NASA's response, printed as an addendum, contains the sort of non-sequiturs that, contrary to the presumed intention, can only suggest that NASA is doing exactly what is alleged here: hoping a serious issue will go away.
"As shared by NASA's Kathy Lueders and Joel Montalbano in the media telecon following the event, Roscosmos regularly updated NASA and the rest of the international partners on MLM's progress during the approach to station..."
As far as we know, nothing untoward happened during the approach to station. Restricting this comment to this period renders it irrelevant and signals that NASA is trying to avoid the issue.
"When the unexpected thruster firings occurred, flight control teams were able to enact contingency procedures and return the station to normal operations within an hour..."
So there's no need to be concerned over why it happened, how long it took to discover the problem, or the inability of those at NASA who discovered it to counteract it until the ISS was in a position where Roscosmos could intervene? As the article author points out, this "all's well that ends well" attitude is what led to the Challenger and Columbia crashes.
"We would point you to Roscosmos for any specifics on Russian systems/performance/procedures."
So, NASA seems to be saying, it is not our problem - but, of course, anything that threatens the integrity of the ISS most definitely is.
That covers the whole of NASA's response so far to IEEE Spectrum, other than the utterly anodyne "We continue to have confidence in our partnership with Roscosmos to operate the International Space Station."
What I would like to know is why public relations spokespersons think it is in the interests of their organizations to make those organizations look clueless, while simultaneously insulting our intelligence by implying we will fall for this nonsense?
Alternatively, NASA doesn't want to sour the relation with Roscosmos while the investigation is ongoing, and what's said publicly isn't an indication of what happens behind the screens. At this level, there's a lot of politics involved as well.
> That covers the whole of NASA's response so far to IEEE Spectrum
IEEE Spectrum was the same paper that got duped into publishing a story about a self driving car that didn't exist. It's a tabloid piggybacking off of the IEEE's brand recognition. The fact that a NASA spokesperson bothered to reply at all surprises me.
Here is a piece of commentary from a Russian insider covering the launch of Nauka, but not the docking, in Russian [1]. There was a litany of smaller issues with the launch, probably stemming from the fact that the module has been tossed around for 25+ years.
I generally don't expect Roskosmos to make any comments regarding Nauka unless it blows up or something. Part of the reason, apparently, is that Roskosmos is being assessed for new funding (from the blog post, Google translate edited for clarity):
"""
Docking is scheduled for July 29. The future of Russian manned astronautics depends on its success. With Nauka, the Russian segment will be able to operate for another 10 years, and be more effective as a research platform.
The future of the independent Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) is also indirectly related to the success of Nauka. With Nauka, Roskosmos gets a chance to show that it has the ability to create and launch manned space stations. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of obtaining the funding for ROSS.
Probably, this is the reason that Roscosmos has been reluctant to voice any of the problems with Nauka. When half a trillion rubles is at stake, you will inevitably lose your voice.
"""
Half a trillion rubles is about $7bn American. I've been hearing about plans for this new station for a few years now. I don't really know if it's real. Involvement with the ISS, where Americans shouldered 80% of the financial burden, is really what kept the Russian space program relevant. So I don't expect us to pull out of the ISS voluntarily. If the ISS ends up being decommissioned this decade, hopefully we can piggy back with the Chinese on their new projects or something. That's assuming we have anything they want, which is a big question mark come year 2030.
> hopefully we can piggy back with the Chinese on their new projects or something
The US won't touch China with a ten feet pole for anything space-related (and vice versa). The best the US may see is a bit of cooperation with the EU - assuming we can solve our internal post-covid and euro-skeptic squabbles - and that's it.
In principle I agree, but there's a lot riding against a proper, non-nasa investigation.
1. No one died, unlike Columbia, there won't be a Congressional committee put together on this.
2. Even if there was a congress committee/investigation done, what changes can actually be instituted? Block any more Russian modules?
That's requiring putting pressure on a foreign country to make changes where the relationship runs a knife edge balancing act of frenemy.
The Russian space program is a shell of its former self since ~2010.
The most realistic course of action (at this moment) of any corrective recommendation is to remove them from the ISS. They've been threatening pulling out for a few years now, so let them?
In areas with a strong and proactive safety culture, "near miss" incidents are investigated and mitigated. These "near misses" are cases where "no one died" - the accident did not happen, but if one more thing had gone wrong, it would have.
The manta is "for every _x_ near misses, there will be an actual accident". Where x could be e.g. 10; and accident in this case could mean "total loss of the ISS and everyone on board"
This is IMHO a strong argument for a thorough investigation, in some form. Congressional committee or not.
Another issue - they've been doing things like having all their folks shelter in their modules when SpaceX docks - but not doing that for this type of stuff.
Also the somewhat odd cracks at SpaceX
Rogozin told Russian media that he doesn’t believe SpaceX can build better rocket engines than Russia can. “Musk is not a technical expert in this matter,” Rogozin said. “He just doesn’t understand what this is about.”
Will be interesting to see how Raptor 2 competes (and yes, Russia has had amazing engines).
I am curious as to how you would remove us from the ISS. A third of the pressurized modules on the ISS are Russian [1]. Do we just take them with us when we leave? How do we achieve that?
The ISS is made up of 16 pressurized modules: five Russian modules ( Zarya, Pirs, Zvezda, Poisk and Rassvet), eight US modules (BEAM, Leonardo, Harmony, Quest, Tranquility, Unity, Cupola, and Destiny), two Japanese modules (the JEM-ELM-PS and JEM-PM) and one European module (Columbus).
> The most realistic course of action (at this moment) of any corrective recommendation is to remove them from the ISS. They've been threatening pulling out for a few years now, so let them?
From my experience of life in Russia, I'd say this is one of the most effective ways dealing with people habitually resorting to the "do ... or we will sink together!" blackmail.
Let the saboteur succeed, and exceed.
You can swim, and the blackmailer likely cannot (and choosing the threat exactly for them fearing such outcome.)
If somebody brings a stick of a dynamite on the ship, shouting, and swinging it around, give them 10 more, and say good luck.
Such demeanour is wholly dependent on the other party's assumptions that they are harmed more than if they did nothing, which is the reverse in reality.
I don't understand how this incident, involving a Russian spacecraft, necessarily indicates that NASA now has a poor safety culture again. The argument seems to be missing a step.
The core of the argument is in the response to the incident:
> To calm things down, official NASA spokesmen provided very preliminary underestimates in how big and how fast the station's spin had been. These were presented without any caveat that the numbers were unverified—and the real figures turned out to be much worse. The Russian side, for its part, dismissed the attitude deviation as a routine bump in a normal process of automatic docking and proclaimed there would be no formal incident investigation, especially any that would involve their American partners. Indeed, both sides seemed to agree that the sooner the incident was forgotten, the better.
The author, who worked in Mission Control operations in the 1980s, argues that similar signs of degrading safety standards and minimizing mistakes led up to the Challenger tragedy.
The way the article is written you'd think this was NASA's station. How dare NASA let this happen!
It doesn't belong to the US, it isn't NASA's station, it is the International Space Station. The module that tried to take its football and go home was Russian.
"the module began trying to line itself up in preparation to fire its main engines using an attitude adjustment thruster."
One thing that I am curious about is what would have happened if the module had achieved the alignment it was seeking, either as as result of its own efforts or during the procedure to stop and correct for its actions. If the main engine was capable of firing, would there still be an ISS?
If I remember correctly wasn’t it an employee covering up a mistake, that to fully replace the damaged panel would’ve required disassembling/ rebuilding a large part of it from scratch?
Edit: Ah, my mistake. Apparently some years prior that happened, but was caught before the Soyuz capsule launched. If the person responsible for that incident got disappeared, I could imagine whoever made that hole wanted to cover up any mistake
I have long argued that dropping the Russians from this program is the only way to go.
The Russians have turned into a hindrance. Every error that happens is a conspiracy. When one of their workers drilled a whole into their spacecraft they publicly accused Americans astronauts to be spies who sabotaged their hardware.
Those who say 'but then they will work with China', ok, go ahead, destroy their space station. Let China finance their broken industry if they really want to.
NASA needs to move on from ISS and move to a privately operated station with the main focus on the moon and Mars.
Does it matter what a random stranger on the internet thinks?
But here we are trying to comment on everythingas if we have seen it all, from the comfort of our chair.
From the article: "Meanwhile, the station's automated attitude control system had also noted […]"
A spelling mistake that immediately brings to mind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Heart of Gold :-)
Edit: it seems that it is not a spelling mistake. "Attitude" has only one meaning to me, but "attitude control" seems to be a technical term that I've never heard of.
It is quite an interesting topic. Whole books were written about it. “Fundamentals of Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control” is one I can warmly recommend. But if you just want a one sentence summary: “use quaternions” seems to be the prevailing wisdom.
>Edit: it seems that it is not a spelling mistake. "Attitude" has only one meaning to me, but "attitude control" seems to be a technical term that I've never heard of.
Anyone not aware of the definition of "attitude" relative[1] to this discussion should shut up.
[+] [-] mannykannot|4 years ago|reply
"As shared by NASA's Kathy Lueders and Joel Montalbano in the media telecon following the event, Roscosmos regularly updated NASA and the rest of the international partners on MLM's progress during the approach to station..."
As far as we know, nothing untoward happened during the approach to station. Restricting this comment to this period renders it irrelevant and signals that NASA is trying to avoid the issue.
"When the unexpected thruster firings occurred, flight control teams were able to enact contingency procedures and return the station to normal operations within an hour..."
So there's no need to be concerned over why it happened, how long it took to discover the problem, or the inability of those at NASA who discovered it to counteract it until the ISS was in a position where Roscosmos could intervene? As the article author points out, this "all's well that ends well" attitude is what led to the Challenger and Columbia crashes.
"We would point you to Roscosmos for any specifics on Russian systems/performance/procedures."
So, NASA seems to be saying, it is not our problem - but, of course, anything that threatens the integrity of the ISS most definitely is.
That covers the whole of NASA's response so far to IEEE Spectrum, other than the utterly anodyne "We continue to have confidence in our partnership with Roscosmos to operate the International Space Station."
What I would like to know is why public relations spokespersons think it is in the interests of their organizations to make those organizations look clueless, while simultaneously insulting our intelligence by implying we will fall for this nonsense?
[+] [-] Denvercoder9|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knolax|4 years ago|reply
IEEE Spectrum was the same paper that got duped into publishing a story about a self driving car that didn't exist. It's a tabloid piggybacking off of the IEEE's brand recognition. The fact that a NASA spokesperson bothered to reply at all surprises me.
[+] [-] _RPL5_|4 years ago|reply
I generally don't expect Roskosmos to make any comments regarding Nauka unless it blows up or something. Part of the reason, apparently, is that Roskosmos is being assessed for new funding (from the blog post, Google translate edited for clarity):
"""
Docking is scheduled for July 29. The future of Russian manned astronautics depends on its success. With Nauka, the Russian segment will be able to operate for another 10 years, and be more effective as a research platform.
The future of the independent Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) is also indirectly related to the success of Nauka. With Nauka, Roskosmos gets a chance to show that it has the ability to create and launch manned space stations. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of obtaining the funding for ROSS.
Probably, this is the reason that Roscosmos has been reluctant to voice any of the problems with Nauka. When half a trillion rubles is at stake, you will inevitably lose your voice.
"""
Half a trillion rubles is about $7bn American. I've been hearing about plans for this new station for a few years now. I don't really know if it's real. Involvement with the ISS, where Americans shouldered 80% of the financial burden, is really what kept the Russian space program relevant. So I don't expect us to pull out of the ISS voluntarily. If the ISS ends up being decommissioned this decade, hopefully we can piggy back with the Chinese on their new projects or something. That's assuming we have anything they want, which is a big question mark come year 2030.
[1] https://zelenyikot.livejournal.com/158629.html
[+] [-] PicassoCTs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mschuster91|4 years ago|reply
The US won't touch China with a ten feet pole for anything space-related (and vice versa). The best the US may see is a bit of cooperation with the EU - assuming we can solve our internal post-covid and euro-skeptic squabbles - and that's it.
[+] [-] irjustin|4 years ago|reply
1. No one died, unlike Columbia, there won't be a Congressional committee put together on this.
2. Even if there was a congress committee/investigation done, what changes can actually be instituted? Block any more Russian modules?
That's requiring putting pressure on a foreign country to make changes where the relationship runs a knife edge balancing act of frenemy.
The Russian space program is a shell of its former self since ~2010.
The most realistic course of action (at this moment) of any corrective recommendation is to remove them from the ISS. They've been threatening pulling out for a few years now, so let them?
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|4 years ago|reply
In areas with a strong and proactive safety culture, "near miss" incidents are investigated and mitigated. These "near misses" are cases where "no one died" - the accident did not happen, but if one more thing had gone wrong, it would have.
The manta is "for every _x_ near misses, there will be an actual accident". Where x could be e.g. 10; and accident in this case could mean "total loss of the ISS and everyone on board"
This is IMHO a strong argument for a thorough investigation, in some form. Congressional committee or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_miss_(safety)
https://etraintoday.com/blog/near-miss-vs-an-accident/
[+] [-] whoknowswhat11|4 years ago|reply
Also the somewhat odd cracks at SpaceX
Rogozin told Russian media that he doesn’t believe SpaceX can build better rocket engines than Russia can. “Musk is not a technical expert in this matter,” Rogozin said. “He just doesn’t understand what this is about.”
Will be interesting to see how Raptor 2 competes (and yes, Russia has had amazing engines).
[+] [-] _RPL5_|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_of_the_International_...
"""
The ISS is made up of 16 pressurized modules: five Russian modules ( Zarya, Pirs, Zvezda, Poisk and Rassvet), eight US modules (BEAM, Leonardo, Harmony, Quest, Tranquility, Unity, Cupola, and Destiny), two Japanese modules (the JEM-ELM-PS and JEM-PM) and one European module (Columbus).
"""
*Pirs was undocked to make place for Nauka.
[+] [-] perlgeek|4 years ago|reply
There are certainly less dramatic measures that could have prevented this incident.
To quote the article:
> the Nauka module's autopilot apparently decided it was supposed to fly away from the station.
Having such decisions protected by a physical switch comes to mind.
A joint committee by all the nations involved in the ISS could require such measures before any module or spacecraft is allowed to dock.
Establishing emergency overrides for firing thrusters to all ground control stations could have greatly reduced the impact.
Why was the unexpected firing of thrusters detected so late? Better telemetry and their analysis could help.
And so on. Lots of things that could be done if there was the will do to do them.
Many more things could be done in response to a through root-cause analysis.
[+] [-] baybal2|4 years ago|reply
From my experience of life in Russia, I'd say this is one of the most effective ways dealing with people habitually resorting to the "do ... or we will sink together!" blackmail.
Let the saboteur succeed, and exceed.
You can swim, and the blackmailer likely cannot (and choosing the threat exactly for them fearing such outcome.)
If somebody brings a stick of a dynamite on the ship, shouting, and swinging it around, give them 10 more, and say good luck.
Such demeanour is wholly dependent on the other party's assumptions that they are harmed more than if they did nothing, which is the reverse in reality.
[+] [-] kfprt|4 years ago|reply
Space Station Freedom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Station_Freedom
[+] [-] oconnor663|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventurer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lamontcg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] divbzero|4 years ago|reply
> To calm things down, official NASA spokesmen provided very preliminary underestimates in how big and how fast the station's spin had been. These were presented without any caveat that the numbers were unverified—and the real figures turned out to be much worse. The Russian side, for its part, dismissed the attitude deviation as a routine bump in a normal process of automatic docking and proclaimed there would be no formal incident investigation, especially any that would involve their American partners. Indeed, both sides seemed to agree that the sooner the incident was forgotten, the better.
The author, who worked in Mission Control operations in the 1980s, argues that similar signs of degrading safety standards and minimizing mistakes led up to the Challenger tragedy.
[+] [-] slowmovintarget|4 years ago|reply
The way the article is written you'd think this was NASA's station. How dare NASA let this happen!
It doesn't belong to the US, it isn't NASA's station, it is the International Space Station. The module that tried to take its football and go home was Russian.
[+] [-] figassis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mannykannot|4 years ago|reply
One thing that I am curious about is what would have happened if the module had achieved the alignment it was seeking, either as as result of its own efforts or during the procedure to stop and correct for its actions. If the main engine was capable of firing, would there still be an ISS?
[+] [-] nraynaud|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobarbecue|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mountain_Skies|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cududa|4 years ago|reply
Edit: Ah, my mistake. Apparently some years prior that happened, but was caught before the Soyuz capsule launched. If the person responsible for that incident got disappeared, I could imagine whoever made that hole wanted to cover up any mistake
[+] [-] nickik|4 years ago|reply
The Russians have turned into a hindrance. Every error that happens is a conspiracy. When one of their workers drilled a whole into their spacecraft they publicly accused Americans astronauts to be spies who sabotaged their hardware.
Those who say 'but then they will work with China', ok, go ahead, destroy their space station. Let China finance their broken industry if they really want to.
NASA needs to move on from ISS and move to a privately operated station with the main focus on the moon and Mars.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nraynaud|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousllama|4 years ago|reply
Russia's incidental to the nature of the trigger.
[+] [-] nathanaldensr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redis_mlc|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] __s|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anaganisk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daguava|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kye|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kova12|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jollybean|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjk166|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atatatat|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krisoft|4 years ago|reply
To say anything deeper about the whys one would need that investigation.
[+] [-] ComodoHacker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alisonkisk|4 years ago|reply
b) outer space
[+] [-] ahofmann|4 years ago|reply
Edit: it seems that it is not a spelling mistake. "Attitude" has only one meaning to me, but "attitude control" seems to be a technical term that I've never heard of.
[+] [-] krisoft|4 years ago|reply
The instrument which shows how you are oriented is the attitude indicator: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_indicator
The piloting skill of turning an upset airplane to right side up is called “unusual attitude recovery”: https://www.cfinotebook.net/notebook/maneuvers-and-procedure...
It is quite an interesting topic. Whole books were written about it. “Fundamentals of Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control” is one I can warmly recommend. But if you just want a one sentence summary: “use quaternions” seems to be the prevailing wisdom.
[+] [-] avnigo|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientation_(geometry)
[+] [-] aaronmdjones|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TMWNN|4 years ago|reply
Anyone not aware of the definition of "attitude" relative[1] to this discussion should shut up.
[1] Pun intended, not that ahofmann would know
[+] [-] smarx007|4 years ago|reply