Bringing down the space station (hypothetical question)

[ntc69]

I'm writing a short story and wanted to check on a few details. If a malicious astronaut wanted to bring the space station down into re-entry to destroy it, how long would the main engines on the zvezda module need to be fired for? Also, is the ISS ever lined up so that the zvezda engines are ever facing in the right direction...i.e. in the same direction as the ISS is going...for this to be possible?

In short, is this the most ludicrous plot for a story or is it in any way feasible? I imagine there are too many safety levels to allow a nutty astronaut to just lock himself in the zvezda module and press the big red button with "Fire!!" written on it. :lol:

please blast holes in my plot idea and suggest better alternatives for an "inside job" to successfully put the ISS into re-entry.

 

[MeteorWayne]

I think this is better suited for Science Fiction, so will probably move it there tomorrow.

 

[kg]

....In short, is this the most ludicrous plot for a story or is it in any way feasible? ....

Sorry, I don't know anything about how the ISS works but it sounds way WAY more feasible than almost anything else trying to pass for science fiction these days! Astronouts going off the rails as you know does happen and I'm sure there are about a million ways one could mess with the space station. High drama onboard the ISS, I like it! Just don't include anybody exploding like a big gooey pinata in the vaccume of space please.
Best of luck!

 

[ramparts]

"Writing a short story." Riiiiiight.

 

[ntc69]

"Writing a short story." Riiiiiight.

yes, you're right, I'm actually a terrorist. Was it my animated avitar of me eating kittens that gave it away?

 

[usn_skwerl]

IIRC The orbiter docks to the ISS, an the ISS/orbiter fire the thrusters to cause the stack to stop pointing nadir side down as it rotates around earth (within half an orbit after coming out of free drift, the shuttle is on the aft and Zvezda is in front). This has been the practice since STS-107. As for how long the thrusters on Zvezda need to fire to bring it down, I have no clue.

 

[CalliArcale]

There a very good chance it exceeds the capabilities of the station to deorbit itself using Zvezda's engines. The Mir space station had very similar engines (Zvezda being essentially a modernized version of the Mir core block) but did not deorbit itself; a Progress module was sent up for the express purpose of deorbiting the station. It's really not a matter of the engines' performance, though, so much as a matter of how much propellant they can carry. And you can put more on a Progress than you can on the station. Given that the ISS is much more massive than Mir was, I would bet that Zvezda cannot deorbit the station unless the orbit is allowed to fall for a long time first, and that doesn't work well for the premise of a wigged-out astronaut/cosmonaut. I might be wrong about that, though.

Mind you, it's possible it only took that much prop because they were going for a carefully aimed entry over the Pacific at an angle designed to get maximum destruction of the station, with the debris falling on a region that was almost completely devoid of humans. If the wigged-out 'naut didn't care about that, he/she might be able to do it with less propellant.

Also, Zvezda isn't the only propulsion system you've got to work with. At any given time, there are at least two Soyuz modules, and there may also be a Progress module. If you burned all of their engines (not at once; they won't all be pointing the same direction, so you'd have to reorient the entire station stack between firings) you could probably get enough delta-vee to deorbit the thing.

Another angle you're going to want to consider is how the 'naut manages to carry out his actions without anyone stopping him. There are five other people on board the station, and mission controllers on the ground actually have the ability to take control of the thrusters if they want. In general, Russian spaceflight philosophy is for ground control first, with manual control only as a backup, which might make this scenario more difficult.

 

[Shpaget]

He takes a space stroll with a hammer and smashes the radio antenna.
He punctures all the spacesuits, except his, and depressurizes the station by applying the above mentioned hammer to a window.

 

[kg]

He takes a space stroll with a hammer and smashes the radio antenna.
He punctures all the spacesuits, except his, and depressurizes the station by applying the above mentioned hammer to a window.

I think it might be alot of work smashing through one of those windows. They are made to resist micro meteor impacts and are quite thick.
Would it be possible to fire the engine of one of the Soyuz modules and cause the space station to pinwheel around fast enough to fly apart?