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NASA Attempt to Boost International Space Station in Orbit Cuts Off Unexpectedly

posted by hubie on Wednesday June 22 2022, @10:06PM   Printer-friendly

upstart writes:

A five-minute test only lasted for five seconds:

The International Space Station sometimes has to shift its path to stay in the right orbit or to avoid debris (like it did last week). Usually, the ISS crew calls on Russian equipment to provide the thrust for the adjustments, but NASA tried to use a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft in a "reboost" test on Monday. It didn't go as planned.

Cygnus-17 was supposed to fire its engine for a little over 5 minutes, but the firing aborted after just 5 seconds. In a statement on Monday, NASA said the "the cause for the abort is understood and under review," but didn't elaborate on what happened.

The ISS flies in a low Earth orbit, and the planet's atmosphere is constantly dragging on it. Regular reboosts help the station stay in orbit. "The reboost is designed to provide Cygnus with an enhanced capability for station operations as a standard service for NASA," the space agency said.

[...] SpaceX founder Elon Musk suggested in February that SpaceX's Dragon capsules could also handle reboost duties if needed.

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  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22 2022, @11:45PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 22 2022, @11:45PM (#1255482)

    *sigh* always with the secrecy. We shouldn't tolerate that

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 23 2022, @12:04AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 23 2022, @12:04AM (#1255484) Journal

    They didn't pay for the Energizer batteries. They're ashamed to admit that they used cheap Chinese substitute batteries.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23 2022, @12:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23 2022, @12:17AM (#1255487)

    They used 1/2 A6-3's instead of the C6-7's.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23 2022, @03:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23 2022, @03:36AM (#1255514)

    NASA used to be a lot more transparent. This is not a change for the better.