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The major space nations want to operate the International Space Station (ISS) at least until 2024. After that, there would have to be one way or another to be removed from it. orbit. That's exactly what NASA wants to practice this week: a maneuver for controlled crash
Happy Birthday, ISS! This year, the International Space Station celebrates its 20th anniversary. The United States, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan welcome each other. Already at the beginning of the construction, all the partners had taken care that the construction could one day be disbadembled.
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A contribution to Wissen is also devoted to this subject on July 9 at 13:55
"There was a plan to bring back the individual modules of the ISS on Earth with space shuttles, "recalls John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in the US capital. "However, it is just as conceivable to sink the ISS in the Pacific, as in 2001, the Russian space station Mir, so without disbadembling the station first."
ESA [19659008] International Space Station
The ISS has the dimensions of a football field. It would be the largest artificial object ever to enter the Earth's atmosphere. Nevertheless, currently favor all partners this variant – even for lack of alternatives. US space ferries do not fly anymore. Donkeys are missing that could carry laboratories, connection nodes and sails to the Earth. "As for the Mir, the best scenario for such large structures is to crush them in a controlled way," explains Stefan Löhle. , Head of the High Energy Flow Diagnostics Working Group at the Institute of Space Systems of the University of Stuttgart. What's needed, it's a so-called deorbit. "The space station is sent on a crash track, so the debris falls south of Tahiti, east of New Zealand and west of Chile."
The ASTA investigates the Stuttgart Institute how a crash so controlled could it occur, so that the ISS really falls into the SPUA, into the uninhabited area of the city. South Pacific Ocean, an uninhabited area in the South Pacific. Deorbit says that up to three unmanned Russian ships deliver a counter-thrust, slowing the ISS until it finally falls.
But the US NASA space agency reluctantly relies on the Russians. The fact that American astronauts are coming for the moment only to the ISS and come back with Soyuz capsules is already more than enough to depend on the United States. And NASA now remembers the possibilities of the Cygnus container, in German "swan". They are barrel-shaped space carriers that resemble the individual modules of the space station. Measuring five meters in diameter and nine meters in length, they are a little smaller than the ISS laboratories. You can bring two tons of payload to the station and recover the same amount of waste to burn in the Earth's atmosphere.
The Swiding Swan
NASA now wants to test if the ISS could be slowed down with Cygnus engines. If so, the Americans would not depend on the support of the Russians and their Progress capsules after 2024 at least. Because it is still too early for such a braking maneuver, Cygnus should first show that the container can accelerate the ISS with its control nozzles
NASA
Cygnus Containers [19659005] Frank DeMauro is the General Manager of the Advanced Programs Division at Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. The space company is responsible for the construction and operation of Cygnus capsules. He knows the laws of celestial mechanics: "We must provide energy to an incentive to lift it." The ISS must be accelerated so that it elevates itself to an orbit higher. "For that, we're going to detonate Cygnus engines for a minute."
For this maneuver, the ISS will turn 90 degrees. Then the Cygnus engines will be exactly in the direction of the trajectory, but will be directed to the back. After burning, the station should fly ten centimeters per second faster around the Earth and therefore higher.
Waiting for the mission
According to this test, NASA and Northrop will decide to release one or more Cygnus in a few years. Conversely, the containers could slow down the ISS enough to enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn it.
"Whether it boosts Cygnus engines or that we pull several Cygnus capsules at the same time, that's what we'll decide.Command for such a maneuver granted," DeMauro explains. And this contract will depend on the test result this week. According to Chad Davis, Houston operations director of Northrop Grumman's space systems group, there are several possibilities for further development of Cygnus capsules. "But finally, we're going to build exactly what the customer – NASA – wants for the end of the space station!"
Guido Meyer, science.ORF.at
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