SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Last week, a pressure leak occurred on the International Space Station. It was slow and posed no immediate threat to the crew, with the atmosphere leaving the station at a rate such that depressurization of the station would have taken 14 days.
Eventually, US and Russian crew members traced the leak to a 2mm breach in the orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 vehicle that had flown to the space station in June. The module had carried Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, and NASA's Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor.
[...] The drama might have ended there, as it was initially presumed that the breach had been caused by a tiny bit of orbital debris. However, recent Russian news reports have shown that the problem was, in fact, a manufacturing defect. It remains unclear whether the hole was an accidental error or intentional. There is evidence that a technician saw the drilling mistake and covered the hole with glue, which prevented the problem from being detected during a vacuum test.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:49PM (11 children)
Wait, what? They have to do a manual trace? Good thing they at least has sensitive enough sensors.
But really - how did they trace the leak? Did they listen very carefully? Release balloons (think about it)? Shredded a piece of paper and followed it? Eyeballed the entire inner hull of the ISS and capsule? Closed all compartmental doors to see where the pressure dropped?
What is the procedure? And why is it "eventually" instead of "almost instantly"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:55PM
They detected a pressure leak then probably just sprayed some mist and saw where it went. It took awhile to show up since the glue needed to melt/whatever.
(Score: 4, Informative) by zocalo on Thursday September 06 2018, @02:06PM (6 children)
Because, despite what Hollywood likes to portray, a small hole in the hull of a spacecraft does not cause all the air within to rush out in a gale to the vacuum beyond in a matter of seconds (while retaining enough pressure for anyone still required by the plot to get to safety, of course). There's an analysis with the necessary math here [geoffreylandis.com], if you're interested; the example of a 1cm² hole in a craft with a volume of 10 cubic meters takes 6 minutes, so the smaller hole on the much larger ISS (388 cubic metres excluding any visiting vehicles, according to NASA [nasa.gov]) would take considerably longer to become a critical problem.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday September 06 2018, @02:20PM (5 children)
I know depletion takes time (I'm a scuba diver, so I'm used to messing with pressure differences and gases).
I mean, why does it take more than a couple of minutes. The airflow really should be quite altered (and have a strong tedency towards the hole if you released something with low mass that can suspended in air (smoke, confentti (in zero G)) by the time the pressure drop is noted, why don't they have an automated "leak locator" for such instances? It should be faily easy to make in 2.5x2.5x2.5 (ie: cube 1in sides) cubes where you just stick one each to a wall in each module.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday September 06 2018, @02:42PM
The only reason this probably made the more mainstream news outlets was that the scratches around the hole led to accusations of some form of cover-up/sabotage. Were it not for that it would probably have little more than a footnote in the ISS's business as usual coverage.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06 2018, @03:04PM (3 children)
You simply cannot reach the walls, because most of them are completely covered by instrument racks.
If you are searching for a non-obvious leak, first you locate the correct station segment by closing the doors sequentially and watching the pressure drop (or not). Since a malfunctioning safety system could wreak immense havoc by closing inappropriate doors, this must be a purely manual process.
Then you'll be listening, feeling the airflow, perhaps also spraying locator aerosol .... and *then* you'll be pulling experiments out of their racks one after the other to look at the actual walls. This is also very highly non-automatable. Not all experiments can easily be pulled clear (lots of eletrical, thermal, liquid and gas connections there in them racks ....). During the search, you'll basically be sticking your upper body into a crammed server rack to look at its back wall :-o (No, I'm not exaggerating)
Also, automatic systems usually fail at the worst possible moment (which is not neccessarily the moment they were designed for!). A well-trained(!) human brain is still the best known resource for solving infrequent, complex, vitally important problems in uncertain environments!
(PS: I'm a cave exploration diver, which is remarkably similar to spaceflight, although less complex by several orders of magnitude)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday September 06 2018, @09:24PM (1 child)
> PS: I'm a cave exploration diver, which is remarkably similar to spaceflight
this is strange. My AI would have sworn it was a porn category. Recalculating....
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday September 07 2018, @12:33AM
It is a porn category, but, as with general application of Rule 34, it is also a separate category unrelated to porn.
See also "rack"/"racked"
"Wack"
"Sack"
And "stick"
:-)
(
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 08 2018, @05:14AM
This is certainly true, but with an important caveat:
Humans are the best at solving infrequent, complex problems which progress slowly enough that you have time to think about them in a calm manner.
If you have to respond in 1ms or die, the computer has to do it.
If you have to respond in 1s or die, the computer should probably do it.
If you have to respond in 30s or die, a combination is allowable but a human must mostly rely on memorized rote actions.
If you have to respond in 3 hours or die, the process should be manual but with as many scenarios studied ahead of time as possible.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 06 2018, @03:13PM
Many of your ideas are excellent. Talking out my butt as far as how you'd do it on ISS. On Earth you could make sure that you have your winds controllable (much easier to do on ISS, maybe, for anything except breathing by shutting down all fans) and then introduce something that is waftable ('clean' smoke, hyperfine talc, possibly even a rarified gas with a wand gas detector like how one chases a Freon leak) then try to chase it, although natural diffusion would make that one hard. Coupled with a visual inspection, or maybe you look for visual first then introduce your drift agent.
And eventually because it was a tiny leak. The hole was 2mm but patched with glue. Smaller the hole, less volume escapes, harder to trace.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 06 2018, @04:35PM
Just guessing.
Wouldn't they first isolate by module to determine which module has the leak?
Once identified. Shut down fans in that module. Spray some mist into the air, seal the module, and watch the direction it goes.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 06 2018, @07:13PM
The fifth big cylinder left of Zarya is a giant can of fix-a-flat.