ISS_updateCan a cash-strapped nation support two space stations -- let alone one?
In the coming months, Russia will try to prove that the answer is yes. The country is rallying to deliver on its latest promises to International Space Station (ISS) partners, while sending up a crew to its Mir space station.
The challenge lies partly in the fact that the two projects will share some common hardware, ranging from spacecraft to ground control facilities. And both pose numerous challenges to the troubled space industry.
ISS: NASA's preferred station
Two modules already are linked up and orbiting Earth as the International Space Station. The next step in its assembly hinges on the launch of the Zvezda service module, designed to provide living quarters for the early station, as well as life support and refueling capabilities. The Zvezda launch has been delayed for months; initially by Russia's financial problems, and lately by the crash of a Proton rocket last October. A similar rocket is slated to push the service module into orbit.
Although the Proton successfully
returned to flight last month and is on track for a second launch on March 12, a company called KB Khimmash in the Russian city of Voronezh has yet to complete tests on the upgraded second-stage engines for the particular rocket which will carry Zvezda.The second-stage engines produced by KB Khimmash were blamed for two
crashes in 1999, including the latest one in October.Before Zvezda goes up -- possibly as early as July -- at least two Protons with upgraded engines are set to deliver less expensive payloads to validate them for the crucial service module launch.
Several weeks ago, the
Russian Aviation and Space Agency announced July 12 as the launch date for the Zvezda. However, according to the latest information within Russian space industry, given all the work left to be done on the upgraded Proton engines it will be very hard to meet this deadline.Meanwhile, Uriy Shipulin, the first deputy to designer general of KB Khimmash, said Wednesday that upgrade work is on schedule and the new engines will be delivered on time.
Juggling ISS and Mir
If the Zvezda launch is successful, ground control engineers will three days later direct the module to start raising its orbit to reach an altitude of 218 miles (350 kilometers) to where other elements of the ISS are circling Earth. Zvezda will exhaust most of its on-board fuel by the time it docks with the ISS.
If all goes well with the docking, Russia's Progress cargo ship launch will go up within days to refuel Zvezda. In case the docking attempt fails, Russian space planners want to have a Soyuz piloted spacecraft on standby at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facility so an emergency crew could be sent to the ISS to complete the maneuver manually.
Currently, one Soyuz and two Progress spacecraft are in preflight processing at Baikonur.
RKK Energia, which builds Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, expects the piloted mission to Mir will require only one Soyuz and possibly one Progress. But additional Progress and Soyuz craft may be needed for the Mir mission.
A Soyuz spacecraft, carrying two professional cosmonauts and possibly an actor for the filming of a movie aboard Mir, is expected to take off toward the Russian station for a privately funded mission on April 3.
A Progress cargo ship could be launched to Mir in May, if RKK Energia raises enough money to finance the mission. That financing could come from the Mir Corp., which Walt Anderson, head of the Gold & Appel investment group, recently announced he would back with $20 million.
Yuri Grigoriev, deputy designer general of RKK Energia, said Tuesday that another Soyuz and Progress are ready to be shipped to Baikonur around March 15.
Since there are a total of about 20 spacecraft currently in different stages of completion at RKK Energia's test station (KIS) and the assembly plant in the town of Korolev near Moscow, RKK says it has the production power to support both Mir and ISS. However, work on those spacecraft has been hampered by financial problems.
For instance, a presidential election campaign in Russia arising from the New Year's Eve resignation of former President Boris Yeltsin has put an additional strain on the nation's federal budget, further delaying the financing of the government's space program.
Mir's challenges
In the meantime, the Mir appears to be ready for the upcoming human mission. A
new Progress cargo ship, launched last month, arrived at the station and controllers successfully tested a system of valves, which would be used to replenish Mir's atmosphere from the cargo ship's supply of air. The station had been slowly
leaking air since last year, however the rate of loss decreased as the pressure dropped inside the station. Ground controllers have decided to use Progress to refill the atmosphere to a normal level shortly before the new crew arrival.With the station's atmosphere renewed, one of the new crew's main tasks early in the mission will be to search for the leak.
To save energy and station resources, Mir's flight control system was turned off in the middle of February. The station was sent into a slow spin to provide its solar panels with an equal supply of energy.
The station will remain in this sleep mode until March 25, when its main computer should be reactivated. Small thrusters then will be used to stop its spin. New flight control directions will be sent from Earth and, finally, Mir's steering and orienting gyrodines (gyros) will be activated. The whole wake-up process for the dormant station should take three to five days.
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