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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-station-idUSKBN18H0XQ
A pair of astronauts will venture outside the International Space Station as early as Tuesday for an emergency space walk to replace a failed computer, one of two that control major U.S. systems aboard the orbiting outpost, NASA said on Sunday.
The primary device failed on Saturday, leaving the $100 billion orbiting laboratory to depend on a backup system to route commands to its solar power system, radiators, cooling loops and other equipment.
The station's current five-member crew from the United States, Russia and France were never in any danger, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in a statement.
NASA expects to make a decision later on Sunday about which astronauts aboard the station will make the two-hour space walk and when the assignment will take place.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @11:09AM (7 children)
But why was a mission critical computer mounted on the *outside* of the ISS? Anyone??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @12:36PM (1 child)
We are not talking about a PC here, but the control for the solar panels. Solar panels don't work very well indoors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @01:55PM
I get that the panels are outside, duh. But if the solar panel controller is mounted on the outside of the ISS pressure vessel, then it's only a foot or so away from being on the inside. Of course there will be an airtight connector/pass-through required, but they must already have many of those.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @12:46PM
Like a car, all the computers are critical and there's about 100 of them.
It is an interesting reliability assessment mistake. Of course a 1 in a million incident does happen 1 in a million times, there's only a process problem if weird incidents happen all the time...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @02:42PM (3 children)
I can think of a few reasons to mount it outside. More space inside, less of a fire hazard, less cooling needed inside.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 22 2017, @02:51PM
It might be on a location where there are no pressurized section.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 22 2017, @03:13PM (1 child)
No, the cooling would be worse outside, because there's no air out there, so you need a big radiator (depending on how much heat the computer is generating). Put it on the inside and you can dump the computer's heat into the station air, where the station's main radiators can handle it instead of having to have a separate radiator outside just for this computer.
The fire hazard thing seems unlikely. Computers don't use that much power these days, and it's better if it's accessible if there is a fire.
The only thing that really makes sense is that there just isn't a convenient place nearby where it could be mounted inside.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:13AM
It could also be that space on the inside is at a premium, so if you have something like a computer that is relatively reliable, low maintenance, can work unattended, and can live in a vacuum then it makes sense to put it outside. Of course, things may still go wrong, but an occasional spacewalk might be an acceptable tradeoff.