pump shut down again.

erioladastra · « **Reply #191 on:** 08/01/2010 10:48 am »

Quote from: arkaska on 08/01/2010 10:05 am

Ground tried to turn alpha pump on but the problem resurfaced and the pump shut down again.

Teams standing down on further trouble shooting. Starting to looking at replanning EVA(s).

psloss · « **Reply #192 on:** 08/01/2010 12:20 pm »

Quote from: erioladastra on 08/01/2010 10:48 am

Quote from: arkaska on 08/01/2010 10:05 am
Ground tried to turn alpha pump on but the problem resurfaced and the pump shut down again.

Teams standing down on further trouble shooting. Starting to looking at replanning EVA(s).

Would it be correct to assume that if the EVA content is changed, it's likely going to be a little later than Thursday?

JimO · « **Reply #193 on:** 08/01/2010 12:45 pm »

Can replacement spares for the pump be brought up, in the future, without shuttle missions? Specifically, would such equipment fit on the HTV external rack?

Space Pete · « **Reply #194 on:** 08/01/2010 12:50 pm »

Quote from: JimO on 08/01/2010 12:45 pm

Can replacement spares for the pump be brought up, in the future, without shuttle missions? Specifically, would such equipment fit on the HTV external rack?

Yes, Pump Modules can fit on the HTV EP (Exposed Pallet).

----------

Quote from: NASA's Official Twitter Account

Restart of ammonia-fed cooling loop on space station did not work. Crew is in no danger. Discussions underway to fix via spacewalk this week.

I guess this is kinda "good" timing, being that a lot of EVA preps are already done for US EVA-15.

arkaska · « **Reply #195 on:** 08/01/2010 01:06 pm »

Official NASA news update:

Station Cooling Loop Shuts Down, Repair Spacewalks Being Discussed

One of two ammonia-fed cooling loops on the International Space Station remains shut down after an attempt to restart its pump module failed early Sunday morning. The pump module's circuit breaker initially tripped Saturday night, but had successfully been reset overnight. It tripped again Sunday when the pump module was restarted. Teams in Mission Control in Houston are reviewing data to determine whether to attempt another restart and are discussing options to perform two spacewalks later this week to replace the pump module. Two spare pump modules are housed on platforms on the outside of the station.

The space station crew is in no danger and all systems are stable, though operating in a "single string" mode without redundancy.

Two of the four main buss switching units are cooled by the failed loop. The units switch and route power to various station systems. Mission Control is evaluating whether the heat generation may be low enough to not require powering off these switching units. With the loss of the cooling loop, several systems have been shut down, including one of two S-band communication circuits, one Global Positioning System circuit, several DC to DC current converters in Tranquility and a set of components that route commands to station equipment. Though two of the four station Control Moment Gyroscopes initially were turned off, the crew installed a jumper cable to regain a third gyro. The gyroscopes maintain the station's attitude in space.

rdale · « **Reply #196 on:** 08/01/2010 01:22 pm »

Quote from: arkaska on 08/01/2010 09:46 am

One of two ammonia-fed cooling loops on the International Space Station shut down at 8 p.m. EST Saturday night

Thanks for the update, but I'm pretty sure you are off by an hour (we use Daylight Saving Time in the US.) It was around 8pm EDT / 00 UTC.

Sounds like the retest of the pump is what woke up the crew early, as it triggered some alarms that the ground did not expect. Fairly quiet otherwise, private family conference going on as scheduled this morning.

I'm not sure what the issue with the audio archive server would be (I just provided the files.) I am saving them locally and will upload elsewhere later today.

psloss · « **Reply #197 on:** 08/01/2010 02:23 pm »

Ground is catching Tracy up on some of the info already posted here. Also said that there's a Team 4 meeting on EVA options (as erioladastra alluded to earlier). There will be some calls after that meeting is over.

Tracy asked earlier about using T2 for exercise; ground says that's OK. Attitude control still on 2 CMGs, still working to bring CMG 1 back online.

Space Pete · « **Reply #198 on:** 08/01/2010 02:38 pm »

Quote from: psloss on 08/01/2010 02:23 pm

Attitude control still on 2 CMGs, still working to bring CMG 1 back online.

A quick question - the crew have installed a jumper to bring a third CMG online. Does your post mean that CMG-1 is that third CMG, or is CMG-1 the only remaining offline CMG? Thanks.

arkaska · « **Reply #199 on:** 08/01/2010 02:38 pm »

Quote from: rdale on 08/01/2010 01:22 pm

Thanks for the update, but I'm pretty sure you are off by an hour (we use Daylight Saving Time in the US.) It was around 8pm EDT / 00 UTC.

It was from the official NASA news update, maybe I should have clarified that better. Have updated my posts now.