ISS to be abandoned??

The Russian computers onboard the ISS refuse to come back online and the most recent reports as of 10:50am cst say that the Soyuz capsule on board the ISS is on battery power in preparation for possible departure. I own a PC repair business and IMHO I cannot believe these guys are having comptuer problems still!! And problems so soon after Atlantis launch??
Possible theories:
1. US and Russia are at odds over the missile defense shield?
2. Cosmonauts and astronauts are seeking safety from something ET?
3. Disagreement over Iran?
4. Russian Space wessels always break down! but they can jury rig anything and will fix it?

If they do abandon the ISS theories 1-3 are more feasible.
What do you guys think about this??

Whats the source of your story ?

You mean you haven't seen this on CNN or fox. This has been all over the news and has got my mind thinking of possibilities.
CNN

This isn't where I heard the story, I watch CNN and Fox all day at work and I caught the story live at 10:50am on CNN, they reported the soyuz was on battery yesterday. I'll see if I can find more web reports.

[edit on 15-6-2007 by jhamende]

Sorry, should have said. Im in the UK
You probably get it before we do
Thanks for the headsup on the source, Ill take a look now.

For some reason the article about putting the soyuz on battery power was taken off of reuters but I found it here
Irish Examiner

Sorry about not posting all this at once. I'm fairly new here and I shouldn't assume that everyone else is watching CNN all the time like I do.

As each day goes by, the chances of an ISS evac are creeping up. Not only would the shuttle have to leave early, leaving the ISS crew there, but the station may have to be abandoned if these issues are not worked out. It is also a possibility that this is all done on purpose, leaving nice convenient excuse (the Russians) to abandon the albatross/white elephant/money pit that is the ISS.

Its also possible that in order for NASA to really make the moon challenge successful, that the money needed was greater than anticipated, and the ISS was siphoning off too much, thus the need to *end* the ISS and blame it on calamity.

Time will tell. The station has around 50days of reserves, but other problems could creep up, like being in the wrong attitude for a successful evacuation using the escape modules, thus prompting an earlier evac than planned....

[edit on 6/15/2007 by greatlakes]

They disconnected the computers to install a new solar array. The problems began after they hooked the computers back up after the installation. I SERIOUSLY doubt that it has ANYTHING to do with a missile shield, or Iran, or anything going on here on the ground. As for abandoning, it's the last option, but they're keeping it open.

Rocket and space concern Energia is studying the possibility of rescheduling the launch of a Progress M-61 cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) for July following the breakdown of six computers on the station, Energia President Nikolai Sevastyanov told the press on Friday.

"We are checking into the possibility of delivering new sources of energy for the onboard computers to the ISS. Due to this the launch of Progress may be shifted by two weeks from August to July 23," he said.

Sevastyanov said that a breakdown in the electricity network occurred when U.S. astronauts were installing new solar panels, resulting in the shutdown of the energy sources for the onboard computers, including those on standby.

www.interfax.ru...

Originally posted by greatlakes
As each day goes by, the chances of an ISS evac are creeping up. Not only would the shuttle have to leave early, leaving the ISS crew there, but the station may have to be abandoned if these issues are not worked out. It is also a possibility that this is all done on purpose, leaving nice convenient excuse (the Russians) to abandon the albatross/white elephant/money pit that is the ISS.

Its also possible that in order for NASA to really make the moon challenge successful, that the money needed was greater than anticipated, and the ISS was siphoning off too much, thus the need to *end* the ISS and blame it on calamity.


[edit on 6/15/2007 by greatlakes]

This was discussed by John Glenn and your right its about money according to Fox. Also this article from 2005 is interesting about US having to pay Russia for use of the station do to the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Fox
Space.com

Originally posted by Zaphod58
They disconnected the computers to install a new solar array. The problems began after they hooked the computers back up after the installation. I SERIOUSLY doubt that it has ANYTHING to do with a missile shield, or Iran, or anything going on here on the ground. As for abandoning, it's the last option, but they're keeping it open.

I appreciate your reply. Yes I know the failure was caused by the array Nasa installed. However, its still mind boggling how difficult a time were are having in space after 40 years. 1 out of 3 of the computers are back online. And why not just disconnect the new solar panel that is causing interference in the power system. Also, a lot of things go on behind the scenes and the tensions between the US and Russia are high now therefore there are possibilities for NASA to want to get out of the spacestation for a variety of reasons. Also, if NASA leaves, you think that they would allow Russia to go it alone on the ISS? If they end up abandoning it. I think that there will have been alot more going on behind the scenes that what were are being told. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I'm not up on the exact wiring of the ISS.

The Russian Zarya module handles the power, and as I understand it, the old solar panels were attached to Zarya and Zvezda.

The US and Russian sections of the ISS run on different voltages, and Zarya is supposed to do the conversion, as I understand it. Now the new panels are on the US side. It might be that Zarya isn't dealing with it properly. Zarya early on had all sorts of stability issues with the battery charging and conversion circuits but they finally "fixed" it.

It may be that they didn't - it could be that they just sort of suppressed it but didn't get the control loops right even yet, and with the poles and zeros wrong in their circuit, it's breaking into oscillations which is crashing the CPU.

Long ago we did some computer designs for MSFC, some units of which were going to be shared with the Russians for use on Mir. Holy crap, was that a miserable supply design. The Russian power systems were incredibly unstable. Done just for the STS it would not have been half as tough, but the Mir main power bus could fluctuate from 28 to 75 Volts, and can have dropouts of up to 250ms. Total trash.

They had the same issues on Mir with their main computers crashing and failing constantly. We got ours "Mir bulletproof" eventually, although half the damn thing was power supply after we had to meet MSFC's Mir spec. The Russians used it in some sub-function for a while, but after watching ours never die, eventually they ported the station control programs to it and asked MSFC if they could use it permanently for the station controller, which was denied. There was a big hoo-hah over it. MSFC's stance (and ours) was that it was not rated for life-critical functions as it was not designed for "no single point of failure". Their response was that theirs wasn't either so it didn't matter, and ours was a lot more stable, but MSFC wouldn't budge.

The moral of the story is that from my limited experience with Russian aerospace design, an unstable spacecraft distribution system that tanks the main computers is not a surprise, what's amazing is that it hasn't happened so far.

Thanks for the insight Tom. I'm no electrical engineer but what you say makes sense to me. However, maybe i'm oversimplifying it but when not disconnect the solar array that is causing the issue until they can figure out what went wrong. Also, now on CNN they just said that blame is being placed on the Americans.

If they did abandon it, what would they *do* with the ISS?

Possibly place the ISS in a slightly higher orbit, have shuttle missions maintain it periodically, visit and dock with the ISS to offload fuel etc. A sort of mothballing of the ISS would occur...Interesting scenario.

Originally posted by greatlakes
If they did abandon it, what would they *do* with the ISS?

Possibly place the ISS in a slightly higher orbit, have shuttle missions maintain it periodically, visit and dock with the ISS to offload fuel etc. A sort of mothballing of the ISS would occur...Interesting scenario.

Right now the computer that controls navigation and the orientation of the ISS is down. The report on CNN is saying that Atlantis's thrusters can help keep the ISS in proper orbit but only for so long. If the station's orbit decays too much it will breakup upon re-entry.

LOL, I need to go into space and fix this thing. They just said on CNN, they are going to unplug a cable for the new solar panel. This has been going on since yesterday and the first thing they should have done was unplug it.

The ISS seems like it was designed to fail from the start...

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
The US and Russian sections of the ISS run on different voltages, and Zarya is supposed to do the conversion, as I understand it. Now the new panels are on the US side. It might be that Zarya isn't dealing with it properly. Zarya early on had all sorts of stability issues with the battery charging and conversion circuits but they finally "fixed" it.

Why wouldn't you try to make it as simple as possible for all future upgrades and find a 'standard' voltage to agree on before the idea gets past initial design phases. I am in no way an electrical engineer, but it seems like common sense to me. Anyone else think its strange?

I understand that technologies are different accross the world, but it has always seemed to me that the modern use of different standards/measurements is a tool of bureaucratic enslavement of the common man. You need someone to figure out how to convert voltages instead of just using one, you need to convert meters to feet, etc. I understand that man has come a long way technology wise very quickly, but we are talking about an international project, and in hindsight someone should have had the forethought to for see possible problems with computers/electrical systems if the whole station operates a "Cold War" of voltages...

Doc Moreau

P.S. I recently heard that one could run the electrical wiring in their homes at 220v instead of 110v, and that to create the same amount of light at less 'power' from the power company? If this is true, how would switch the U.S. over to 220v for computers and Tvs and refrigerators and the like, how would that impact the overall consumption of energy in the United States? (if possible...)

P.P.S. I have 'inventive' ideas like this often, but as a 'starving' artist I wish I had the science and capital to bring some to market, or at least try to develop... I can't tell you how upset I was when I found out an idea I had for roof shingle sized, daisy chainable solar panels came to market recently. That was an idea I had in 1993, but didn't have the science to back it up....

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
The US and Russian sections of the ISS run on different voltages.

What?

You serious?

Good grief.

So that's what they mean by international cooperation in space!

Like I said before, I'm not an electrical engineer either, but I think there may be more to this story than what NASA is reporting to the media. This sounds like the type of problems amateurs would have. As far as different voltages go, many things use 220v actually is like 230 i think. The wild leg in a 3 phase junction box uses 230 and any breaker connected to this and thus anything wired to this would use 230 like washing machines and such. In short, conversion shouldn't be necessary unless there is less cooperation than they lead us to believe. Maybe the different modules function autonomously and so in order for communication to occur conversion is needed. Also, the computers for the ISS were made by the EU in Germany by Daimler-Benz.

This new article says they know what the problem is, and how to fix it. They are sending the new power supply units in a few weeks.

An evacuation is not expected, but a plan is in place just in case.

i monitor the terrestrial solar activity report every day and the day before yesterday there was coronal holes meaning that solar radiation escaped into space which can hit us from anywhere to 16hrs to 32 hrs the iss doesnt get the same protection as we do being outside of our atmosphere while it still gets the protection from our magnetic fields its still possible it couldve taken a small to moderate hit from the suns electromagnetic discharge who knows that couldve been the reason there experiencing problems

That is good news at least...
Hate to scrap the ISS over something that seems so ridiculous

Nothing I hate more than tax dollars misspent...

DocMoreau