[HN Gopher] NASA, Axiom Space Change Assembly Order of Commercia...
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NASA, Axiom Space Change Assembly Order of Commercial Space Station
Author : mzs
Score : 90 points
Date : 2024-12-26 18:33 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nasa.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nasa.gov)
| FriedPickles wrote:
| I wonder if there's any useful heavy equipment aboard the ISS
| that could be transferred to the Axiom prior to separation and
| thus salvaged. It'd have to be stuff the ISS could do without for
| the remaining couple years of its life.
| nine_k wrote:
| Something like Canadarm?
|
| I suppose ISS is being decommissioned in a big part because the
| big hardware there is approaching / has approached the end of
| its practical life. The metal has accumulated fatigue here and
| there. The solar panels are heavy and inefficient, compared to
| more modern developments, except for the newest array mounted
| in 2021.
|
| Maybe some of the newest hardware could be transferred to a
| lower orbit for cheaper than bringing up brand new hardware
| from Earth.
|
| The thing is that the newest ISS modules, barely 4 years old,
| are Russian (Nauka + Prichal); the newest module before that is
| the Japanese science module from 2008. It could probably be
| still reused, it's barely 16 years old %)
| prox wrote:
| Or just ship of Theseus it? Replace what needs replacement
| into he new format?
| nine_k wrote:
| Likely the only things that would remain then would be the
| interfaces and standards. On one hand, these are time-
| tested standards. OTOH perpetuating them would miss an
| opportunity to evolve and upgrade, fixing some of the known
| issues.
| psd1 wrote:
| Buugbbbbvh vbox
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Maybe but to be honest Starship cost-per-pound to LEO will make
| re-use of 20 year old technology, in questionable states of
| maintenance, less appealing than starting from a clean slate in
| most cases.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| Agreed. When it comes to flying people, the volume of a
| habitable starship is approximately equivalent to the
| entirety of the habitable volume of the ISS.
|
| I really look forward to the heavy-lift future where full
| reusability means actual cheap spaceflight.
| westurner wrote:
| I wonder if the ISS could instead be scrapped to the moon.
|
| Let's get this space station to the moon.
|
| Can a [Falcon 9 [Heavy] or similar] rocket shove the ISS from
| its current attitude into an Earth-Moon orbit with or without
| orbital refuelling?
|
| The ISS weighs 900,000 lbs on Earth.
|
| Have we yet altered the orbital trajectory of anything that
| heavy in space?
|
| Can any existing rocket program rendezvous and boost sideways
| to alter the trajectory of NEOs (Near-Earth Objects) or aging,
| heirloom, defunct space stations?
|
| Which of the things of ISS that we have internationally paid to
| loft into orbit would be useful for future robot, human, and
| emergency operations on the Moon?
| mmooss wrote:
| NASA's next space station will be in lunar orbit:
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/mission/gateway/
| glzone1 wrote:
| This isn't a normal useful orbit in terms of supporting
| astronauts on the moon or being available for recovery etc. and
| was definitely not used to support earlier moon landings. I
| think it only has a lunar revisit once every 7 days. Imagine
| your abort / recovery to orbit option is only available for
| this one tiny window.
|
| SLS probably can't get Orion to Lunar orbit unfortunately so
| they have created this insanely costly / complex / lower
| utility approach.
| mmooss wrote:
| About orbits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42538057
|
| It's surprising to see that every comment's angle is
| spreading Musk's stories, trashing his competition, etc.
| mlindner wrote:
| It's worth mentioning that Gateway is on the cutting block if
| the likely SLS cancellation happens during this incoming
| administration. As the entire reason for Gateway existing and
| being where it is is to act as a destination for SLS before the
| moon landing program was announced. It is where it is because
| of the relatively weak performance specifications of the SLS
| rocket preventing it from launching the Orion spacecraft into a
| low lunar orbit. SLS was also destined to launch several of the
| Gateway modules which would be impossible if its canceled.
| anotherQuarter wrote:
| Yes I could see deals being worked out where gateway partners
| instead build parts of a lunar base. The international
| partnerships a likely the biggest piece going for gateway in
| terms of not being cancelled
| aerophilic wrote:
| It seems to me that if SLS goes... so does Gateway. That
| said, one thing to note: There are not that many stable lunar
| orbits. Unlike the earth, the moon is _very_ lumpy. It is the
| reason why most lunar orbiters end up doing a planned crash
| as their end of (relatively) short life. From that
| standpoint, orbits that are a bit further out are much more
| appealing to have relatively low delta v requirements.
|
| All that said, once Starship is regularly in use for lunar
| delivery... I suspect we will have a fundamental new paradigm
| for space.
| mmooss wrote:
| > As the entire reason for Gateway existing and being where
| it is is to act as a destination for SLS
|
| I don't think that's true. I've long heard of it as support
| for surface operations and for preparation (R&D, etc.) for
| Mars.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| "A space station" is desireable. The lunar gateway, though,
| as designed, is very much about Artemis. The Near
| Rectilinear Halo Orbit[1] was designated because of
| constraints on the Orion capsule that will be attached
| during crewed operations, at least this was relayed to me
| directly by NASA personnel during a Q&A.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-
| rectilinear_halo_orbit
| ericcumbee wrote:
| One of the goals of gateway is to act as a test bed for long
| term manned operations outside of low earth orbit. I.e. start
| developing and proving the technology in flight that we are
| going to need for a mars mission.
| anotherQuarter wrote:
| The conops for this doesn't make sense to me. Not only is it in
| a weird orbit but after the first lunar landing, which will
| have two astronauts, the rest will have four. With all 4 crew
| members on the lunar surface who will be working on gateway?
| SLS can max launch once a year. Are we really going to give up
| a lunar landing opportunity for a gateway only mission? Already
| 1 mission a year for a couple weeks is a big change from a
| quarter century of continuous operations on ISS. Mix of
| commercial space stations in LEO supported by regular NASA
| crews and lunar mission with eventual base seems the most
| inspiring and beneficial way to keep consistent presence in
| space was explaining exploration and building private space
| capability/infrastructure.
| mmooss wrote:
| It might be interesting to look up Gateway's mission and see
| why they are putting it in in orbit around the Moon rather
| than Earth. I know a major part of it is to learn the lessons
| needed for a human trip to Mars.
|
| > Not only is it in a weird orbit
|
| Regarding lunar orbits (I don't know about Gateway's orbit):
|
| We are used to relatively stable gravity in Earth orbit, but
| it is much different out near the Moon: Gravity in cislunar
| space creates chaotic trajectories due to the three-body
| problem of Earth, Moon, and the vehicle. Orbits around the
| Moon are also much less stable than around Earth. There are
| only a few stable orbits, all below 700 km.
|
| Here's a pretty good resource:
|
| https://www.afrl.af.mil/Portals/90/Documents/RV/A%20Primer%2.
| ..
| rlt wrote:
| I assume SLS's shelf life is limited and we'll be using
| Starship end to end within 5 years or so.
| schiffern wrote:
| >With all 4 crew members on the lunar surface who will be
| working on gateway?
|
| One of the technology advancements being pushed by Gateway is
| that (unlike ISS) it wouldn't require a constant human
| presence.
| echelon wrote:
| Why is the ISS not being privatized or boosted into a higher
| orbit for possible later use?
| mlindner wrote:
| It's not being privatized because it's extremely expensive to
| maintain and also it's politically impossible as several
| modules are Japanese or European owned and half the station is
| Russian and there's no propulsion on the USOS side.
|
| As to not boosting it to a higher orbit, firstly that would
| require a tremendous amount of energy, more than any craft
| currently visiting it. So you'd need to custom build something
| for that purpose. They're already custom building something to
| deorbit it with less thrust requirements than you'd need to
| boost it upward. Secondly the station is slowly experiencing
| cracking and eventually will suffer a catastrophic debris
| strike or depressurization. This massive object would create a
| massive debris cloud and putting it in a high orbit would
| ensure it would last for thousands of years.
| wmf wrote:
| ISS is being replaced by one or more semi-privatized stations.
| ISS is rapidly approaching the point where maintaining it costs
| more than simply building a new station.
| someperson wrote:
| Not a dumb question, official answers in [1] [2].
|
| Summary is higher orbits have too much risk of debris strikes,
| and commercial operators were asked to submit proposals but
| NASA received no feasible proposal: they aren't interested in
| the ageing and expensive to maintain ISS modules.
|
| [1] https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/iss-
| deorbit-...
|
| [2] https://www.nasa.gov/faqs-the-international-space-station-
| tr...
| rlt wrote:
| It would be cool if we could at least park it for a few years
| until we can bring it back down in Starships.
|
| Maybe Bezos would help fund those missions, even if they used
| Starship...
| itishappy wrote:
| It's old and expensive. For example, there's a 5 year old leak
| that they still can't locate or even decide on the severity.
|
| I'm sure the offer is open if anyone wants it, but that's a
| hard sell at this point, and the major players all have other
| plans.
|
| https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-roscosmos-disagree-on-cause-a...
| Anon1096 wrote:
| There's also a political factor for why it's not being boosted,
| in that as long as the ISS exists governments and the public
| would want to see it maintained and used. Just boosting it and
| letting it rot would make space agencies look really bad in the
| eyes of the public. It's better to just decommission it and
| have no chance of a future salvage effort. (this doesn't touch
| on why not do privatization of the ISS, other comments have
| responded)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| It is slowly becoming unsafe, and fixing it in orbit is likely
| too expensive. Space is a very punishing environment - enormous
| differences in temperature, vacuum, aggressive radiation. 25
| years of such conditions will have consequences.
|
| It could probably be dragged onto a higher orbit as a museum
| _in situ_ , but keeping actual living people in there is going
| to become too risky soon.
| lerp-io wrote:
| reminds me of the space liner from walle - they should add a
| mcdonalds module to it that is fully automated. just as a
| marketing campaign to be first autonomous fast food chain in
| space on the axiom... also for good meme content
| zeristor wrote:
| I am guessing that:
|
| Space Station AMS-02 Instrument Works on the Mystery of Dark
| Matter
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/space-station-ams-02-inst...
|
| Is coming to its end of life too
|
| As a CERN experiment it seems to have produced a lot of science:
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/space-station-ams-02-inst...
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