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Atlantis suffered major MMOD hit
by
Chris Bergin
on 04 Oct, 2006 18:13
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#1
by
Rocket Ronnie
on 04 Oct, 2006 21:51
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This all seems a bit of a worry. Nothing any level of modifications will stop crap in space hitting the orbiters.
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#2
by
Flightstar
on 04 Oct, 2006 23:29
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It's pretty much summed up with the related thread and information on L2. Still too early as to how managers will portray this, although it was rare to see how undressed the concern was on their own memo. Dodged bullet it may be.
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#3
by
Davie OPF
on 05 Oct, 2006 00:53
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Looks like this was missed on orbit, but only because this was a bit of a surprise. Thank God it wasn't RCC, but then it would have been spotted.
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#4
by
STS Tony
on 05 Oct, 2006 01:49
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#5
by
Jamie Young
on 05 Oct, 2006 03:21
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Yay for Jim Oberg!
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#6
by
Bubbinski
on 05 Oct, 2006 04:12
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Would something that makes a hole that size be trackable by radars? The more I think about this, the more I realize why retiring the shuttle in 2010 is for the best. I don't imagine anyone would want to design a new manned spacecraft with critical heat shielding exposed to the space environment and debris hits.
And I just had another thought: would this be a good argument for shortening missions to the minimum required duration to meet mission objectives, and landing on the scheduled landing day, no matter where the shuttle has to land (Edwards or White Sands) rather than wait an extra day for weather to clear at KSC? Are there any discussions on that?
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#7
by
Zoomer30
on 05 Oct, 2006 06:23
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The MMODs are moving so fast and are so small I doubt they would show up on radar. The amount of damage that was done shows there was a large speed difference between the orbiter and the object, so IMO its not likely that it came off the orbiter.
There are many nightmare outcomes that come from MMODs hitting the ship. Somehting that is going fast enough and is large enough could hit a fuel cell. Something could hit the aft end and damage an APU. Anything. The really bad thing is even though the CEV will be much safer, it wont be able to aviod this issue either (at least its heat shield is covered.)
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#8
by
hop
on 05 Oct, 2006 06:55
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Bubbinski - 4/10/2006 8:55 PM
Would something that makes a hole that size be trackable by radars?
Not even close. The hole was ~0.1 inch, and whatever caused it could have been significantly smaller. AFAIK, the smallest items routinely tracked from the ground are 10s of inches.
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#9
by
rfoshaug
on 05 Oct, 2006 08:08
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Could this hit be large enough to have been a serious problem if it had hit the crew cabin (windows)?
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#10
by
rdale
on 05 Oct, 2006 09:04
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"would this be a good argument for shortening missions to the minimum required duration to meet mission objectives, and landing on the scheduled landing day,"
How would that impact MMOD issues?
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#11
by
nacnud
on 05 Oct, 2006 10:11
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It would reduce the time at risk.
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#12
by
rdale
on 05 Oct, 2006 11:42
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Given that this is the largest strike ever, and the shuttle has been aloft for MANY hours over the years, I can't see how an extra 24h in space is worth the cost and risk of bringing it down on the other side of the country...
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#13
by
Jim
on 05 Oct, 2006 12:09
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The ISS has the same risks. Shortening a few shuttle missions couple of days is not going to change the magnitude of the risk. Shuttle missions are so short, the change in duration is insignificant wrt MMOD hazard. If they would be that worried about it, then we should fly
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#14
by
DaveS
on 05 Oct, 2006 12:40
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rdale - 5/10/2006 1:25 PM
Given that this is the largest strike ever, and the shuttle has been aloft for MANY hours over the years, I can't see how an extra 24h in space is worth the cost and risk of bringing it down on the other side of the country...
I agree, with the main point being that it isn't known
when the MMOD hit the radiator panel. It could have been on FD1 or it could have been on FD13.
This MMOD impact damage was first spotted during routine radiator damage surveys in the OPF
after the mission.
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#15
by
dutch courage
on 05 Oct, 2006 14:05
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Orion will visit the ISS in 2014 or just about. I wonder if the station arm will be used to check for MMOD hits to Orion.
A Laser Dynamic Range Imager could be attached to the station arm.
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#16
by
MKremer
on 05 Oct, 2006 16:02
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dutch courage - 5/10/2006 8:48 AM
Orion will visit the ISS in 2014 or just about. I wonder if the station arm will be used to check for MMOD hits to Orion.
A Laser Dynamic Range Imager could be attached to the station arm.
No need for that, IMO, and it's not really worth the time/trouble. The most critical re-entry element, the CM heat shield, is buried in the SM. Also, once the CEV un-docks it will almost immediately go into the re-entry phase, much like Soyuz does, and not 'hang around' in LEO.
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#17
by
Jorge
on 05 Oct, 2006 16:52
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Bubbinski - 4/10/2006 10:55 PM
would this be a good argument for shortening missions to the minimum required duration to meet mission objectives, and landing on the scheduled landing day, no matter where the shuttle has to land (Edwards or White Sands) rather than wait an extra day for weather to clear at KSC? Are there any discussions on that?
The remaining flights are already about as jam-packed with mission objectives as they can be; you really don't want to go deleting the occasional off-duty day since it will run the crew ragged and increase the risk of errors due to fatigue. So shortening any remaining missions necessarily means deleting mission objectives. That either requires creating new flights to pick up those objectives (adding an ascent and entry, thereby
increasing overall programmatic risk), or simply leaving the objectives incomplete. The latter is unadvisable since the assembly sequence goes in order and has been packed about as tightly as it can; deleted objectives will have a cascade effect on subsequent flights.
Landing on scheduled landing day will not significantly decrease MMOD risk. Most of the risk is during the docked phase because the orbiter cannot fly in the most optimal debris-protect attitude (tail-forward, bay-to-Earth) which the orbiter does use post-undocking. The current docked attitude, orbiter bay-forward, is a risk trade-off; they protect the RCC and lower surface TPS at the cost of a slight increase in risk to the radiators and windows. For that reason, it is almost certain that the current "ding" occurred during docked flight since it struck the upper side of a radiator, the side that would have been facing the velocity vector while docked but facing Earth after undocking.
--
JRF
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#18
by
soldeed
on 05 Oct, 2006 17:17
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Can this radiator be repaired, or are there spares available and they can scrap it? How would you repair the hole? Since it missed the coolant lines I imagine you could weld a plug, then grind and polish it out.
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#19
by
Jim
on 05 Oct, 2006 18:41
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no spares. It can be repaired
