Author Topic: Space station reboost using berthed vehicle  (Read 2182 times)

Offline rklaehn

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Space station reboost using berthed vehicle
« on: 06/06/2012 07:49 pm »
Hi all,

as far as I know the only two vehicles that are currently capable of reboosting the ISS are the russian progress and the european ATV. The station is capable of reboosting itself using the propulsion system of the zwezda module, but that also relies on regular propellant resupply from progress or ATV.

But there will only be two more ATVs. So after the last ATV the entire station will rely on the progress for reboosts.

Would it be possible to use cygnus (or another berthed vehicle like HTV) for reboosting the station? The berthed vehicle would have to be on the longitudinal axis of the station, so the PMA2 would have to be moved to one of the other free ports of Node2.

Offline Space Pete

Re: Space station reboost using berthed vehicle
« Reply #1 on: 06/06/2012 08:29 pm »
Hi all,

as far as I know the only two vehicles that are currently capable of reboosting the ISS are the russian progress and the european ATV. The station is capable of reboosting itself using the propulsion system of the zwezda module, but that also relies on regular propellant resupply from progress or ATV.

But there will only be two more ATVs. So after the last ATV the entire station will rely on the progress for reboosts.

Would it be possible to use cygnus (or another berthed vehicle like HTV) for reboosting the station? The berthed vehicle would have to be on the longitudinal axis of the station, so the PMA2 would have to be moved to one of the other free ports of Node2.

Technically it would be possible, but moving PMA-2 would require the commercial crew vehicles to dock off-axis - thus you'd be trading reboosts from cargo vehicles against reboosts from crew vehicles.
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Offline rklaehn

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Re: Space station reboost using berthed vehicle
« Reply #2 on: 06/06/2012 08:36 pm »
Would it be possible to use cygnus (or another berthed vehicle like HTV) for reboosting the station? The berthed vehicle would have to be on the longitudinal axis of the station, so the PMA2 would have to be moved to one of the other free ports of Node2.

Technically it would be possible, but moving PMA-2 would require the commercial crew vehicles to dock off-axis - thus you'd be trading reboosts from cargo vehicles against reboosts from crew vehicles.

Great. Thanks.

I was thinking that dragon does not have the thrusters in the right position to do an efficient reboost. The thrusters that face downwards are angled, so if you use them there are large cosine losses.

Cygnus and HTV on the other hand have the main thrusters on the opposite side of the CBM, so they could reboost the station very efficiently.

Offline Jim

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Re: Space station reboost using berthed vehicle
« Reply #3 on: 06/07/2012 12:18 am »

I was thinking that dragon does not have the thrusters in the right position to do an efficient reboost. The thrusters that face downwards are angled, so if you use them there are large cosine losses.


Neither did the shuttle

Offline FinalFrontier

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Re: Space station reboost using berthed vehicle
« Reply #4 on: 06/07/2012 12:22 am »
Dragon placement is not ideal but it should still work. See Jim's post. 
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