Axiom Spaces' Ax-4 mission was scheduled to launch early this past Tuesday morning, and has been delayed a couple of times. There was talk about a fuel leak on the Falcon 9 booster and it listed as NET Thursday and then NET Today but it's currently not showing a launch date or time at all.
The real reason for the delay is a recent big effort to address a leak on the ISS which has been tracked and worked on since 2019. The results have been less than perfectly clear.
The air leaks have been linked back to the transfer tunnel of the space station's Russian Zvezda service module, one of the oldest elements of the complex, the first elements of which were launched in 1998. The transfer tunnel, known by the Russian acronym PrK, connects the Zvezda module with a docking port where Soyuz crew and Progress resupply spacecraft attach to the station.
From time to time, Russian cosmonauts have experimented with repairs to the small cracks, but they have generally only slowed the progression of the leak, which amounts to a couple of pounds of air per day. The best solution has been to close the hatch leading to the PrK module except when spacecraft dock with the attached port.
The problem is that both NASA and Roscosmos have said the leak on the PrK module had been "completely sealed." However other sources have said that the space station is still losing air pressure. The obvious conclusion to jump to is that something else on the station is leaking and nobody knows where, what or any of those important little details.
"The postponement of Axiom Mission 4 provides additional time for NASA and Roscosmos to evaluate the situation and determine whether any additional troubleshooting is necessary," NASA said in a statement. "A new launch date for the fourth private astronaut mission will be provided once available."
One source indicated that the new tentative launch date is now June 18. However, this will depend on whatever resolution there is to the leak issue.
The obvious real concern is that the ISS is nearing its end of life and the people in charge of the station need to look at calculated values for the remaining service life not as as being absolutely right but a BAGATOE (Best Available Guess At the Time Of Estimate). The reality of the calculations is pretty much that.
The worst case scenario on the ISS is that the leaks are a sign of a phenomenon known as "high cycle fatigue," which affects metals. Pretty much everyone has seen something like bending a solid copper wire, having it harden as you continue to bend it and then suddenly lose its flexibility before cracking. This tends to happen suddenly and unexpectedly.
And that means that something major on the ISS could be be getting ready to fail suddenly and unexpectedly.
Accordingly, in its previous assessments, NASA has classified the structural cracking issue on the space station as the highest level of concern on its 5v5 risk matrix to gauge the likelihood and severity of risks to the space station.
In the meantime, the space agency has not been forthcoming with any additional information. Despite many questions from Ars Technica and other publications, NASA has not scheduled a press conference or said anything else publicly about the leaks beyond stating, "The crew aboard the International Space Station is safely conducting normal operations."
Oh, that inspires confidence.
This photo of the International Space Station was captured by a crew member on a Soyuz spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Roscosmos
Good to see you're able to post, SiG.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the leak might be caused by many tiny leaks that have gone unnoticed until there are enough of them to look like one larger leak.
Gee, too bad you couldn't use something over all the joints that would be flexible yet solid, that would seal the microcracks and pinhole leaks. Something like, oh, I don't know, FlexSeal. Or a very expensive version because NASA.
ReplyDeleteAnd, well, fine Russian quality control and engineering. Yay. So glad we ditched Space Station Freedom for the UN in Space. Made more glorious in that we funded much of the Russian stuff.
Maybe Musk was right about retiring it sooner than later.
And where are all the replacements? Still in testing, still in prebuilding and guessing and not in production. Even worse is that most of the companies that want to launch their station pieces-parts want to use Blue Origin or ULA as the launch provider.
Meanwhile... in the corner... waiting... is SpaceX.
Along the lines as Beans' comment above, note that the ISS was not really designed as a scientific center in orbit, or a long term habitat/test bed for technology.
ReplyDeleteIt was, 90 plus percent, as a way to funnel money to various congressional districts and some Russian oligarchs. Any scientific advances or engineering achievements were simply a bonus.
I worked on one aspect of it in the late 90's as a #D Unigraphics modeler at NRL, and good lord, what an overly complex design. It took 4 hours every work day to bring up the assembly, and we could only save once per day, which took 2 hours.
Hence, 80-100 hour weeks, which were the ,most lucrative I'd had to date, even though my weight went from @210 to 280 in 6 months.
I was told by my supervisor and others that NASA didn't really care if the ISS ever became operational; spending the taxpayer's money and keeping the bribes going to Congress and the political parties was the goal.
IMNSHO, we should have done follow on designs with Skylab, as well as using some of Philip Bono's designs for advanced spacecraft designs.
One more time:
DeleteClinton could not tolerate a space station called "Freedom" and wanted to shovel $$$ to the Russians. The original Freedom was reasonably well designed and would have been operational before we finally got ISS. But Slick was Slick, and so we got what we got.
And then there is always that famous aerospace acronym: BOHICA!
The cancellation of SS Freedom just about bankrupted Gates Energy Products as their aerospace division had gone whole hog on Nickle Metal Hydride and Lithium batteries for said space station.
DeleteDon't trust NASA, they lie.
ReplyDeleteOne only has to follow the Stuckliner Fiasco to realize the depth and breadth of NASA machinations.
DeleteYour succinct summary is sufficient, though, to those of us whom know what is truly going on behind the scenes.