The ISS is currently scheduled to be decommissioned in 2016, and this usually would mean a deorbit that would result in the destruction of the station. However there’s a possibility that a commercial company may use it as a staging point, even though it’s at such a steep inclination of 51.6 degrees. Normally, you’d want an inclination to be as shallow as possible for a staging point if you’re going to go out to the moon, Mars, or something else in the ecliptic. It takes a lot of logistics and ground support to keep such a complex machine such as the ISS flying, given how many moving parts, supplies, vital components go into keeping it safe and habitable. With that, if an American commercial space tourism company were to buy the ISS, you’d have to obtain all of the computers and telemetry systems from Russia, or train your employees how to operate them. ISS ground systems are like a big puzzle. For example, the ISS program has computer systems in both Russia and the United States that are required to keep the ISS spaceborne. Without a component of the logistics one country may have, the ISS can’t stay in orbit for long.

Also of note is that we can’t send the ISS outside of the Van Allen Radiation Belts, a protective layer anywhere from about 300 miles and 72,000 miles high They start at high altitude due to the varying magnetic fluctuations, combined with some conditions the atmosphere experiences, because the ISS was never designed to go out that far. The radiation that the belt protects us from could kill anyone on board in a relatively short time.

Written and Researched by Jeph

Without a doubt the star of the show was R2 himself. The mostly-white android looked every bit the science-fiction meets science-fact as the imagery we have all seen on television and the internet have made him out to be. Robonaut 2 had originally been designed to only be a technology demonstrator, but engineers wanted to see how the system would operate in space and he was given a seat on the flight (albeit way in the back).

R2 was not the only horse at this rodeo however; NASA also had other flight hardware elements on display that will roar into orbit this fall. One of these was the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM) that will be transported to the space station in Discovery’s payload bay (with R2 nestled inside). The PMM is in actuality the modified Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module (MPLM) and when the mission is completed the PMM will be left attached to the station.

Space Shuttle Discovery will carry Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) DragonEye (DE) relative navigation sensor on this mission. It is expected that this sensor will be installed about half a month later than originally planned due to a failure in the laser rod that was detected during testing. This item however was not on display at this event.

This could possibly be Discovery’s final flight (it has been mentioned that if there is an STS-135 – that Discovery might fly that mission). It will mark the 35th time that one of NASA’s orbiters has traveled to the orbiting laboratory. The crew consists of Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Michael Barratt, Tim Kopra and Nicole Stott.

The first spacewalk to repair the ammonia coolant pump failed, putting a possible third unplanned spacewalk on the schedule. This is all part of the continued TROUBLE ON THE ISS

Overly dramatic opening aside, here’s what is really going on. The ISS needs to dissipate heat. While you may think that it’s really cold in space, and by the way it is, the equipment on the ISS can get quite hot. To show you how much, try this fun game. Turn on your computer and start playing a game. Something awesome like Starcraft II. After an hour or so put your hand behind the computer and feel the warm or in some cases hot air coming out of the back. Now multiply that by 10 or 100 and you have the heat generated just by some of the equipment in the ISS.

Unlike here on Earth you can’t just blow the hot air outside, or at least out of your room. If they did that in space, they would suffocate. So instead a method to transfer the heat to something else is required, and that’s where ammonia lines that run all through the ISS come in. These ammonia lines are used to collect heat, move it away and reject it via a couple of built in radiators on the stations truss. Think of the ISS as a giant water cooled gaming PC. Only, theres no real time battle.net connection and the lag is insane. To ensure that mass chaos does not erupt if the coolant system ever goes down, it is separated in to two parts: Loop A and Loop B. Clever naming, I know.

At around 0000 Universal Time on August 1st, the Loop A pump was knocked out with what NASA engineers suspect was a power surge. The ammonia cooling system is in two parts, one partly inside the ISS and the other partly outside. The pump they need to replace is outside which required at the time two different spacewalks. That was until the spacewalk that happened on Saturday lasted over 8 hours and wasn’t a success.

NASA Astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson had attempted to remove and replace the broken pump on their EVA or Spacewalk this last Saturday but they were plagued with setbacks. There was a stuck ammonia hose and a bit later on an ammonia leak, which by the way is not a good thing, that resulted in the pump not being replaced. This was only the first of the two planned spacewalks to get the pumps working again, but since it didn’t go quite as well as planned NASA believes that a third spacewalk will now be required.

Loop B is still operational, however it can only dissipate heat where its ammonia lines pass, so not all of the instrumentation on the space station is being cooled. This means that some equipment has been shut down until Loop A can be repaired. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later.

The next planned EVA or Spacewalk is set for this Wednesday but may be delayed as NASA engineers try and figure out what they want to do next.

On July 2nd, 2010 an automated docking of the Progress 38 resupply vehicle to the International Space Station failed. The Progress vehicle launched aboard a Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010. About 25 minutes prior to docking problems cropped up. An interference issue between the automated KURS system and the manual TORU system seems to have caused the abort. About an hour after the problems started, Russian managers told the crew to stand down for the day.

At this point International News teams started having a field day with this.

Good thing you guys fired your science reporters. Wouldn’t want you to sound dumb or spread mis-information.

Huh. Well, that’s just wrong. While Progress vehicles have had docking issues with the ISS before, heck even as recent as May of this year, generally they simply switch to the TORU manual docking mechanism and all is fine. But even outside of that, the Progress vehicle has had a serious problem docking before, just not with the ISS.

On June 25th, 1997 while running a TURS system test a Progress vehicle came in too fast and slammed in to the MIR space station. Not only did this vehicle not dock but it damaged the space station causing emergency decompression and throwing MIR in to an uncontrolled spin.

So yeah, they have had issues docking the Progress vehicle before.

Of course in this case, there was no collision and everyone was safe the entire time. The Progress vehicle noted the issue and went in to safe mode flying past the ISS at a very safe distance of 3 kilometers or about 1.8 miles. On Saturday some course correction changes were uploaded to the progress vehicle. Then on Sunday, July 4th at 16:17 UTC the Progress vehicle safely docked with the International Space Station.

Progress 38 is carrying 2.6 tonnes of fuel, food, water and supplies for the six Expedition 24 crew members aboard Station. A few minutes of scary followed by engineering pulling out the awesome to get the craft docked safely with ISS. That’s how space goes!

Before we go, it is kinda cool to think that this last 4th of July, the American flag furthest from its home country of the US wasn’t on foreign soil, it wasn’t on the ISS and it wasn’t even on the Moon! The furthest American flag out there is about 17 Billion Kilometers or about 10.5 billion miles traveling aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft! The next furthest flag out there is aboard Voyager 2 which is just under 14 billion kilometers or 8.5 billion miles. How far away is that? Well, so far that each craft is leaving our home solar system. How’s that for awesome?

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