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Space station loses gyro BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: March 16, 2005 A circuit breaker aboard the international space station popped open early today, interrupting power to one of the three operational gyroscopes used to maintain the lab's orientation in space. NASA officials said the failure would have no immediate impact and that the space station's orientation could be maintained with just two gyros while engineers study the problem. The circuit breaker in question, known as a remote power controller, was installed during a spacewalk last June by Expedition 9 commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Mike Fincke. The unit replaced one that failed April 21, 2004. It is not yet known what caused the replacement RPC to fail at 3:17 a.m. EST (0817 GMT) today. The space station is equipped with four massive control moment gyroscopes. By controlling how fast the gyros spin, the station can be re-oriented or maintained in a desired "attitude" without using Russian rocket thrusters and tapping into limited amounts of on-board fuel. CMG-1 failed and shut down June 8, 2002. A replacement will be carried aloft aboard the shuttle Discovery in May for installation during one of three spacewalks by shuttle astronauts Stephen Robinson and Soichi Noguchi. While the station can operate with just two gyros, NASA wants to restore full redundancy as soon as possible to protect against additional failures downstream. The loss of CMG-2, assuming it cannot be brought back on line, is not in and of itself a constraint to Discovery's launch. But without three operating gyros, the combined station-shuttle crews would not be able to re-position Discovery with the ship's robot arm for possible repairs if any major debris-related damage is incurred during launch. While no one expects such damage, NASA is viewing Discovery's mission as a test flight of sorts to make sure modifications to the shuttle's external fuel tank will work to minimize foam shedding. Just in case, flight controllers have devised plans for re-orienting the shuttle after it is docked to the station to provide access if repairs in hard-to-reach areas are, in fact, required. At least one spare RPC already is aboard the space station and Discovery's crew will deliver four more. But no decisions about a possible spacewalk replacement will be made until flight controllers and engineers have exhausted ongoing efforts to restore the RPC to service by remote control. "Flight controllers will continue to try commanding that RPC closed today and mission managers will assess the condition of the circuit breaker ... tomorrow morning," said a NASA spokeswoman in mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In other developments, the space station's Russian Elektron oxygen generator, which shut down late last week, is back in operation. After extensive troubleshooting, the unit was successfully restarted at 7:53 a.m. EST today. |
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An extended length clip follows the Atlas 5 launch from T-minus 1 minute through ignition of the Centaur upper stage and jettison of the nose cone. (6min 43sec file)
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