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INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION DEVELOPMENTS
Russia's contribution to the ISS was to begin in ernest in early 1998 with the delivery of the Service Module to house initial crews and provide backup control, propulsion and navigation systems but the project still slips delivery dates as money fails to reach industry. Congressmen, NASA officials and US Vice President Al Gore have all failed to get anything more than well meaning promises from the Russian's. The fact is many sectors of Russian industry are still several months late in payment to their workers and suppliers, a chronic situation which has existed for years, the source is Russia's fiscal policies and lack of control at the highest levels of government.
NASA had been setting 'final' deadlines to get the Russian project on track since mid-1996 and in March 1997 another 'final' deadline has passed with the Russians still not funding their project. There are other problems of the Russian project which hinder its progress. RKK Energia and the Russian Space Agency are trying to keep solvent by selling missions to Mir, technology, products and services to countries around the world. They will not have this option on the ISS and with low levels of government funding the company will face harsh cutbacks to survive if they commit to flying the ISS. So many Russian's feel they have no interest in completing the Service Module or any other government ISS commitments.
NASA has been developing options to remove reliance on Russian contributions to ISS which will allow some participation if the Russian government finds it possible in the future. To try to keep the project on track, NASA has selected an 'interim' control module (ICM) to replace the service module based on a Naval Research Lab upper stage satellite dispenser built several years ago for a classified shuttle mission. With slight modifications the ICM can provide communications, propulsion and control for about a year. It is not refuelable and not habitable and will be temporarily docked to the rear of the FGB module.
NASA's next choice is what to do after the ICM has been expended. Options include a heavily modified ICM to allow refueling and accelerating launch of habitation systems in other NASA modules. Another option is for NASA to buy a similarly modified module based on the FGB (called FGB 2) currently being built got NASA by Khrunichev in Moscow. Plans for propellant delivery and refuelling on the shuttle from the Space Station Freedom will have to be revived, some pieces of hardware will have to be purchased from Russia, and major revision of assembly flight schedules and payloads will have to be made. NASA has about $2 Billion in reserves to keep the project on track and pay for these new pieces of the project.
These plans keep the possibility of limited Russian participation in the undefined future although they may have to redesign modules from their current designs depending on how NASA wishes to proceed at that time. A final decision on which of NASA's options to pursue is due in late March 1996. Preliminary rumors indicate that the FGB 2 option is being pursued while NRL work has been reduced. A delay of the FGB launch, from Nov. 1997 to June 1998, to shorten the time it has to spend in orbit, and to relieve pressure on the NASA launch of Node-1 was reported by Russian Space Agency director Yuri Koptev. NASA administrator predicted the Russian Service module could not happen until December 1998. All these developments force the first crew launch to be delayed. Apparently Russia is still expected to launch the first crew or at least supply Soyuz crew return vehicles.
NASA has been pursuing a program to develop a new crew return vehicle to replace Soyuz which together with shuttle refuelling would make NASA independent in supporting the station. The project currently under the guise of the X-38 calls for development of a lifting body with simple automated controls to serve as a life boat for the station.
MIR OPERATIONS
Mir operations in the first of 1997 continue to present the Russians and NASA with troubles. The year got off to a smooth start in January with STS-81 and NASA's crew change relieving John Blaha and beginning Jerry Linenger's mission. Linenger joined the Mir-22 crew of Valery Korzun and Alexander Kaleri, but only until Feb. 12 when the Mir-23 crew of Vassily Tsiblev, Alexander Lazutkin and German Ewald Reinhold arrived.
Before the new crew could dock, Progress M-33 which arrived last November had to undock. Normally the Progress would be deorbited and a replacement sent up after the crew changeover, but due to the continuing funding problems its replacement Progress M-34 would not be ready until late March instead of its planned March 5 launch date. Progress M-33 therefore undocked on Feb. 6 and was left in orbit trailing Mir by a few minutes with the intention to redock it after the crew changeover. The next day the crew transferred the Soyuz TM-24 to the rear port so the arriving Soyuz TM-25 could be left at the forward port as the Progress continued to dock to the rear port for best attitude control utility.
The joint Mir-22/23 mission lasted 20 days to allow for the $30 Million German Mir-97 mission. News coverage of the mission was sharply curtailed soon after the joint crews began work when the Antares transceiver failed on Mir, limiting television capability to short periods over a few ground stations and canceling a joint crew press conference. Mir systems have always been stressed by 6 crew members over long periods of time and this continued to be the case on February 23. While one of the crew changed a lithium perchlorate 'oxygen generator' cartridge in the Kvant module it burst into flames. The oxygen generators, also referred to as 'candles' by the Russians are used as emergency oxygen supplies, or when the atmosphere needs higher oxygen content when large crews are on the station for a long time.
The cartridge apparently was faulty and released the chemical reaction into the atmosphere causing a brief fire which the crew extinguished quickly ,but the module had filled with thin smoke limiting visibility for several minutes. The crew donned oxygen masks for the next few hours and Linenger (a doctor) checked the crew for injuries (none were reported besides throat irritation). The Mir environmental control system cleaned the air out well over the next day and the crew spent all the next day cleaning the station of smoke residue and bagging the damaged hardware.
European news showed the smoke blackened hardware surrounding about a square meter around the fires center. A nearby Carbon dioxide filter was slightly damaged in the fire but remained operational. The station bulkhead was burned but not seriously. The crews could have evacuated Mir at any time in the 2 Soyuz-TM transports then docked to Mir. Evacuation of Mir is very risky due to the aging station systems which are not expected to work for extended periods of time without human aid. Mir would likely go out of control and recovery would be difficult. Fire is not unknown in Russian space stations. Other small fires or smoldering electrical fires have been reported. The first space station, Salyut 1, was reported to have a repeating smoldering smell believed to come from the electrical system. Mir in 1994 experienced a small fire described by the Russians as just sparks.
Despite praising the crew for there swift and correct actions to stop a disaster or potential loss of the station and sufficient Russian procedures design and backup systems to recover from the fire, NASA was shocked that the fire occurred shortly after its main shift support personnel had left mission control and they were not informed until they returned the next day. NASA has requested that a detailed sequence of events be documented for that time to better understand future procedures for judging when to be informed of emergencies in the future. NASA and Americans in general are particularly sensitive to fire in spacecraft after the Jan. 27, 1967 Apollo 1 fire which killed Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Edward White, but since those times pure Oxygen atmospheres have been abandoned, and experiments with fire in space have shown it does not spread well as it surrounds itself with combustion byproducts isolating it from fresh Oxygen.
Linenger and his Mir-23 crew mates bid goodby to German Ewald Reinhold and Mir-22 crewman Korzun and Kaleri on March 2 and they successfully landed, but the problems on Mir continued. Progress M-33 was to be redocked to the station to use its last fuel controlling the station, protecting the docking mechanism from the ravages of space, and testing the docking system at longer ranges than before but problems changed those plans. As the Progress approached Mir the video used for remote controlled docking (using the TORU system) failed and the docking was aborted. The Progress passed 220 to 230 meters from the station and was left in orbit about a kilometer from Mir. After thinking about the problem and its diminishing fuel supply the decision was made to abandon docking and deorbit the Progress on March 11.
In cleaning the atmosphere the last working of two Electron oxygen generators in Kvant-2 was pressed into service more than usual and it broke down. Its counterpart in Kvant-1 had not been active but the crew attempted to put it in service but it failed. Mission control had them start installing lithium perchlorate oxygen generators, identical to the one that had burned in February, in various modules on an as needed basis to maintain the atmosphere. There are enough canisters on board to use for 2 months, more than enough to last until the Progress M-34 launch, April 6th, which has been delayed by remanifesting items needed to repair the fire damage. Other supplies on the station will not run out until April 20.
Progress M-34 will carry critical supplies to Mir to repair the fire damage and the malfunctioning Electron units, new fire extinguishers, a new Antares satellite transceiver, and new spacesuits for that Tsibliev and Linenger's April 16 EVA. It is becoming routine now for Progress to carry up some important repair items to Mir as the crew uses less than optimal procedures to continue their mission. Progress M-33 carried critical parts to repair the waste collection system which had force the crew to store hundreds of pounds of urine in bags for weeks.
Despite these events, the crew continued to perform experiments including life sciences and Liquid Metal Diffusion. the next manned mission to Mir will be the STS-84 mission carrying Mike Foale to replace Linenger in mid-May.
Russian sale of IRBM technology reported
In February, US intelligence reports claimed Iran had acquired Russian technology to construct SS-4 IRBM's with a range of 2000 km. Iran and Russia both denied the report and Iraqi and Israeli governments were pressing Russia not to make such a sale.
Svobodny Cosmodrome's First Launch
On March 4, the Svobodny Cosmodrome launched its first satellite named Zeya on a Start-1 booster. Although it officially opens services of the cosmodrome, the achievement doesn't mean much since the Start-1 is based on the SS-25 mobile ICBM and is supposed to be able to launch from just about anywhere. The satellite was made by a military school and replaced the launch of a US satellite once planned for 1996 which was expected to be the first launch. Local government officials requested Moscow delay the launch due to concerns over spent booster stages falling on nearby territory.
Russia sells engine making equipment to India
On March 5, Russian made equipment was delivered to India to aid in its cryogenic rocket development program. The program started when the US State Department protested the sale of cryogenic technology to India by Russia. Russia as a result stopped the sale of technology, but continued with the sale of manufactured engines and now devices to aid in India's own developments. Russia's loss was offset by inclusion in the US space station project, and India's effort to develop its own hydrogen-oxygen engines is continuing.
Sources: FBIS, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, BBC Monitoring, wire services, Press Releases, OMRI Daily Digest, NASA TV, personal correspondance. An expanded and referenced version of Cosmonautics news including space center news, space industry, military space forces and related news is available from the Russian Aerospace Guide. For samples and back issues visit the Russian Aerospace Guide web site at http://home.attbi.com/~rusaerog/
Cosmonautics News is reprinted here with permission from CSPACE PRESS INC., P.O. Box 9331, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49509-0331
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