NASA mission managers will tack an extra day on to the mission of the space shuttle Discovery so crewmen can do "exploratory surgery" on a malfunctioning part of the International Space Station's power system, the space agency announced on Monday.
The problem concerns a rotary joint on the right side of the station that turns the station's solar arrays so they face the sun during orbit.
During an initial examination on Sunday, the spacewalking astronaut Daniel Tani collected what he called "metal-to-metal scraping" that peppered the inside of the joint mechanism.
Tani picked up some of the fragments with tape and took them back into the space station.
MAGNETIC TEST
Mission managers hoped the shavings were aluminized mylar, a foil used as backing on the insulating covers, and not steel, which would suggest that the mechanism is grinding against itself.
They asked Peggy Whitson, the space station commander, to conduct an experiment of putting some of the filings on a piece of paper and running a magnet underneath.
Aluminum is not magnetic; steel is.
The filings "followed the magnet around," Michael Suffredini, the space station program manager, said on Monday morning.
Mission controllers had known of the problem for several weeks, when a mission control employee contractor noticed an unusual vibration.
Station managers have decided to lock the array in a position that allows it to collect a fair amount of sunlight until the problem can be fully investigated and resolved.
That move will keep the joint from literally grinding to a halt, but will limit the amount of electricity the station can generate for itself and an attached shuttle.
NOT A PROBLEM
That is not a problem for the current mission, Suffredini said, or for the next mission, which is scheduled for December, when a new science module will be brought up and attached.
But if the problem is not corrected and the rotation resumed, further construction could be constrained by the ability to provide power.
"I don't think we're in any situation we can't recover from," Suffredini said. "It's just a matter of time."
Suffredini announced two initial moves to get a better sense of the problem.
Another spacewalker, Scott Parazynski, was yesterday to peek inside the opposite rotary joint on the left side, which is running smoothly, to help engineers and scientists "figure out what normal means" and compare that with what they are seeing on the right side.
Then the fourth spacewalk, which was originally planned to be a demonstration of shuttle repair techniques, will be extended to six hours or more and devoted entirely to taking each of the 22 insulating covers off the right joint and examining the mechanism -- a process that Suffredini called "exploratory surgery."
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS