Progress M-14M launch:

Progress M-14M/46P was the first launch to the ISS in 2012, following its Wednesday, 11:06 PM GMT launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

For this year, ISS managers are hoping will see better successes for Russian rockets than 2011 did. Progress M-14M was only the second Progress to launch to the ISS since the failure of Progress M-12M/44P last August.

While one successful Progress and two successful Soyuz spacecraft have launched to the ISS since that failure, the 23rd December failure of the Meridian satellite atop a Soyuz 2-1b booster raised further questions about quality control of Soyuz rockets, as much as the Soyuz 2-1b uses an RD-0124 third stage engine, while the Soyuz-U to be used on the launch uses the older RD-0110 on its third stage.

Both engines are believed to have been the cause of the failure of their respective boosters to reach orbit last year.

Progress M-14M kicks off the year of logistics resupplies to the ISS by delivering its standard load of propellants, oxygen, spare parts, experiments, water, food, clothing, and other crew provisions to the orbiting Expedition 30 crew.

This year is set to be a very challenging year for ISS logistics, due to the aforementioned problems with Russian rockets, last year’s retirement of the Space Shuttle, and the need to demonstrate and bring online a commercial resupply capability for the station, the schedules for which continue to slip to the right.

Following launch at 11:06 PM GMT and a two-day free-flight, Progress M-14M dock to the ISS at the recently vacated Docking Compartment-1 (DC-1) “Pirs” Nadir port on Saturday 28th January at 12:09 AM GMT (Friday 27th US time).

Progress M-14M will remain docked to the ISS for around three months until 24th April, whereupon it will undock to make way for Progress M-15M/47P, set to launch the following day on 25th April.

Progress M-16M/48P, Progress M-17M/49P and Progress M-18M/50P are also set to launch to the ISS this year on 25th July, 23rd October and 26th December, respectively, for a total of five Progress launches in 2012. The next vehicle to launch and dock to the ISS after Progress M-14M however will be Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle-3 (ATV-3), currently set for launch on 9th March for a docking ten days later on 19th March.

Progress M-13M satellite deploy and de-orbit:

In order to clear the way for Progress M-14M to dock to the ISS at the DC-1 port on Friday, Progress M-13M/45P was undocked from DC-1 on Monday, having been docked there since 2nd November following its 30th October launch atop the first Soyuz booster since the August failure.

Following undocking and two separation burns, instead of de-orbiting into the Pacific Ocean, Progress M-13M instead performed another two burns to raise its orbital height from the roughly 400km mean altitude of the ISS up to 500km.

This was done in order to facilitate the deployment of the Chibis-M microsatellite from Progress M-13M. Chibis-M is a free-flying small Russian satellite which is designed to study lightning and plasma in Earth’s atmosphere for 3.5 years.

Eventually, Chibis-M will succumb to atmospheric resistance and resulting altitude decay, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. The deployment at 500km as opposed to 400km will buy Chibis-M some extra time on-orbit due to the lesser atmospheric resistance at that altitude, however the specific re-entry period will depend on Solar activity, which can “swell” Earth’s atmosphere in active periods.

While designed to operate for 3.5 years, the expected on-orbit lifetime of Chibis-M is anywhere from 4 to 11 years, depending on Solar activity, which is likely to increase in coming years due to the Solar Maximum.

The earliest that Chibis-M could reach the ISS’ altitude of approximately 400km is three years after deployment, which would be January 2015. This date, however, depends on Solar activity. The risks associated with having Chibis-M “drop” onto the ISS’ orbit have been analysed by both Russian and US trajectory experts.

Once Progress M-13M trash loading operations were completed, the crew of the ISS prepared Chibis-M, which launched aboard Progress M-13M inside its pressurised cargo compartment, for deployment. Chibis-M still resided inside the cargo compartment of Progress M-13M when it undocked, but it was mounted in alignment with the open hatchway of the compartment so that it could be deployed via springs through the open hatchway leading to space.

Due to the need for an open hatch of the Progress M-13M cargo compartment during and following undocking, after mounting of Chibis-M in the correct location and closure of the hatch on the ISS side, the Progress M-13M cargo compartment was depressurised to vacuum by the ISS crew, an unusual procedure which meant that all trash to be disposed of in the compartment needed to be certified for vacuum.

One orbit after deploying Chibis-M, Progress M-13M performed a de-orbit burn for a re-entry and splashdown over the Pacific Ocean, completing its successful mission.

(Images via Roscosmos and NASA)

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ISS cargo deliveries:

The year 2011 was a highly successful year in terms of cargo flights to the ISS, with January’s launch of Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle-2 (HTV-2), February’s launch of Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle-2 (ATV-2), and the successful launches of Space Shuttle missions STS-133, STS-134 and STS-135, as well as numerous Russian Progress flights.

The delivery and installation of the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM) to the ISS on STS-133 in February increased the amount of stowage space available on the station for cargo, which paved the way for STS-135 to deliver a massive stockpile of crew provisions to the station on the final Shuttle mission in July.

The stockpile of crew provisions from STS-135 will enable the station to make it to mid-2012 without any additional deliveries of cargo, and make it to 2013 when supplemented with deliveries of cargo from Europe’s ATV and Japan’s HTV. Thus, successful commercial and non-commercial resupply flights to the ISS are essential in order to maintain a crewed presence on the station throughout 2012.

The late-addition of STS-135 to the Shuttle’s manifest in order to shore up ISS’ supplies is already being seen as an excellent decision, given the delays of commercial resupply flights to the ISS and recent failures of Russian rockets.

Non-commercial cargo vehicles:

This year’s non-commercial cargo vehicle flights to the ISS will see two large deliveries made to the station by both Europe and Japan.

Europe’s ATV-3 spacecraft, named “Edoardo Amaldi”, is currently set to launch to the ISS atop an Ariane V rocket from the Kourou space center in French Guiana, on 9th March, and arrive at the ISS for a docking to the Service Module (AM) Aft port ten days later on 19th March. It is scheduled to undock from the ISS on 27th August.

ATV-3 will carry more “dry” cargo (i.e. internal items) than ATV-2 carried to the station in 2011, due to numerous internal structural modifications that have been made that will allow ATV to carry additional internal payload.

This will mean that less “wet” cargo (i.e. propellants) will be carried by ATV-3, however this will not be of big impact to the ISS since ATV-2 performed four “big boosts” of the ISS in 2011 that boosted the station’s altitude to a mean of around 400km, meaning less reboosts will be needed in future, and thus less requirements for propellants. (L2 Link)

The next large non-commercial delivery of ISS cargo will be via Japan’s HTV-3 spacecraft, currently scheduled to launch on 26th June atop an H-IIB rocket from the Tanegashima space center in Japan, arriving at the ISS five days later for a 1st July rendezvous, capture and berthing.

HTV-3 will depart the ISS on 15th August. The HTV-3 mission was originally scheduled for the first quarter of 2012, but was pushed back to mid-2012 due to delays in hardware processing caused by the Japanese earthquake in 2011.

In additional to bringing a large volume of internal cargo to the station, HTV-3 will also carry two external payloads for the ISS – the Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) testbed, which will be attached to ExPrESS Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC-3), and the Multi-mission Consolidated Equipment (MCE), a payload for the Japanese Exposed Facility (JEF). (L2 Link)

Five Russian Progress flights to the station are also planned in 2012 – Progress M-14M on 25th January, M-15M on 25th April, M-16M on 25th July, M-17M on 23rd October, and M-18M on 26th December. (L2 Link)

Progress flights, however, will be of particular interest to the ISS Program over the course of 2012 due to the multiple failures of Russian launch vehicles in 2011, including two third stages of Soyuz rockets – a Soyuz-U with Progress M-12M/44P on 24th August, and a Soyuz 2-1b with the Meridian satellite on 23rd December.

However, the Progress M-12M third stage failure was attributed to a problem in the RD-0110 engine, while the third stage failure of Meridian used a newer RD-0124 engine.

If any further Soyuz rockets fail in 2012, it will not only have implications for Progress cargo flights, but also Soyuz crewed flights, which could lead to a de-crewing of the station since the ISS partners now depend on the Soyuz for crewed access to the station.

As such, successful launches of both Progress and Soyuz spacecraft are vital for a continued crewed presence on the ISS throughout 2012.

Commercial cargo vehicles:

This year will also mark the first of two long-awaited commercial cargo vehicles visit the station – SpaceX’s Dragon, and Orbital’s Cygnus.

The first commercial spacecraft to attempt to reach the ISS will be SpaceX’s Dragon, which is currently scheduled to launch on the combined COTS-2/3 (C2/C3) mission atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex-40 (LC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) on 7th February.

Preliminary timelines show that COTS-2 objectives (rendezvous and communication tests) will be performed the day following launch, with COTS-3 objectives (rendezvous, capture & berthing) being performed two days after launch on 9th February. These timelines, however, are not confirmed at this time.
Following a two week stay at the ISS, during which some non-critical supplies will be transferred to the ISS, Dragon will be unberthed from the ISS on 23rd February, for a re-entry and splashdown off the coast of California. (L2 Link)

While Dragon was originally scheduled to reach the station in 2011, ongoing setbacks from the Progress M-12M launch failure and subsequent ISS crew impacts, ISS hardware and software upgrades, Dragon software testing, and Dragon flight review processes delayed the flight into 2012.

With the successful docking of Soyuz TMA-03M/29S to the ISS on 23rd December, which delivered US astronaut Don Pettit to the station, all crewmembers trained to capture and berth Dragon are now aboard the ISS.

ISS hardware and software upgrades, notably the Enhanced Processor & Integrated Communications (EPIC) and X2_R10 software transition, got underway aboard the ISS last week and will continue throughout this week, so far with success.

Dragon software testing and flight reviews are currently ongoing, as much a big hurdle – deployment of an ORBCOMM secondary payload – has now been removed from the C2/C3 mission so that SpaceX can concentrate on Dragon’s flight to the ISS, and not have to worry about ISS conjunction concerns from the ORBCOMM.

Assuming the C2/C3 mission is a success, SpaceX are schedule to fly at least one more Dragon to the ISS in 2012 as an operational resupply spacecraft.

The next commercial cargo craft to attempt to reach the ISS after Dragon will be Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft, currently scheduled to launch No Earlier Than (NET) June due to ongoing delays with launch pad readiness. A hot-fire test and a test launch with a dummy payload of Cygnus’ Antares (formerly Taurus II) launch vehicle need to be performed prior to the Cygnus C1 mission.

Since ISS can make it only as far as 2013 without any commercial cargo deliveries (assuming successful deliveries of cargo by non-commercial vehicles), this means that at least one commercial resupply vehicle must successfully reach the ISS in 2012 in order to maintain a crewed presence in 2013.

The margin for failure of this year’s COTS vehicle test flights is tight, with sources noting that even with the stockpiles of supplies from STS-135, ISS will struggle to sustain a failure of any COTS vehicle to reach the station.

As such, retirement of the Space Shuttle and its large up/downmass before an operational commercial resupply capability was available has placed additional risk on the ISS, since test flights of new, and in the case of Orbital, untested launch vehicles and spacecraft are now on the critical path for sustained ISS operations.

Although the commercial vehicles in question have yet to reach the station at the start of the year in which they must become operational, the due diligence displayed thus far by both NASA and its commercial partners enables is an encouraging sign.

While the commercial resupply vehicles have been a long time coming, the end is now in sight for the COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) development program and the transition to the operational Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. Due to both the high risks and high payoffs involved, 2012 is likely to be the make-or-break year for COTS and CRS.

–

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Progress 45P: Breathing a sigh of relief:

Docking to the International Space Station (ISS) at 0741 EDT this morning, the Progress 45P resupply craft’s arrival at the ISS marked the first time since July 10, 2011 that a spacecraft has successfully reached the international laboratory.

That previous mission, the STS-135/ULF-7 flight of Space Shuttle orbiter Atlantis, marked the final time that large-scale resupply efforts – a  luxury only afforded by the tremendous up-mass and down-mass capabilities of the Space Shuttle orbiter – could be conducted by NASA and its international partner agencies.

As such, the Atlantis’s mission was instrumental in stockpiling nearly a year’s worth of supplies for the ISS and its ever-rotating crew.

Thus, when the Progress 44P mission failed to reach orbit on August 28, 2011 – just over one month after the end of the Space Shuttle Program – the ISS Program was not faced with the immediate demand to de-crew the Station as enough supplies existed to support a crew until the March 2012 time frame.

However, the cause of the Progress 44P launch failure was quickly determined to be with the rocket itself, not the Progress resupply craft. The issue here became that the rocket used to launch the Progress unmanned resupply crafts, the Soyuz-U, shares several third stage features with the Soyuz-FG rocket used to launched the manned Soyuz vehicles for ISS crew rotation and support missions.

As such, Russian Federal Space Agency officials immediately grounded the Soyuz rocket  family and stated that no flights – both manned or unmanned – would take place until the issue was fixed.

This meant that the planned 30 September 2011 launch of the next three-person subset of the ISS crew on a Soyuz-FG rocket would be delayed indefinitely.

Since Soyuz spacecraft have an on-orbit lifetime certification limit, the very real possibility that the International Space Station would have to be de-crewed if Russia could not fix the Soyuz rocket family issue before the scheduled mid-/late-November return to Earth of the three members of the Expedition 29 crew arose.

According to official NASA documentation available on L2, “The big news for ISS of course is that with the 44P Progress launch anomaly there is some risk that the next crew rotation will not happen and we may need to be prepared to handle a period of time where the ISS does not have crew on board.

“MOD has been somewhat prepared for this eventuality of course. But with the advance notice of this possibility, Flight Director Scott Stover and his team, working in concert with the current Flight Director Increment lead Royce Renfrew, has been working hard re-looking at our de-crew plan.”

In all, the MOD notes praised the work and preparedness of the teams in dealing with this potentiality. “They have done an outstanding job thinking through all of the possible risks and making sure that we [were] minimizing any threats to ISS while there [would have been] no people on board to assist in dealing with issues.”

However, Russian officials have found and corrected the issue in the Soyuz rocket family, and the risk of de-crew has dropped into the “low” category of probability.

What could have been: De-crewing the ISS:

While the overall outlook and possibility for de-crewing the ISS dropped significantly with Sunday’s successful launch of the Progress 45P from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the preparations made by NASA and RSA for the possible de-crew scenario were nothing short of impressive as they once against highlighted how these two space agencies can deal with anything that develops.

As the MOD notes relate, “The overall configuration of the station [would have] largely [been] to close most of the hatches in case of a depress event, shut down all unnecessary equipment, and run only the gear required to keep the overall systems functional and maintain some capability for payloads (especially not lose existing science data).”

Likewise, all major fans and thermal systems would have remained online during the de-crew event as they would have been needed to prevent temperature gradients and condensation build up.

But keeping systems online and closing hatches between modules were not the only things that the ISS community had to consider in this case.

“Working with the avionics community, the team came up with some very clever ways to work around possible failure cases,” notes the MOD statement.

“If we lost Sband communications for some reason, in the past we would have to perform all our USOS communication using the Russian communication assets thru ground sites only. This is a very limited capability. Our team came up with a way to safely connect the SSC laptop to the PCS command and control laptops over the Ethernet.

“This [would have allowed] the ground to virtually operate the ISS by calling up CDDT displays to look at telemetry and execute commands using the Ku communication system routed via the OCA” in the event that Sband communication capability was lost after the ISS had been de-crewed.

Click here for ISS News Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/iss/

Paving the way for the 28S Soyuz mission:

More than just demonstrating the safe return to flight of the Soyuz rocket and the Progress resupply crafts for the International Space Station, the successful launch and docking of Progress 45P specifically paves the way for the scheduled November 14th launch of the Soyuz 28S mission to the ISS with the final three crewmembers of the Expedition 29 increment.

With a readiness review for the Soyuz-FG rocket and TMA-22 spacecraft completed before Sunday’s launch of the Progress 45P spacecraft, Russian officials gave the Soyuz rocket and the crew capsule a “tentative ‘GO’ pending final test results.”

That final test was largely considered to be the safe, in-flight demonstration of the Soyuz-U rocket’s third stage during the launch of the Progress 45P craft. 

Russian officials are expected to sign off on the launch of the 28S Soyuz mission later this week or early next week since there were no other “formal” issues identified with the rocket or spacecraft other than the tech issue which appears to have been solved.

Meanwhile, on the US side of preparations, the 28S Stage Operations Readiness Review (SORR) was held yesterday, with a final Flight Readiness Review planned before the Nov. 14 launch date.

(Images: NASA, Roscosmos) (NSF and L2 are providing full future level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS/CRS/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles.)

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Previous failure:

Following the 24th August liftoff of the Soyuz-U booster carrying the Progress M-12M/44P resupply spacecraft to the ISS, the booster’s third stage unexpectedly shut down shortly after ignition, causing the third stage with attached Progress spacecraft to fall back to Earth and disintegrate in the atmosphere.

The failure could not have come at a worse time for the ISS, with the workhorse Space Shuttle having been retired only the previous month, and commercial resupply spacecraft still engaged in preparations for their debut launches to the station.

While the loss of supplies from Progress M-12M wasn’t a huge concern to the ISS due to the “heavy” delivery of cargo by the final Space Shuttle mission in July, more concerning was the fact that the third stage of the Soyuz-U booster used to launch unmanned spacecraft to the ISS shares a lot of commonality with the third stage of the Soyuz-FG booster used to launch crews to the station.

Following the launch failure, all Soyuz boosters were grounded pending an investigation, a move which forced delays to other crew and cargo flights to the ISS.

With impressive speed, a Russian commission quickly determined the cause of the failure to be a blocked fuel line leading to the gas generator in the Soyuz-U third stage’s RD-0110 engine. The blocked fuel line caused a loss of pressure in the gas generator, which in turn caused a shutdown of the RD-0110 engine’s turbopump, leading to a total loss of thrust.

While the blocked fuel line was attributed to a random, one-off event caused by human error in vehicle processing, all Soyuz third stages were ordered to be sent back to their assembly plant for through testing. With the tests confirming that the previous defect was indeed a one-off, Russia cleared the Soyuz booster for resumption of flights.

In order to prevent a re-occurrence of the defect, numerous new safety measures were implemented, including video cameras to record all stages of Soyuz booster assembly.

Numerous Russian media reports have cited ageing workforces, poor salaries, and a lack of investment as causes for the decline in the quality of the usually highly reliable Soyuz booster, which has completed well over one-thousand successful flights.

Fallout from the failure:

The largest concern resulting from the launch failure was that the Soyuz booster would not be returned to flight in time to launch a new crew to the ISS before the current one had to return to Earth, leading to a de-crewing of the station.

While operating the ISS in an un-crewed configuration is technically possible, it is highly undesirable due to the loss of scientific research and increased risk resulting from on-board failures, as detailed at length in previous articles on this site.

In order to maintain a six-person crew aboard the ISS for as long as possible in light of the delayed flight schedule resulting from the Soyuz booster’s grounding, the landing of the Soyuz TMA-21/26S spacecraft with three crewmembers was delayed from 8th September to 16th September (a longer delay wasn’t possible due to lighting issues at the Kazakhstan landing site, and the limited Soyuz orbital lifetime).

Once Soyuz TMA-21 had departed on 16th September, the ISS was forced to operate with only three crewmembers for an extended period of time, due to the delay of the Soyuz TMA-22/28S launch with three crewmembers from late September to mid-November. In spite of the lower staffing levels, the station crew have still been meeting their commitments of 35 crew hours per week of scientific activities now that the ISS has entered its full utilisation phase.

While Sunday’s successful launch now makes a de-crewing of the station unlikely, such a situation has highlighted the dangers of relying solely on the Soyuz booster for crew access to the ISS – an issue which had been raised many times prior to the failure – but with politicians only taking serious notice after the failure, via hearings into the Soyuz booster return to flight plans, and progress of commercial vehicles to transport crews to the ISS in the mid-2020s timeframe.

Sunday’s Soyuz launch:

Today’s Soyuz-U launch of the Progress M-13M/45P spacecraft was a very significant event, since its outcome determined the entire immediate future of the ISS by confirming that the cause of the previous failure has been resolved, and that the Soyuz booster is ready to resume service launching crews to the ISS, averting a de-crewing of the station. Sunday’s launch also marks the first successful launch to the ISS in the post-Shuttle era.

It was decided to launch an uncrewed Soyuz-U booster to the ISS prior to a crewed Soyuz-FG in order to successfully demonstrate nominal operation of the common third stage prior to risking a crew – as much as analysis has shown that had a crew been riding the failed booster in August, the Soyuz capsule’s safety systems would have allowed the crew to make a safe landing back on Earth.

Following its liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:11 AM GMT, the Progress M-13M spacecraft successfully reached orbit and deployed its solar arrays. Aboard the Progress is approximately three tonnes of propellant, food, water, crew provisions, replacement parts and other miscellaneous items – including two iPad tablet computers for the personal use of the Russian crewmembers.

Following an unusual three days of free flight instead of the usual two, Progress M-13M will rendezvous with and dock to the ISS at the Docking Compartment-1 (DC-1) “Pirs” Nadir port on Wednesday (2nd November) at 11:40 AM GMT.

The DC-1 Nadir port was vacated yesterday (Saturday 29th October) by the Progress M-10M/42P spacecraft, which undocked at 9:01 AM GMT as was de-orbited for destructive re-entry and splashdown into the Pacific Ocean around four hours later. Progress M-10M had been docked to the ISS for exactly six months, having linked up with the orbiting outpost back on 29th April.

Click here for ISS News Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/iss/

Progress M-10M had the unique claim to fame of being responsible for delaying the STS-134 launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour back in April – as much as Progress M-10M was happy to pose for a photo alongside Endeavour when Soyuz TMA-20/25S departed the station during STS-134 in May.

While Progress M-13M will never get the chance to meet a Space Shuttle orbiter, it will remain docked to the ISS for nearly three months, whereupon it will undock from DC-1 Nadir on 25th January 2012, releasing the Chibis-M satellite prior to de-orbiting.

Future schedule for the Soyuz booster:

Now that the Soyuz booster has successfully returned to flight and demonstrated safe operation of the third stage, the stage is now set for the 14th November launch of the Soyuz TMA-22/28S spacecraft with three crewmembers, for a docking to the ISS at the Mini Research Module-2 (MRM-2) “Poisk” Zenith port on 16th November.

The boosting of the ISS crew back up to six crewmembers will be short lived however, since following an extremely tight six day crew handover period, Soyuz TMA-02M/27S will undock from the MRM-1 Nadir port and land in Kazakhstan on 22nd November.

The Soyuz TMA-03M/29S spacecraft will then launch to the ISS on 21st December, for a docking to MRM-1 “Rassvet” Nadir on 23rd December. This will put the ISS back up the six crewmembers by year-end.

The next Progress launch – Progress M-14M/46P – is planned for 25th January 2012.

While the resumption of crewed launches of the Soyuz booster to the ISS has yet to occur, today’s successful launch of Progress M-13M has cleared a major hurdle toward getting the ISS back up to full capacity by demonstrating the diligence and professionalism of the Russian failure investigation teams in returning the Soyuz booster to safe operation.

(Images: NASA, Roscosmos and L2) (NSF and L2 are providing full future level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS/CRS/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles.)

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ - to view how you can access L2)

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Hearing:

Wednesday’s hearing by the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics was headlined as a review into the “lessons from the Soyuz Rocket Failure and Return to Flight”, which resulted in positive responses on both the Russian investigation into the failure of the Soyuz – which saw Progress M-12M/44P crash back to Earth - and the effort to return to flight in November.

Those responses came from the high level witness panel, led by Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA Associate Administrator, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, Lieutenant General Thomas P. Stafford, USAF (Ret.), Chairman, International Space Station Advisory Committee, and Vice Admiral Joseph W. Dyer, USN (Ret.), Chairman, Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP).

During the hearing, which was led by lawmakers noting it was ironic the failure came one month after the final shuttle mission – with the STS-135 crew in attendance at the hearing – the root cause of the Soyuz problem was noted by Mr Gerstenmaier as related to a low fuel feed to the gas generator – caused by contamination – resulting in the Upper Stage engine failure.

With confirmation the Russians have been cooperative and forthcoming with NASA with regard to the failure investigation – with Mr Gerstenmaier adding they were given overviews first hand, consisting of detailed data, allowing Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) engineers to conduct a background check which resulted in agreement with the Russian findings – questions turned towards the eventual end of the reliance on Soyuz vehicles.

Questions remain on the schedule of handing over to the commercial fleet for US independence – with dates ranging between 2015 and 2017 – although it was stressed by Mr Gerstenmaier the commercial partners are aware they should only fly only when they are ready to fly.

Funding remains the key element of the commercial schedule, while NASA’s two main partners, SpaceX and Orbital, are also working through what was described as “normal start-up transients” – referencing Orbital’s major work at their launch site at Wallops, and SpaceX’s unspecified software issues.

From a cargo perspective, the ISS isn’t racing against deadlines, partly due to the support of other vehicles, such as Europe’s ATV and Japan’s HTV, but also because the final flights of the Shuttle provided the orbital outpost with enough supplies to last until the end of the next calendar year.

Despite this, one lawmaker posed the question on the viability of restarting the shuttle program.

Shuttle Restart:

While General Stafford correctly identified the long pole was the restart of External Tank production at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) – citing a period of two years (as much as claims have been made it would take 18 months) until the tanks reached their flow points to support missions – Admiral Dyer was dismissive, claiming this had been previously looked into and that the question would have only been “interesting” if it had been asked three or four years ago.

This wasn’t a surprising response from the head of the ASAP, who has been steadfast in his opposition to all additional shuttle missions, even the ones which were praised for leaving the ISS in the current acceptable logistics state.

However, a more expansive explanation – at least from a post-retirement standpoint – was forthcoming via the ASAP 2011 Third Quarterly Report, acquired by this site, which quoted an exchange between Scott Spencer, Transportation Management Consultant and co-author of an open letter to the NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, with the ASAP board.

The letter, co-authored by Christopher Kraft, former Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and endorsed by Space Shuttle astronauts Robert Crippen and Frederick Hauck; Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong, James Lovell, and Eugene Cernan; the former Director of Mission Operations and Flight Director, Gene Kranz; and other space industry experts, expressed concerns with the Space Shuttle fleet’s retirement from ISS operations.

As noted in the ASAP report, the letter noted concerns with the inability to make repair spacewalks to restore safe and reliable operations if an incident rendered the ISS uninhabitable; and an uncontrolled, catastrophic reentry (with risks to populated areas around the world and the attendant ramifications to foreign relations) from an abandoned ISS.

Ironically, the letter was written before the Soyuz failure and the potential decrew situation.

“Mr Spencer stated that the Space Shuttle fleet is the only spacecraft that is equipped with the airlocks, life support supplies, and robotic arm needed to support the required two-person spacewalking repair crew,” noted the ASAP report into his comments.

“He noted that the letter’s authors and endorsers also believe that the loss of the ISS would destroy the commercial viability of commercial cargo and crew, which is essential for the U.S. return to manned spaceflight if the Shuttles are retired. Keeping the Space Shuttles in service would maintain vital backup contingency for possible risks to U.S. manned spaceflight and the ISS business for the emerging commercial space industry.

“In addition, the letter recommended establishing a new, internationally accepted flight safety criterion: Any object in orbit that is too large for an uncontrolled reentry must have a spacecraft available to support independent extravehicular activity (EVA) repairs.

“With regard to costs associated with the Shuttle fleet, he contended that use of private capital would make it financially and technically feasible to reverse the retirement of the Shuttles and restore U.S. manned spaceflight capabilities in as little as 18 months.”

As such, Mr Spencer requested that the ASAP issue an immediate recommendation for NASA, Congress, and the White House to reverse the decision to retire the Space Shuttles. This request received a negative response from Admiral Dyer.

“In the Panel’s opinion, there was a time for this debate, but it has passed. In the latter part of the last decade, the ASAP highlighted in its reports to both Congress and the NASA Administrator that if the Shuttle’s continuation beyond the planned retirement was to be discussed, the subject needed to be taken up at that time – not only because of knowledge loss, but especially for the second and third tier suppliers of piece parts and critical components, which have now been out of business – well over three years in many cases.

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“VADM Dyer noted that the Panel understood Mr Spencer’s message and what he highlighted, but in the Panel’s opinion, the time has passed for implementing Shuttle’s continuation.”

In response, Mr Spencer stated that that issue was addressed before the letter was written and endorsed, and it was confirmed that the ability to reconstitute and return Shuttle to flight could be accomplished safely and successfully in about 18 months. That would be a faster return-to-flight than what is anticipated for commercial alternatives. He agreed that there would be a delay, but opined that it would not be technically insurmountable.”

Turning to safety – an issue which Admiral Dyer went on the record to cite concerns about when sat alongside then NASA administrator Mike Griffin at the 2009 House hearing to discuss the initial findings of the Augustine Review into the forward path for Human Space Flight – Mr Spencer was questioned on his evaluations into safe flight.

“Mr Spencer noted that the Shuttle’s ability to continue to fly safely is not without risk. However, in his opinion, the safety of the subsequent spacecraft will not be determined until they pass a 100-flight threshold themselves. In terms of relative risk, tradeoffs would have to be accepted,” the notes recorded.

“He felt that the potentially uncontrolled ISS reentry threat to populated areas around the world is an unacceptable risk. Even if the ISS remains safely in orbit after being abandoned, the hearing and review boards that would result would criticize NASA’s decision to leave the ISS without any way of being restored.”

Mr Spencer also noted that the late call to continue shuttle operations came in part due to the lack of an EVA capability being seen on any of the future vehicles, something he felt no one specifically discussed this before Congress or the ISS partners. Mr Spencer also claimed the ISS was designed and built to be operated, maintained, and de-orbited with the support of the Shuttle’s capability.

It was then noted that plans have been in work for the commercial operation of the Shuttle. These plans have been very secretive due to the investor-related nature of such proposals, although it appears Mr Spencer and his co-authors had been made aware – likely the reason for the passionate pro-shuttle return comments from former Apollo commander Gene Cernan at a recent hearing when he claimed the shuttle was in the prime of its life.

“Plans for commercial operation of Space Shuttles have been proposed, but they were never presented to Congress,” Mr Spencer was noted as claiming. “One aspect is the use of private capital and revenue from countries that would want to have space-faring capabilities, which would ultimately neutralize the additional budget that would be required to fly the Shuttles.

“Interest is already being expressed from capital sources who say that with a 20- to 30-year flight service agreement, a significant amount of private capital could be funded to reconstitute the Shuttle program and its operations and minimize the impact on the NASA budget. When safety is at stake, cost is a lower issue to consider in the criteria.”

ASAP appeared to be unaware of such plans and asked Mr Spencer for further information, to which he noted one example, which related to the United Space Alliance (USA) looking at about $1.5B per year for at least two Shuttle flights per year, as well as a Shuttle being available for launch-on-need capability.

He added that at least $500M would be required up front to restart the parts and tanking line, that private capital could put these funds into place to supplement NASA’s effort, although he wasn’t able to say specifically what return-on-investment rate would be required for investors. However, in the discussions that USA had, they were satisfied with the business case.

Notably, the United Space Alliance were not party to Mr Spencer’s letter and no recent news has been heard on any progression to the commercial shuttle effort.

With Endeavour now signed over to her retirement home in California, Discovery’s wings effectively clipped by the decommissioning of her OMS Pods and the effort to remove Main Propulsion System (MPS) hardware for use on the Space Launch System (SLS), it is likely the question from lawmakers on Wednesday was the last time it will be asked.

To read about Atlantis and her sisters – from birth, processing, every single mission, through to retirement, click here for the links:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25837.0

Click here for the amazing MaxQ Entertainment STS-135 Mission Review Music Video:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26178.0

(Images: L2 (animation via L2 sequence set), NASA, USA and Hearing Webcast).

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Related posts:

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Soyuz failure latest:

The Soyuz failure that caused the loss of the Progress M-12M/44P spacecraft on 24th August was attributed by a Russian investigation to a blocked fuel line leading to a gas generator in the Soyuz booster third stage’s RD-0110 engine. As a precaution, all third stages at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan were transported back to their assembly plant in Russia for a full inspection.

According to Russian media reports, Roscosmos head Vladimir Popovkin confirmed to the Russian Government last week that the inspections have revealed no issues with any other third stage engines, and thus the third stage engine failure on the Progress M-12M flight has been attributed to a random one-off manufacturing defect.

This clears the way for the return to flight of the Soyuz booster, which is set for 30th October when a Soyuz-U booster will loft the un-crewed Progress M-13M/45P spacecraft. Although a Soyuz booster launched a Russian GLONASS satellite into orbit last week, that booster carried a Fregat upper stage which was different to the third stage that failed in August.

Providing the Progress M-13M launch is successful, crewed flights aboard Soyuz boosters will resume on 14th November, when a Soyuz-FG booster will launch the Soyuz TMA-22/28S spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov & Anatoly Ivanishin, and US astronaut Dan Burbank.

The docking of Soyuz TMA-22 to the ISS on 16th November will temporarily boost the ISS crew back up to six crewmembers, since it is currently operating at a reduced three crewmembers following the departure of Soyuz TMA-21/26S on 16th September. Despite this reduced crew, the target of 35 crew hours per week of scientific research continues to be met aboard the orbital outpost.

Following a crew handover period of less than one week, the ISS will once again be reduced to three crewmembers when Soyuz TMA-02M/27S, carrying Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, US astronaut Mike Fossum, and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, departs the ISS on 22nd November for a landing in Kazakhstan.

Soyuz TMA-03M/29S will then launch on 21st December, carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, US astronaut Don Pettit, and European astronaut André Kuipers. This will put the ISS back up to six crewmembers by year-end. This, however, is a best-case scenario that assumes the Soyuz booster returns to flight successfully.

ISS de-crew preparations:

In the event that Soyuz TMA-22/28S does not reach the ISS by the time that Soyuz TMA-02M/27S has to depart on 22nd November, ISS Program (ISSP) managers are continuing with precautionary preparations for a de-crewing of the station.

“The ISSP will continue to work two separate paths, de-crew and not de-crewing, until 28S launches.  Utilization is not top priority during this time frame as certain de-crewing activities need to be performed to keep multiple options open” stated recent L2 notes. “Two de-crew sims are planned for Flight Directors (FDs) and the flight control team”, continued the notes.

There are many concerns relating to leaving the ISS in an un-crewed configuration, mitigations for which were recently reviewed in a set of ISS de-crewing preparation presentations, available to download on L2.

A major area of concern relates to the atmosphere of the ISS, both in event of a Micro Meteoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) strike, and the long-term effects of stagnant air inside the station.

In order to protect against the risk of ISS depressurisation in the event of an MMOD strike, all hatches in the US and Russian Segments of the ISS would be closed prior to de-crewing of the ISS. This would prevent the whole station from depressurising in the event that one module were to suffer an MMOD strike.

The Oxygen (O2) and Nitrogen (N2) system on the station would also be isolated. The Common Cabin Air Assembly (CCAA), essentially the station’s dehumidifier, would be left active in order to prevent any potential issues with temperature, humidity, condensation, and resulting microbial growth in the absence of crewed presence.

The presentations note that all trash items that will pose long-term odour, fungal and/or microbial growth issues will be disposed of on Progress M-10M/42P when it undocks from the ISS on 29th October, in order to reduce some of the risks associated with microbial growth. Microbial growth would present an issue for crews returning to the ISS, since it would present them with a hazardous atmosphere.

Inter Module Ventilation (IMV) fans would remain active in order to provide cooling to all modules, although leaving IMV fans on does increase the risk of on-board fires due to increased airflow, at a time when no crews would be present to extinguish them.
 
The IMV valves – essentially valves between modules – would remain open, so as they could serve as Positive Pressure Relieve Valves (PPRVs) to prevent positive pressure differentials building up between sealed-off modules. The IMV valves could be commanded closed by the ground in the event of an MMOD strike on a module, in order to prevent depressurisation of the entire station.

To further reduce the risk of fire, many pieces of equipment would be shut off prior to crew departure, including Portable Computer System (PCS) and Station Support Computer (SSC) laptops.

Environmental Control & Life Support System (ECLSS) hardware such as the US Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) and Oxygen Generation System (OGS), and Russian Electron oxygen generator and Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system would also be shut off, since there would be no crews aboard the ISS to require oxygen or produce carbon dioxide.

The US Water Processor Assembly (WPA) and Urine Processor Assembly (UPA) would remain active and would periodically be used to process urine into water, in order to keep fluids flowing through the lines in the WPA and UPA, preventing stagnation.

Essential science hardware would remain powered on in order to preserve valuable scientific samples. This hardware includes the Minus Eighty-degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI), GLACIER and MERLIN freezers.

Numerous other risks are presented by operating the ISS without any crews, since no crews would be aboard to deal with any issues that may arise, such as vital hardware replacements in the event of a failure.

Perhaps the most serious risk would be a loss of attitude control by the ISS, since it could potentially lead to a complete loss of the station. While a string of failures would be needed for such a situation to occur, a loss of attitude control could cause the ISS to enter a tumble, which would prevent future spacecraft from docking to the ISS, and also preclude ISS reboosts from occurring.

Communications between the ground and the ISS could also be lost since the ISS’ antennas would not be able to maintain a lock on orbiting satellites or ground stations. This situation would mean that the ISS would slowly lose altitude and eventually enter into an uncontrolled re-entry, possibly endangering populations below.

Another less serious risk would be the loss of three US Segment Command & Control (C&C) Multiplexer/Demultiplexers (MDMs), a situation that has occurred before on the ISS. Such a loss would cause the Node 1 C&C MDM to take over the primary C&C MDM, however the Node 1 MDM does not provide for commanding of the US Segment via S-Band, which is the usual method of commanding the US Segment.

This means that the US Segment would need to be commanded through the Russian Segment as it passes over Russian Ground Sites (RGSs), but this is limited in capability. The ISSP is currently evaluating the potential to command the US Segment via the station’s Ku-Band antenna.

Click here for ISS News Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/iss/

A leak inside a station module (such a water coolant) is another risk that would be increased if no crew were aboard the station to clean it up. Prior to crew departures, jumpers would be installed between critical hardware (such as avionics) and the station’s Low Temperature Loop (LTL) water coolant loop, to protect against the loss of the Moderate Temperature Loop (MTL).

Any batteries aboard the station would also need to be disposed of prior to crew departure, to prevent against their degradation. The Mobile Transporter (MT) would be prevented from translating along the station’s truss during an un-crewed period, since no crewmembers would be available to conduct an EVA to repair the MT in the event that it became stuck.

Another potentially very serious risk involved in un-crewed operations relates to Progress resupply vehicles. Prior to crew departure from the station, BZV clamps that help hold Progresses onto the ISS would be removed.

This would allow Progresses to depart the station so that new Progresses could be launched with additional propellant, enabling indefinite ISS reboosts to occur, allowing the ISS to stay aloft for years in an un-crewed configuration.

However, during Progress dockings, no crewmembers would be available aboard the ISS to take control of incoming Progresses via the TORU manual control system should the automated KURS system fail, as has happened on many occasions in the past. Thus, Progress dockings would become single fault tolerant, and risks associated with a collision between a Progress and the ISS, as occurred on the Mir space station in 1997, would be increased.

According to recent L2 notes, NASA ISS Program Manager Mike “Suff” Suffredini wants the capability to dock a European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to the ISS in the un-crewed configuration, in addition to Russian Progress vehicles.

“Suff asked the team to protect for doing an ATV docking in an unmanned configuration. The idea is that we need a method for getting new propellants on the ISS if a Russian vehicle cannot be launched. 

For this to be necessary, the ISS would need to be unmanned for about 9 months.  It is very unlikely that the Russians would not be able to launch a Progress by then” stated the notes (L2).

Upcoming resupply flight schedule issues:

While the issue of ISS crewing is worked by the ISSP, the issue of station resupply flights and associated issues is also being diligently worked by the ISSP and their commercial partners.

Even commercial resupply flights have been affected by the Progress M-12M launch failure, since SpaceX have been forced to move their Dragon D2/D3 demo into what is likely to be a January 2012 timeframe, since the Soyuz launch delays meant that a full crew trained to berth Dragon to the ISS would not have been present on the station on Dragon’s original 9th December arrival date.

However, another issue affected by the Progress M-12M failure, which has knock-on effects for the commercial resupply flight schedule, is the series of software updates that were planned for the ISS, which will enable the station to support the new commercial vehicles.

The current version of ISS software is X2_R9. Prior to the Progress failure, the plan was to transition the ISS to X2_R10, which would add support to the station for new Enhanced Processor and Integrated Communications (EPIC) cards.

An upgrade called PEP R10 would have followed that, and then X2_R11 would have been uploaded to the ISS, which would have upgraded the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) software from its current version of 6.3, to the new version of 7.1, which is capable of supporting robotics operations for the new commercial vehicles.

However, the Progress failure and subsequent impact on crew schedules scuppered that plan, since crews are needed for EPIC installation, testing, and diagnostic activities. The EPIC transition has encountered problems, with a recent L2 note stating “for the EPIC cards, no real discovery of route cause, looking at modification to resistor output logic voltages”.

The new plan will see PEP R10 uploaded to the ISS first, which will add some support for the EPIC cards, and also enable the current MSS 6.3 to support robotics operations for the new commercial vehicles. This is currently planned for February 2012. X2_R10 and X2_R11 would follow sometime afterwards.

This means that if any commercial vehicles fly to the ISS before or during February, before the PEP R10 transition can take place, they will have to use the current ISS software, X2_R9, for which they are not designed to be compatible. Orbital’s Cygnus vehicle also needs the EPIC cards in order to be compatible with the ISS.

According to related presentations (L2) ”the biggest impact is probably to Orbital because they do not have any telemetry in X2_R9″. Another L2 note related to Cygnus software stated that “the Orbital sim checkout last week did not go well. The data flow problem still exists, so telemetry is not populating as expected.  Orbital thought their software update would solve the problem, but it did not.  We will talk with them this week about revamping the sim schedule”.

L2 notes also detail another issue facing Orbital in development of their Cygnus vehicle software: “During a TIM (Technical Interchange Meeting) with Orbital 3 to 4 weeks ago, there was a scenario where the vehicle was close to ISS, and there was a 55-second-delay to abort. 

This is how much time it takes to wake up the vehicle, because their command shuts down the entire propellant system.  Orbital said that this could be cut down to 30 seconds, but the PCS (Portable Computer System) command takes 20 seconds, getting us back up to 50. This is an issue he will be discussing with them”.

Future ISS cargo/stowage issues:

A recent ISS stowage status presentation, available to download on L2, detailed some of the concerns relating to cargo deliveries and stowage from the realigned flight schedule.

According to the presentation, the loss of Progress M-12M/44P didn’t have an adverse effect on on-board cargo, with the presentation noting “Priority cargo replanned for other vehicles. Consumable supplies not impacted due to surplus on ISS” – the surplus referring to the massive delivery of cargo by the final Space Shuttle flight, STS-135.

What was lost, however, is the trash capability of Progress M-12M/44P. As previously mentioned, ISS managers would like to dispose of as much cargo as possible prior to a potential de-crew. As such, plans are being formulated to dispose of a high amount of US trash on Progress M-10M/42P, which docked to the ISS back in April and is currently set to depart on 29th October.

According to the presentation, 60 Cargo Transfer Bag Equivalent (CTBE) of cargo will be disposed of on Progress M-10M/42P, whereas the historical average of US trash disposed of on Progresses is 25 CTBE, with the remainder of Progresses 90 CTBE capability being taken up by Russian trash. “Russian agreement that all US trash will be accommodated” noted the presentation.

Looking ahead to upcoming resupply flights, Progress M-13M/45P, set to launch on 30th October, will carry 37 CTBE of US cargo to the station. The SpaceX D2/D3 flight will deliver 41 CTBE, although it has a capacity of 50 CTBE. Orbital’s D1 flight will carry 20 CTBE of cargo, although it has a capacity for 66 CTBE. Japan’s HTV-3 will launch 58 CTBE of cargo, with a capacity for 160 CTBE. And Europe’s ATV-3 will launch with a full complement of 160 CTBE of cargo.

The reason that the full cargo capability of some vehicles is not being exploited is due to trash concerns, with the presentation noting regarding the SpaceX D2/D3 flight “launching empty bags (18 CTBE of the 41) to facilitate maximum disposal capability for SpaceX and Orbital demo flights”.

The trash concerns stem from the possibility that the rate of cargo deliveries aboard the ISS may surpass the disposal capabilities of the vehicles, leading to an “overstow” situation. One CTBE of common trash per three crewmembers – or two CTBE per six crewmembers – is created every day on the ISS.

The presentation notes that Russia’s Progress M-13M/45P flight will accumulate 80 CTBE of stowage aboard the ISS, but only dispose of 42 CTBE, leaving a leftover of 38 CTBE aboard the ISS.

The SpaceX D2/D3 flight will accumulate 67 CTBE, but only dispose of 16 CTBE, leaving a left-over of 51 CTBE (although the Dragon vehicle has the capacity to dispose of 50 CTBE). Orbital’s D1 flight will accumulate 78 CTBE, and dispose of 66 CTBE, leaving a leftover of 12 CTBE.

The current plan of altering vehicle manifests to include less cargo is done in order to create less on-board stowage impacts and preserve trash opportunities. The presentation notes that under this plan, the “next foreseeable stowage issue is at ATV-3 arrival in March 2012″.

If resupply vehicles were launched with more cargo aboard in order to utilise their full capacity, then the “spacing” between the cargo vehicle flights would need to be increased to allow for more cargo to be launched. This however would mean that “trash levels on ISS will increase and may surpass disposal opportunities. Trash issues could start as soon as Jan 2012″.

Although the ISS now has a storage closet in the form of the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), the effects of the loss of the massive disposal capacity of the Space Shuttle are already being felt aboard the station.

(Images: NASA, Space X, Orbital and L2 Documentation) (As the shuttle fleet retire, NSF and L2 are providing full transition level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS/CRS/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles. 

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ - to view how you can access L2)

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Failure investigation status:

The Russian space agency Roscosmos is currently investigating the cause of the Soyuz-U third stage failure, as well as the unrelated failure of the Briz-M upper stage of a Proton-M launch vehicle that failed the week prior to the Progress M-12M failure, which led to the grounding of all Proton-M rockets.

With impressive speed, Roscosmos have already identified the cause of both the Soyuz-U third stage and Proton-M Briz-M upper stage failures.

The Proton-M/Briz-M failure, which resulted in the loss of the Express-AM4 satellite, has been attributed to a time interval that was too short to manoeuvre a gyroscope platform into the correct position, causing an error in the Briz-M guidance system, which in turn pointed the Briz-M upper stage in the incorrect orientation, which resulted in the Express-AM4 satellite being placed in an off-nominal orbit.

The cause of the short time interval is believed to be a human programming error, making it the second Proton failure attributed to human error within the past twelve months, following the over-fuelling error which led to the failure of the Proton-M with three GLONASS satellites in December 2010. Roscosmos has now approved the re-start of processing for Proton launch vehicles, just twelve days after their grounding following the mishap.

The failure of the Soyuz-U third stage has been attributed to a malfunction in the gas generator of the third stage’s RD-0110 engine. The gas generator produces gasses via the combustion of main propellants. These gasses are then used to power the turbopump, pressurise the kerosene tank, and are also fed to the four small vernier thrusters on the RD-0110 engine, which are used to control the attitude of the vehicle.

Telemetry showed that 325 seconds into the flight (approximately 20 to 25 seconds after third stage ignition), the pressure downstream of the turbopump (possibly at the engine inlet) dropped, which resulted in the third stage’s engine being automatically shut down to prevent a possible explosion.

The cause however of the malfunctioning gas generator has yet to be determined. It is unlikely that debris of the Progress or third stage will cede any clues, since the thousands of pieces are spread out over a very large area, and recovery efforts are being hampered by bad weather.

However, given the fact that the Soyuz rocket has flown over a thousand successful flights, the malfunction is unlikely to be a design flaw, and more likely to be human error in the manufacturing or assembly process. Numerous Russian media reports have cited low salaries, an ageing workforce, failure to attract young engineers, and a lack of state investment as a reason for a steady decline in quality of Russian space hardware since the fall of the Soviet Union.

That is coupled with an increasing strain on the Russian space industry due to a growing number of projects, including the manufacture of four Soyuz spacecraft per year in order to support a six person ISS crew, whereas in the three crew era only two Soyuzes per year were required.

In response to the failure, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has sent investigators to the Voronezh plant, where the third stage RD-0110 engine is manufactured, and if any cases of negligence are found in managers or factory floor workers, charges of imprisonment may follow. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has also ordered tougher quality controls of all Russian space hardware, including a quality review of all hardware currently is Roscosmos’ possession.

Until the investigation is complete and the cause of the malfunction identified and rectified, all Soyuz launch vehicles are grounded. However, even after the Soyuz rocket is cleared to fly, both Roscosmos and NASA would like to fly two unmanned flights of the booster before launching any crews, to verify that the gas generator issue has been resolved.

Crew rotation plans:

The immediate issue facing the ISS is not related to supplies, since the recent STS-135 mission delivered enough for the ISS to remain crewed at six crewmembers and still reach next summer without any resupplies.

Rather, the immediate issue facing the ISS relates to crews, since all of the six crewmembers are schedule to return to Earth in the next few months. Ensuring that the ISS remains crewed until the next Soyuz spacecraft can launch replacement crewmembers will be a challenge, and is dependent upon how quickly the Russians can return to Soyuz rocket to flight status.

To this end, ISS crew rotation plans have had to be adjusted. There are however two issues affecting the crew rotation plans, which limit how much extra time the two current Soyuz spacecraft can remain docked to the ISS, in order to allow for a replacement crew to launch before their departure.

The first issue is the orbital lifetime of the Soyuz spacecraft , which is limited to around 200 days. The limited lifetime is driven by the Soyuz peroxide thruster system, which degrades over time and so is limited in how long it can spend in space.

NASA is currently discussing with Roscosmos whether or not it is worth pursuing the effort of re-certifying Soyuz to remain in space longer, although the current notional schedule shows that there is little rationale for doing so. NASA says that keeping crews in space for 210 days is “acceptable from both the NASA Crew Office and NASA medical perspectives”.

The second issue affecting crew rotations is lighting conditions and weather at the Soyuz landing site in Kazakhstan.

The times that the Soyuz spacecraft can land in Kazakhstan are dictated by orbital mechanics, and there are certain periods where the only available landing times would occur when the landing site was in darkness. Soyuz landings are not allowed to occur in darkness, since doing so would complicate and increase the risk to the Search And Rescue (SAR) forces that recover the Soyuz crews post-landing.

Also, during the Kazakhstan winter months (December to February), the weather is too bad to permit Soyuz landings, since strong winds and heavy snows increase the risks to both Soyuz landings and the SAR forces.

The plan prior to the Progress M-12M launch failure was for the Soyuz TMA-21/26S spacecraft to undock from Mini Research Module-2 (MRM-2) on 8th September, and the Soyuz TMA-22/28S spacecraft to launch on 22nd September. The grounding and unmanned test requirements of the Soyuz booster has pushed the Soyuz TMA-22 launch to the right, which has subsequently also pushed the Soyuz TMA-21 departure to the right.

However, the Soyuz TMA-21 landing cannot slip to the right by a similar amount to the Soyuz TMA-22 launch slip, due to the aforementioned Soyuz orbital lifetime and Kazakhstan lighting & weather constraints.

It has been decided to delay the Soyuz TMA-21 landing by one week to 16th September, whereupon Soyuz TMA-21 will have been on-orbit for roughly 170 days. This keeps the ISS at six crew for an extra week, which allows for more research to be conducted, since the target of 35 to 40 hours per week can only be met with a six person crew.

The Soyuz TMA-21 landing cannot be delayed beyond one week, because after 18th September, Soyuz landing site lighting becomes too dark to permit a landing. Adequate lighting will return 40 days later on the 26th October, but Soyuz TMA-21 cannot remain on-orbit until then as by this time it would have been in space for 210 days, which is 10 days past the preferred 200 day limit.

If Russia had certified Soyuz to remain on-orbit longer than 200 days, it would have been possible to delay the Soyuz TMA-21 landing to 26th October, thus gaining an extra 40 days of six crew operations for ISS. This was always unlikely to happen however, since a phasing burn to optimise the ISS’ obit for a Soyuz landing needs to be conducted one week prior to the landing, which would be 9th September for a 16th September landing date.

Click here for ISS Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/iss/

Thus, 9th September was the commit date for at 16th September return, and it was unlikely that the work to certify the Soyuz to remain on-orbit longer could have been completed before 9th September.

Following the Soyuz TMA-21 landing and the return of US astronaut Ron Garan, and Russian cosmonauts Andery Borisenko & Alexander Samokutyaev to Earth, the ISS would be down to three crewmembers – US astronaut Mike Fossum, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov.

The next milestone in the currently notional Progress M-12M failure recovery plan would then be the launch the Soyuz 2-1B booster with the Kosmos (GLONASS-M) satellites on 25th September. The launch was originally scheduled for 15th August, but was delayed in light of the Progress M-12M accident.

Assuming the GLONASS launch is successful, that would pave way for the launch of Progress M-13M/45P on 14th October – accelerated from its previously planned date of 28th October – with a docking to the ISS at either the Docking Compartment-1 (DC-1) “Pirs” or Service Module (SM) “Zvezda” docking port two days later on 16th October.

If Progress M-13M were to dock at DC-1, Progress M-10M/42P would have to undocked from DC-1 on 13th October, the day prior to the Progress M-13M launch. If this happened, this would result in the unusual configuration of only one Russian vehicle being present at the ISS (Soyuz TMA-02M at MRM-1), instead of the usual four.

Roscosmos may however deicide to dock Progress M-13M to the SM Aft port, which will be vacant since Progress M-12M was supposed to dock there. The advantage of this is that Progress M-13M would then be able to perform ISS reboosts, instead of relying on the SM engines as the ISS is currently doing.

There is no concern about ISS reboosts in the immediate future however, since the SM propellant tanks are currently topped off from Progress M-10M. According to NASA “Prime reboost & DAM (Debris Avoidance Manoeuvre) would be done with SM main engines, but DC-1 could also be used. Having the SM Aft end open (no Progress docked) appears of no concern, except perhaps for a slight increase in MMOD (Micrometeorite Orbital Debris) risk”.

Following the Progress M-13M launch, the Soyuz-FG would then loft Soyuz TMA-22/28S on 28th October, carrying three replacement crewmembers for the ISS – US astronaut Dan Burbank, and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov & Anatoly Ivanishin. Soyuz TMA-22 would dock to the ISS at MRM-2 two days later on 30th October, putting the ISS back up to 6 crewmembers after around six weeks of three crew operations following the Soyuz TMA-21 departure.

Soyuz TMA-02M/27S would then undock from MRM-1 and return to Earth on its originally planned date of 16th November, after 160 days on-orbit. Keeping Soyuz TMA-02M on-orbit for an extra 40 days, so as to use all of its 200 day orbital lifetime, is not possible due to a number of issues.

The first issue is that from 19th November to the end of December, landing site lighting conditions will be too dark to permit a landing. Adequate landing site lighting will return toward the end of December, but by that time Soyuz TMA-02M will be past its 200 day orbital lifetime.

However, even if Soyuz TMA-02M were cleared to stay on-orbit past 200 days, by the end of December severe wintry weather will have set in at the landing site in Kazakhstan, which will prevent Soyuz TMA-02M from returning to Earth until March, which will be well past its 200 day orbital lifetime.

Following the Soyuz TMA-02M landing, the ISS will be back down to three crewmembers. However, the launch of Soyuz TMA-03M/29S just over three weeks later on 10th December – delayed from its previously planned date of 29th November – with a docking to MRM-1 on 12th December, would put the ISS back up to six crewmembers, due to the addition of US astronaut Don Pettit, European astronaut Andre Kuipers, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko.

While it must be stressed that the above plan is only notional at this point, if successful, it would result in ISS being back up to six crewmembers before the end of the year.

If however Soyuz TMA-22 does not launch before November 13th, so as to arrive at the ISS on November 15th – the day before the Soyuz TMA-02M departure – then ISS will have to be temporarily de-manned before the end of the year. This, however, would be a worst-case scenario, that would only occur if the Soyuz booster cannot be returned to flight by October, in order to support the two unmanned test flights before Soyuz TMA-22 is launched.

Preparing ISS for unmanned operations would consist of installing jumpers to enable certain systems to be controlled from the ground, closing the hatches between all modules, and uninstalling clamps that hold Progress spacecraft to the ISS, which would enable Progress to be docked to and undocked from the ISS even while it is unmanned.

The ability to replace Progresses would mean that ISS reboosts would still be able to be performed even though ISS would be unmanned, meaning that ISS would be able to remain on-orbit indefinitely. Aside from the loss of research (although many external experiments will still continue to collect data), the biggest risk of leaving ISS unmanned is that if an equipment failure occurred, there would be no crew aboard to fix the problem.

A prime example of this is last year’s Pump Module (PM) failure, which resulted in three Extra Vehicular Activities (EVAs) being performed to Remove & Replace (R&R) the faulty PM. If a similar failure occurred with no crew aboard the ISS, such EVAs would not be possible.

Long term logistics planning:

As previously stated, the recent STS-135 mission delivered enough supplies for the ISS to remain crewed at six crewmembers and still reach next summer without any resupplies. The only effect that the Progress M-12M launch failure had on ISS logistics is the fact that one Russian crewmember may need additional clothing, which is available on the ISS from past and future Increments.

Although Progress M-13M should launch on 14th October, it is not yet known whether the planned undocking of Progress M-13M and launch & docking of Progress M-14M in December will go ahead as originally scheduled.

Per L2, the HTV-3 mission holds the potential to slip into the May 2012 timeframe, for reasons unrelated to the Progress M-12M failure. Also, the ATV-3 mission may also slip into the mid-2012 timeframe, again for reasons unrelated to the Progress failure.

Also per L2, the SpaceX combined COTS 2/3 demo mission, currently planned for 30th November, may slip to late January 2012. The 30th November date was just a place holder for use by the Florida Eastern Test Range, per sources.

Such a slip would be unrelated to the Progress failure, instead related to the preparation work that needs to be completed on the Falcon 9 and Dragon before it can be ready to fly, which is progressing slower than expected.

Although the delayed Soyuz TMA-22 launch means that only three crewmembers – and only one US crewmember – will be present on the ISS on 30th November, it would not be an issue for the Dragon capture and berthing, since Russian crewmembers would have been trained to support the activities.

(Images: L2, NASA, Roscosmos) (As the shuttle fleet retire, NSF and L2 are providing full transition level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS/CRS/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles.) 

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ - to view how you can access L2)

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Progress Failure:

Reports state that Progress M-12M, still attached to the third stage, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over Russia shortly after launch.

Progress M-12M – carrying three tons of supplies including food, fuel, and other miscellaneous items – was the first spacecraft to launch to the ISS in the post-Shuttle era, an era where regular ISS resupply flights will be extremely important to the continued operation of the station. Needless to say, the launch failure sets the post-Shuttle ISS resupply plan off to a bad start.

The failure - the first ever for a Progress since its introduction in 1978 - could not have come at a worse time for the ISS, with the Space Shuttle recently retired, commercial resupply flights not yet online, and a potential delay of the HTV-3 and ATV-3 missions into mid-2012, according to L2 sources.

The ISS now has ample room to accommodate supplies, due to the addition of the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), now stocked full of supplies from the recent STS-135 mission, which delivered one year’s worth of supplies to the ISS, which sources say is only sufficient to sustain the station crew when supplemented with scheduled Progress deliveries.

It is not yet known how the failure of Progress M-12M will affect ISS logistics, but resupplies will surely be impacted, as will the ISS reboost plan, since three reboosts were planned using Progress M-12M – the first on 31st August, the second on 14th September, and the third on 19th October. The ISS Service Module (SM) “Zvezda” has two engines capable of performing ISS reboosts.

The SM Aft port is currently empty, following the undocking of Progress M-11M/43P yesterday (Tuesday 23rd August). It is standard practice to undock the outgoing Progress before launching a new Progress to the station, since this protects the new Progress from having to “loiter” on-orbit until the outgoing Progress can successfully depart the station in the event of an undocking problem.

 Progress M-11M won’t be de-orbited until 1st September however – so it is currently unknown whether Progress M-11M could re-dock to the ISS to provide propulsion support for reboosts.

The next planned Progress launch is Progress M-13M/45P on 28th October, which will dock to the Docking Compartment-1 (DC-1) “Pirs” Nadir port, that will have been vacated the day prior by Progress M-10M/42P. Progress M-12M was planned to remain docked to the ISS for just over six months, whereupon it would have undocked from the ISS on 5th March 2012.

Click here for ISS Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/iss/

The failure also comes at a bad time for the Russian space establishment, due to last week’s failure of a Proton-M rocket carrying the Express-AM4 satellite. That failure – attributed to a problem in the guidance system of the Breeze-M upper stage – does not appear to be related to the Progress M-12M launch failure. It is not yet known whether the Progress M-12M launch failure will affect Soyuz-FG rockets, used to launch crews to the ISS.

The failure of the robotic Progress M-12M cargo freighter came during an already busy period of robotics and stowage activity at the station, with this week’s successful initial on-orbit power-up of Robonaut 2 (R2), with initial R2 first motion operations planned for next week.

Also beginning next week will be a Removal & Replacement (R&R) of a P1 Truss Remote Power Control Module (RPCM) by the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator (SPDM) “Dextre” – which will be covered in a separate article on NASASpaceflight.com.

As noted in an Increment 28 status presentation (L2), the on-orbit crew will ingress and begin filling Pressurised Mating Adapter-2 (PMA-2) – to which the Space Shuttles used to dock – with supplies this week, as it takes on its new role of a storage closet in the post-Shuttle era.

Also of note was the fact that for the Progress M-11M undocking, ground controllers swapped ISS S-Band communications to String 2, after seeing “multiple instances of a ‘ratty’ forward link on String 1 while the antenna has been pointing into clear skies”, according to an Increment 28 Status presentation (L2).

“Increment 28/29 continues to assess SASA R&R EVA (S-Band Antenna Sub-Assembly Removal & Replacement Extravehicular Activity) in order to be prepared in the event of a failure”, continued the presentation. Unscheduled Increment EVAs to R&R failed ISS equipment are generally very rare, such as last August’s series of three EVAs to R&R a failed Pump Module (PM) – although such EVAs are likely to become more common now in the post-Shuttle era.

(Images: L2, Roscosmos and NASA.gov) (As the shuttle fleet retire, NSF and L2 are providing full transition level coverage, available no where else on the internet, from Orion and SLS to ISS and COTS/CRS/CCDEV, to European and Russian vehicles. 

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ - to view how you can access L2)

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ATV-2 mission summary:

The European Space Agency (ESA) owned ATV-2 launched to the ISS from the Kourou space center in French Guiana atop an Ariane 5 rocket on 16th February this year. Following an eight day free-flight, the uncrewed resupply vessel docked autonomously to the ISS at the Service Module (SM) Aft port on 24th February, just hours prior to the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-133 mission.

ATV-2 delivered seven tonnes of supplies to the ISS, consisting of 1,170 kg of dry cargo, 100 kg of oxygen, 851 kg of propellants to refill the ISS’ tanks, and 4,535 kg of fuel for ISS reboosts.

The reboost fuel was used to perform numerous ISS orbit corrections and attitude control assistances during ATV-2′s stay at the station, notably on 2nd April when the spacecraft maneuvered the station to avoid a collision with some orbital debris. But by far the biggest use of reboost fuel was the four “big boosts” conducted in stages throughout this past week.

The goal of the “big boosts” was to raise the ISS to its new operating altitude for the post-Shuttle era. With the US Segment of the ISS now complete, Space Shuttles no longer need to bring large, heavy components up to the ISS, and so the ISS can now be operated at a higher altitude where less atmospheric particles exist, resulting in less drag being placed on the station.

This reduction in drag will reduce the amount of ISS reboosts that will be needed in future, meaning that Visiting Vehicles (VVs) will be able to carry less reboost propellant, and thus more dry cargo to the station.

It is estimated that the higher operating altitude of the ISS will reduce the requirements for reboost propellant from 19,000 pounds per year down to 8,000 pounds per year, resulting in 11,000 pounds of extra VV payload capacity each year, although this amount may not directly translate into an increase in dry cargo capacity since VVs will also need to use slightly more fuel to rendezvous with the ISS at its higher altitude.

Overall though, the higher operating altitude will result in an increased amount of dry cargo capacity for ISS VVs, which will further help to keep the ISS resupplied in the post-Shuttle era. Although one Space Shuttle mission still remains on the manifest (STS-135 in July), the higher operating altitude of the ISS will not be an issue, and any reduction in Shuttle payload capacity is negligible.

The first of the “big boosts” kicked off last Sunday (12th June), which saw two reboosts occur on the same day. The first reboost lasted 36 minutes 6 seconds, which resulted in a change in velocity (delta-V) of 5.2 m/s, and a mean altitude gain of 9.2 km.

The second reboost occurred roughly 3 hours 30 minutes later, and lasted 40 minutes 12 seconds, which resulted in a delta-V of 5.8 m/s and a mean altitude gain of 10.1 km. Combined together, the total reboost duration was 1 hour 16 minutes 18 seconds, which gave a delta-V of 11 m/s, and a mean altitude gain of 19.3 km.

Instead of conducting one large reboost, two reboosts were necessary with a pause in between, due to “how ATV’s fuel system pumps propellant”, and to let the reboost engines cool down. However, the two reboosts caused an issue with power balances, since the two reboosts drew more power from the batteries than expected.

The high solar beta angle (where the sun hits the ISS side-on) that was in effect at the time caused shadowing of the station’s and ATV-2′s solar arrays, and prevented the batteries from being recharged at their normal rate. Thus, lower than expected battery charge levels were incurred due to the higher power draw and lower recharge rate.

Following a meeting of the ISS Mission Management Team (IMMT), the original plan to conduct another two reboosts on Wednesday 15th June was changed. Under the new plan, only one reboost would be conducted on Wednesday 15th June, with the second being performed on Friday 17th June, and a third back-up opportunity being available on Saturday 18th June.

To aid battery recharge rates in the high beta angle period, the 4B and 2B BGAs (Beta Gimbal Assemblies), which control the beta rotation of the station’s solar arrays, would be kept in Autotrack, allowing them to track the Sun.

Wednesday’s reboost was performed nominally, with a duration of 39 minutes 40 seconds, a delta-V of 5.84 m/s, and a mean altitude gain of 10.2 km. Friday’s fourth and final reboost also went off without a hitch, with a duration of 26 minutes 53 seconds, a delta-V of 3.96 m/s, and a mean altitude gain  of 6.9 km.

In total, the four ATV-2 “big boosts” lasted 2 hours 22 minutes 11 seconds, and resulted in a delta-V of 20.8 m/s, and a staggering mean altitude gain of 36.4 km. The ISS is now at a mean altitude of 381 km, with a 384 km apogee (highest point) and 379.1 km perigee (lowest point). In 12 years of operation, the ISS has never been this high above the Earth.

ATVs are the only vehicles capable of performing such massive reboosts due to their large propellant capability and their four mighty Orbit Correction System (OCS) engines, which consumed 1,400 kg of propellant during the four reboosts.

According to NASA, ATV-2 performed the reboosts “with an outstanding precision that has never been reached for such a maneuver since the Apollo TLI (Trans-Lunar Injection) burns by the Saturn V S-IVB stage”.

The required amount of propellants were successfully transferred to the ISS’ fuel tanks during ATV-2′s stay at the station, and 78 kg of the 100kg of oxygen (O2) delivered by ATV-2 was also released into the ISS’ atmosphere.

However, the remaining 22 kg of O2 was not able to be transferred to the ISS, due to a failed fan inside ATV-2 which caused safety concerns since it was not able to cool equipment used in O2 transfers.

This will not adversely affect the O2 supplies aboard the ISS, despite recent concerns relating to the failure of Russia’s Elektron O2 generator, since during Space Shuttle Endeavour’s recent visit to the station, 10 pounds of O2 was transferred to the ISS from Endeavour, and the US Segment Oxygen Generation System (OGS) was successfully repaired. Also, the Elektron has since been successfully repaired by the Russian crewmembers.

Click here for ISS news articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/iss/

ATV-2 undocking and de-orbit:

Now depleted of all useful dry cargo, propellants and oxygen, ATV-2 was filled with 1,200 kg of trash, which according to an ISS stowage status document obtained by L2, includes 6 RFTAs (Recycle Filter Tank Assemblies), the ESA flywheel experiment, ATV-2 and STS-134/ULF-6 foam, common trash, and payload trash.

Hatch closure between ATV-2 and the ISS occurred Sunday, and ATV-2 undocked from the ISS at 2:48:21 PM GMT on Monday. ATV-2 conducted a separation burn using its thrusters shortly after undocking, at 2:51 PM GMT.

Following a free-flight for just over one day, an orbit-lowering burn was conducted on Tuesday 21st June at 5:07 PM GMT. The de-orbit burn followed roughly three hours later at 8:05 PM GMT, whereupon the ten tonne ATV-2 plummeted through Earth’s atmosphere as a giant fireball, eventually disintegrating under the intense heat.

Surviving parts of ATV-2 splashed down in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean around 8:52 PM GMT. A no-fly zone was in place above the debris fallout zone, and sea traffic was warned to keep out of the area.

Aboard ATV-2 during re-entry was the second Re-Entry Breakup Recorder (REBR), the spacecraft equivalent of a black box, designed to record data on the physics of re-entry disintegrations and send the data to a satellite prior to anticipated destruction upon splashdown in the Ocean. 

Click here for ATV news articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/ATV/

The first REBR flew on Japan’s HTV-2 (H-II Transfer Vehicle-2) during its re-entry in March this year, and performed well above expectations, managing to survive re-entry and splashdown intact and still send signals while floating in the Ocean.

Progress M-11M launch and docking:

Roughly 5 hours 25 minutes prior to ATV-2′s de-orbit burn, Russia’s uncrewed Progress M-11M/43P spacecraft blasted off atop a Soyuz-U rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on a resupply mission to the ISS. Liftoff was at 2:38:18 PM GMT on Tuesday.

In the short 5 hour 15 minute period between Progress M-11M’s launch and ATV-2′s de-orbit burn, two VVs will be free-flying in space together, albeit in different orbits.

Following a two day free flight, Progress M-11M will autonomously dock to ATV-2′s recently vacated docking port, Service Module (SM) Aft, on Thursday 23rd June at 4:35 PM GMT. Progress M-11M will remain attached to SM Aft until 29th August, whereupon it will undock and head towards the same fiery demise as ATV-2.

(Images via ESA and L2 ATV documentation). For other ATV-2 content, visit the excellent ATV-2 blog by ESA: http://blogs.esa.int/atv

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Progress Launch:

The DC-1 Nadir port was recently vacated by Progress M-09M/41P, which undocked from the station last Friday (22nd April), and following a four-day free-flight to conduct a geophysical experiment, was de-orbited for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean Tuesday 26th April.

On-board the uncrewed Progress is a variety of resupply items for the ISS crew, which according to NASA includes “1,940 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen and air, 926 pounds of water and 2,976 pounds of maintenance hardware, experiment equipment and resupply items”.

Also on-board Progress M-10M is a time-critical biological payload, which is partially responsible for the 10-day delay to the STS-134 mission from 19th April to 29th April.

The time-critical biological payload must be transferred to the ISS almost as soon as the Progress docks to the station, in order to ensure survivability of the payload. This means that the Progress must dock to the ISS on time, two days after its launch.

Under the original STS-134 launch date of 19th April, Progress M-10M would have docked to the ISS on 29th April, which would have been during Endeavour’s docked mission.

Visiting Vehicle (VV) dockings and undockings from the ISS while Space Shuttles are present is forbidden under Dual Docked Operations (DDO) flight rules.

Due to this fact, and not wishing to delay the launch of STS-134, NASA began to negotiate a new Progress launch date with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.

However, Russia were unwilling to slip the launch of Progress M-10M to accommodate Space Shuttle Endeavour, likely due to the recent increased political pressure on Roscosmos to stick to launch dates, and because Roscosmos have previously adjusted their schedules many times in order to accommodate Space Shuttle missions.

The option to launch Progress M-10M on 27th April and “loiter” on-orbit until Endeavour departed the ISS was not an option, due to the time-critical biological payload on-board the Progress. In spite of NASA offering to fly the time-critical payload on-board Endeavour, the Russians decided to stick to their docking date of 29th April. 

Click here for ISS news articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/iss/

This in turn meant that the 29th April was the earliest that Endeavour could launch to the station, as the successful Progress M-10M docking is a requirement for Endeavour’s launch.

Progress M-10M will now dock to the ISS just a matter of hours before Endeavour launches on the 29th April.

This will mark the second time that such a situation has occurred in recent months, as the ATV-2 spacecraft also docked to the ISS just a matter of hours before Space Shuttle Discovery launched on the STS-133 mission on 24th February.

Such “orbital traffic jams” will likely become less common once the Space Shuttle retires in July this year, as DDO constraints will cease to exist.

Progress M-10M will remain docked to DC-1 for almost six months, whereupon it will depart the ISS, laden with trash, on 25th October for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean.

(Images via Roscosmos, L2 and NASA.gov).

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