Tanada wrote:The cargo modual is tumbling in space making it very difficult or impossible for ground control to stabilize and guide the vessel. If they can not regain control the 2.7 tons of cargo becomes space debris and will eventually deorbit from atmospheric drag. Because of the high mass of the ship any collisions with other orbiting objects will transfer a lot of impact energy.
Any guesses on what went wrong with it?
To be fair, I should note that all launch vehicles have a failure percentage. If you look at any launch system there has ever been, then there's just a x % number of failures. I looked that up one time and forget the number, but there's a range where if you're within that, then you actually can't expect better.
So in fairness that should be noted. Proton, Progress, and Soyuz are old and have been going for a very long time and overall they have failures but the percentage is in the good range.
Someone like a SpaceX will need to operate for a few years to get an idea whether they've got a better failure margin going, or not, with their systems. (Their testing failures don't count, that's R&D)
And yes this is off topic to this thread, I should have found one of the general THE space threads.
By the way I was watching ISS videos the other night. It really is pretty cool -- I watched old vids when the station was newer, astronauts showing off the American sections. Those are future-ish and sterile and bright white and open. (and now they too look old, they look like stuff from the 90s -- the Japanese and European modules are nice though, overall it's a darn cool station and pretty big now)
Then they go into the Russian sections and it's like stepping into a Russian submarine. Smaller round hatches, that odd green hospitalish paint you see a lot in east Europe. However, the Russian sections have a "homey" feel to them and are more cozy.
The videos said that Russia sends up half the space food, then the US sends up the other half, and when there are esa astronauts, then Europe provides their food. And then it's up to the astronauts however much they want to share food.
Russian space food is still in tin cans, without even pop top openers, and you have to use a can opener.
Youtube's a trip, you start watching one thing then it just leads to a bunch of other things. Apparently, the best space food there's ever been was actually on the old Skylab. That was the only space vehicle to ever have frozen dinners, and they had these cool trays where you put your tv dinners in the slots on the tray then just flip a switch and the tray heated the food.
Current US space food are in capri-sun like pouches. Shelf-stable commercial grade things, repackaged, vacuum sealed. Or "canned," so thermal / pressure preserved but using a pouch instead of a can. And then "irradiated" meat, making it shelf stable.
There are no refridgerators or freezers on the ISS, so everything has to be pantry room temp stuff. Then they can heat a pouch or hydrate dehydrated food, with hot water.
You can't have salt and pepper in space since that would get everywhere -- so what they do is, they have an oil that's infused with pepper. And for salt, they have bottles of very salty water and you add that to the food.
ISS actually has been a success over the years. The first Russian module is the backup emergency go-to in case of any depressurization or fire or toxic spill, or other emergency. That module has everything needed to survive.
The Russian space gear is all very old.. and looks old.. you put a Soyuz next to a SpaceX dragon and they may as well be a Tesla and a Yugo. But -- the Russian stuff has history, a long track record, and generally it's very safe and works.
The Soyuz -- from what I saw astronauts say, anyway -- feels like a car crash when it hits the ground. There's amazing engineering to the entire Soyuz system, it's cool as well, but still -- it's time to go forward. Something new, beyond 1960s and 70s tech.
When spacex gets all the kinks worked out, the Dragon will truly soft land, using all retro rockets, and the chutes are for backup emergency only.
Really, most of space tech is very old by now. The old space shuttle actually had a crappy 1970s computer on it (maybe they upgraded that toward the end, can't remember), and one of today's smartphones has more computing power than the entire shuttle.
The space suits are old. They need redesigned, updated. SpaceX is working on its own space suit. Musk says it has to be the best functionally and also LOOK like a 21st century space suit. (the current eva suits do need redesigned, there have now been two incidents of water filling up the helmets, threatening to drown the astronaut)
The thing about using old tech -- one factor with this, is that when engineers find something that WORKS and get all kinks worked out, then they are VERY reluctant to ever change anything just for the sake of updating or adding features. Because if you "fix something that ain't broke" on one little thing, that can impact the whole thing, and one secrewup in space can mean disaster for everything.
Having said that, all this stuff is old old tech and designs, and does need updated.
It's pretty sad we haven't done anything so great, since the shuttle. That shuttle never was a true "shuttle," it cost a fortune, and its track record proved it to be an unacceptably unsafe design over the long term. But still, it sure was amazing. Now we're all just back to these capsule craft. That shuttle was working SPACE PLANE -- with huge massive cargo bay, and so cool. And the shuttle allowed for some amazing things, like the Hubble repairs and then upgrades, that a capsule can't ever do.
Sorry for the space rant.
P.S. there is no "cold war" on the ISS, anyway. NASA puts Russian labels on all the American space food, even though that requirement from the 90s is no longer in effect, but they still just do it anyway.
3 tons of food are lost with this Progress spinning out of control, but, there's many months worth of food stored up there on the ISS and they'll be alright.
