I recall hearing that there were air leaks in the Russian Zvezda module on the ISS, but I can't find a link to my original story, and that's not important anyway in the overall picture. The news today is that despite several attempts to deal with the leak, they've been unsuccessful - and I assume that means they don't really know where the leak is or what's actually leaking.
The microscopic structural cracks are located inside the small PrK module on the Russian segment of the space station, which lies between a Progress spacecraft airlock and the Zvezda module. After the leak rate doubled early this year during a two-week period, the Russians experimented with keeping the hatch leading to the PrK module closed intermittently and performed other investigations. But none of these measures taken during the spring worked.
"Following leak troubleshooting activities in April of 2024, Roscosmos has elected to keep the hatch between Zvezda and Progress closed when it is not needed for cargo operations," a NASA spokesperson told Ars. "Roscosmos continues to limit operations in the area and, when required for use, implements measures to minimize the risk to the International Space Station."
Since they've been dealing with it for over a month, I'm inclined to think that the leak is small and can be accommodated. If they closed that hatch to the PrK module completely, it seems like the worst case is they'd have to deal with their cargo shipments differently - a scheduling issue.
However, there appears to be rising concern in the ISS program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The space agency often uses a 5x5 "risk matrix" to classify the likelihood and consequence of risks to spaceflight activities, and the Russian leaks are now classified as a "5" both in terms of high likelihood and high consequence. Their potential for "catastrophic failure" is discussed in meetings.
In reality, there are two difficult, if not insurmountable obstacles here. First is that Roscosmos is a low priority expenditure for Russia. If anything, Roscosmos is likely to face diminishing abilities to get resources for repairs, no matter how much some people in the agency might want to support the ISS.
The second one is that every last cubic inch in the ISS is aging out, not just Zvezda. The Zvezda module rode to space in July of 2000. Don't look now, but that's 1 year short of a quarter century. The leakage issue first appeared in 2019 and has continued to worsen since then. Its cause is unknown.
"They have repaired multiple leak locations, but additional leak locations remain," the NASA spokesperson said. "Roscosmos has yet to identify the cracks’ root cause, making it challenging to analyze or predict future crack formation and growth."
We regularly read or hear of the expected 2030 retirement of the ISS along
with plans to cause it to reenter and otherwise get it retired and out of the
way. The problem with projected dates like 2030 is that the hardware has the
last word. It doesn't matter what fancy, involved calculations you did to get
that 2030 date if the hardware isn't exactly what it was modeled as. Models are an aid. Reality gets the decision.
The Zvezda Service Module provides living quarters and performs some life-support system functions. Docking adapter for the Progress cargo ships on the right. Image credit: NASA
Send some Glad wrap. Put it everywhere until it get sucked up against the leak.
ReplyDeleteWait... You're telling me that the Russian stuff isn't really up to Western expectations and standards? Shocking.
ReplyDeleteThey should do a smoke test then glaze over any hole with some resin or JB Weld or something.
Been wondering if the various accidents and thruster mistakes made over the last couple years by the Russians are the cause, straining an already marginal construction.
Age and use Beans, not a reason for your usual anti-Russian rant.
ReplyDeleteNobody else has had "various accidents" and such up there in the decades of this space station? I heard a female American was a bit busy demanding her return to earth NOW.
In case you forgot how many years the Russians were our allies in WW2 as well as in the International Space station.
It's not all about the cold war Beans. Sometimes it's about that "Space is HARD" stuff.
I haven't labeled Russia as Cold War Enemy. But they've had repeated issues with thrusters on their craft causing the ISS to shake and roll. That type of strain on a long unsupported structure is what I was referring to.
DeleteAs to Russian quality control, there's always been questions about it. Remember the pinhole leaks that were discovered to be done in the factory and covered up?
Must be similar in some ways to aircraft crack management. Basically, your going to have cracks in the airframe, engine parts, landing gear, no way to stop them from forming. What happens with cracks, (and I know this from being a crack and other damage welder for Eastern and Pratt Whitney, mostly engine and landing gear), they know cracks form and close to how long the cracks can progress, up to a certain point then the effected area is repair welded or a complete replacement if required. Thru a variety of tools they kind of know how long to let the defect or defected part remain before it must be repaired.
ReplyDeleteOnly problem with the ISS is it can not be red tagged and grounded, until repairs are effected.
I guess it can be drama for people who do not the information, but with metal in aerospace you have cracks, you always get cracks, its part of the nature of metal components in critical areas under stress, and its that basic an issue. Cracks, like another substance, happen.
If you as a passenger could inspect the plane you are flying on, guarantee you, 100%, you would never get on that plane. I seen cracks on say a 747, big massive forgings, the wing trusses, that made my hair stand on end, engine mounts, they might come in with only couple bolts left the rest shook loose, but they still have time on them before repairs, a C130 came in, emergency landing, was a gunship operating in Iraq. Only got a look at it cause our shoo was next to the ramp it parked at. Story was the Iraqies shit a ground to air missle at them, the pilot pulled an upside down negative 9 G turn to aboid the missile, every engine mount lost bolts, huge high tensile special bolts too, sheared them off, stretched the forged mount to where the bolt pattern no longer matched, and they flew direct none stop from Iraq, to the US. They pretty much knew if it landed in the mideast it was staying there for junk parts.
The floor of the cargo area where the guns are mounted was ankle deep in shell casings. You could see the warp in the wings. Really tuff aircraft those C130's. They wouldn't let us have souvenirs though.
Wonder what crack issues they have with Falcon. 20 launches, must have longevity wear and tear on them. But they are doing it right no doubts. All those max pressure and landing stresses, the stresses from super cold propellent loadings. Thats a lot! Now Musk is saying 30 plus launches on them? Got their act together big time.
ReplyDeleteRocket Lab sure looking good, appears they are locking up the small payload delivery market quite nicely. Makes sense, small load small rocket, get your ducks lined up obtain SpaceX reliability and your set to go.
Zvezda has been used hard by the entire ISS community. Would it make sense to keep it in service until it fails to learn more about space station part failures, maintenance and design? Since no one is putting up money to replace it, Zvezda will remain in service until it fails. As for repairs, the Russians have a lot of experience patching things. Looks like their efforts are not working. It would be good for the space community to understand why, if we plan to have other space stations.
ReplyDeleteI'm taking an educated guess here, that at least part of the problem on the module might be related to cosmic ray embrittlement, given Russian metallurgy QC issues. NASA has long been concerned about this, going to the late 90s(or even earlier).
ReplyDeleteI worked a contract position at NRL @`1998 on the proposed Interim Control Module, US designed in case the Russians weren't able to get their own module completed. This was one of the major topics discussed at various meetings that people who attended would talk about later.
While I haven't worked for SpaceX, I know people that have/are, and metallurgy is one of their strong points. While I was on a more recent contract, @2019, SpaceX signed up an expert on upper atmospheric erosion at something like 2X the rate that the client was paying him.
Here's a link to an article that discusses in somewhat general terms the issue with metallic erosion at the edge of space:
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/10679/how-would-steel-degrade-in-space
Thanks for that link. Have it open on another tab now. Looks like a good intro.
DeleteA few points to keep in mind:
ReplyDeleteThe US aerospace and engineering communities were shaken by the poor quality of the Mig-25 that Belenko brought when he defected. Both in terms of material quality and fabrication, but OTOH they were shocked by the fact that it "worked". Institutional memory was pretty strong in those days and lingered into the early 2000s.
NASA had absolutely no vision as to what they wanted to do next with manned spaceflight after the Apollo missions. The ISS was born out of desperation, as the Carl Sagan faction wanted to end US manned spaceflight. The Saganites were pro-Soviet, and finally agreed to help get the funding for ISS if the Russians were brought in.
NASA knew that bringing in the Russians on the ISS was the only way to get the funding from indifferent(at best!) US administrations(Bush 1, Clinton) and Congress. Thus, they were kicked the can of Russian QC down the road, figuring that chewing gum and baling wire would keep the ISS going for a few decades, which it did. I thought that the ISS would fail NLT than about 2010...
Like the old story about making sausage. Not the best work but it did "Get her done" for how many decades?
DeleteMusks do it fail and fix it seems almost Russian in effect.
The enemy of good is better. Might be why we couldn't afford to build our won stuff and rode with Russian rockets for so long. EPA and such issues I hear.
Any bets who's going to put the next space station in orbit?
My main memory of those post Apollo days is that people were crying for reusability. Even Joe ManInDaStreet was saying, "why do we spend so much on hardware that we throw away?" Like so many other examples, the Shuttle was "a horse designed by committee" and it's sort of a wonder it ever got made - even as the compromise it was.
ReplyDeleteIn the late '80s, a guy at Rockwell Space Transportation Systems Division did a pretty thorough plan of what it would take, from 1989 to 2100, for humanity to expand into the stars. I find it by searching on the drawing title, Rockwell International Integrated Space Plan. That division, of course, was behind the shuttle as North American Rockwell. I have a copy on my computer that I look at now and then, and I've thought of posting but it's basically just too large, too detailed. The PDF is 2 Megs and Acrobat Reader says it should print to 28 x 45 inches. It's so detailed reading anything in it requires enlarging it to 100% and looking at a few square inches.
While poking around looking for a link this morning, I see that the idea has been resurrected and there's at least one group putting (or has put) another version together. If you want something like the original (same size, but with some colorizing) it's https://cdn.makezine.com/uploads/2013/07/integratedspaceplan2color.pdf
Time to retire this stuff. Let's go with the inflatable modules already!
ReplyDelete