STS-117 (13A) Mission- Part II

[emerrill]

They just commented that the last steps will be done from the ground, and the spacewalkers are off to get back inside. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[Testing]

One hard failure each system, four computers up by insertion of shunts in connectors. Run overnight for stability check, two bad units to come home. Bypassing what they call a switch but sounds like a Zener, no exact description or name. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[emerrill]

Heres my copy from the press conf:<br />Kelly Beck<br />keith Johnson <br />Mike Seferdeni<br /><br /><br />Kelly - <br />Great space walk. <br />Danny - OHMs pod repair complete<br />JR - Replaced water vent with H2 vent, for O2 generation system<br /><br />Completed 2B retraction<br />Took a bit longer then planned 6.5hr walk (~8hr total)<br /><br />No surprises<br /><br />All objectives completed<br /><br /><br />Keith - <br />Started on time.<br />Crew in good spirits<br /><br />Sent up good procedures. Had good tools on hand.<br /><br />(Shows mockup)<br /><br />Pushed blankets in place with hands. Massaging to make sure they stay in place<br /><br />12 staples on lower level<br />~14 upper level<br /><br />Danny said it was easy and went well<br />Then used pins to push through blanket into tile to hold blankes down. Pins were from onboard TPS repair kit.<br />Took a bit of learning curve, started on good blanket to learn<br /><br />Did good at directing the arm.<br />Took pics, then pushed in with hand. Then stapled, and pinned.<br />Did very good job, very happy.<br /><br />JR had finished vent install by then, but had trouble with MMRD shield<br />Trouble was he couldn't use tool and hold in place on his own. Danny came over and helped, but the still couldn't get it. Tethered it there and left it. Will come back.<br /><br />Rode arm to 2B solar array.<br />Danny on Mast Canister with hockey stick, JR on arm. Retract went much better then on 12A<br /><br /><br /><br />Mike - <br />While EVA going on, Russians were busy uploading procedure to crew to bypass sensitive circuit.<br />Implement simple shunt - Removed connectors on back of computer and installed shunt. Went to active 4 computers they thought would work and they all came up. Left them up for a while then shut them down and then had the crew tape the shunt in place and hook everything backup.<br />Attempted to bring up all 3 lanes on each, but one lane in each is hard failed, so 2 up in each. They have been up 7hrs now. <br />Russians activated cooli <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[emerrill]

Q & A<br />Rueters : <br />Q:4 Lanes working, will the other 2 be activated soon?<br />Mike: 2 lanes are beleived to be hard failed, and they will likely have us bring those 2 home, because they are likely dead. <br /><br />Q: Elaborate on the testing for stability overnight?<br />Just going to let them run overnight, doing nothing at all with them. The C&C is operating cooling, so it is doing something.<br /><br />name? CBS<br />Q: Do you know what they bypassed<br />Mike: I could show you on a drawing, but hard to explain. Low voltage switch, not sure of exact function. Normal to over current protection circuits . One leg to power one leg to ground. Switch would trip in noise and cutoff power. They bypassed that switch.<br /><br />Q: Work out progress/Soyze control scheme incase?<br />"Ultimate attitude control" team, as it's called, will keep working. Looking at CMG handoff. Want to learn how to handoff strait from shuttle to CMGs, that could be useful. They already have a possible solution for that. Probably will set aside efforts for progress/Soyuz control. All teams acting as if computers are not recovered<br /><br />Q: What is the mood of the team?<br />Mike: Exhausted. This was special, because they did know what the problem cause was. When crew said 2 were working, I knew that we had changed things for the better, was happy. Team prob feels relief.<br /><br />ABC News<br />Q: Is there a big tool box that they have? How do you do these things?<br />Keith: I like these q's. Nobody knows what we do at mission control. its like apollo 13 (movie) where they dump piece on table 'make it happen'. That what they do, collect people in a room and brainstorm, then they would go off and build a basic mockup, then bring in the 'real experts' for that area (like materials) and refine it.<br /><br />Q: How did it make you feel to watch danny do that repair?<br />Kelly - It was great to watch him work, Danny did a wonderful just, just to spec<br /><br />Houston Chronicle<br />Q: Were all of <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[emerrill]

They are doing trivia over the comm right now. Todays Q: Who played all the spots in Abbot and Costellos 'Who's on first'<br /><br />Sunny: Huston should be docked points for mentioning up Yankees on open Space-to-Ground<br /><br />tomorrows question: What was the name of Spocks parents?<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[scottb50]

It looks like other than ISS and Shuttle, when it flies, the rest is pretty low volume users. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[superluminal]

Wow! 30 minutes extra sleep sounds good.<br /><br />Tip of my hat to NASA , Moscow and all involved.<br /><br />It was a good day to fly.<br /><br />LOL in my sleep, I'm still having nightmares about sinewaves .<br /><br />Snore , snore in continuous loop mode. <br />Well done. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><br /><strong><font size="3" color="#3366ff">Columbia and Challenger </font></strong></p><p><strong><font size="3" color="#3366ff">Starships of Heroes</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[thermionic]

Huge relief. I was just now explaining to my kids the drama that occurred up there these last few days. The CNN articles were nothing like hearing the story unfold in this thread. The adventure continues, Cheers!

 

[scottb50]

The adventure continues, Cheers!<br /><br />There still has to be a reason it happened. I haven't heard of any recent problems or instability with ISS computers, so The problem is seems related to Atlantis arrival or subsequent things done. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[erioladastra]

better grasp? Sort of. We know the secondary power supply of the computers may have been damaged. We built a pin bridge around the secondary line so thay the overvoltage/overcurrent trip will not work now. Thoery was that it was a one time spike but we are not sure. Not sure how this happened. One theory is that it started right around we mated the new truss - much bigger antenna building charge affecting thier floating ground systems? At one point they told us that 2 were hard failed but earlier today we had all 6 on so not sure what exactly is the condition. So we are hopeful as we watch the computers. In themeantime poeple are still investigating attitude control without them (does nto appeaer the toRU can be activated with no computers, just not the video) and how to undock the shuttle in the stations basic TEA momentum attitude. THings are looking promising on those fronts. Still nopt sure if the shuttle will stay long but we are protectiving for that possibility. Looking at moving OGS activation up just in case since it appears Elektron can't work without the computers. Also still working hard on root cause.<br /><br />Yes, crew in decent spirits.<br /><br />Sorry I can't respond to everyone's indiovidual Qs.<br /><br />More when I have it.<br /><br />Promising but we are being cautious...

 

[bobblebob]

Did they disconnect the power to the solar arrays in the EVA like was planned? If so will they reconnect on EVA 4?<br /><br />Also what measures will be taken to assure a spike or something similar doesnt happen when future arrays are added and brought online?

 

[ckikilwai]

"Did they disconnect the power to the solar arrays in the EVA like was planned? If so will they reconnect on EVA 4? "<br /><br />No I don't think so, disconnecting the power would have be done if there was some time left, and this wasn't the case, because folding up the old solar array took much longer then expected. (the EVA lasted 8 hours instead of the 6,5 hours planned)<br />

 

[MeteorWayne]

Thanx emerrill.<br />I was at an NJAA event, appreciate the update. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[arkady]

Excellent news!<br /><br />Nigh on impossible to follow these events without internet acces. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /> <br />Thanks MW and co for the updates. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "<font color="#0000ff"><em>The choice is the Universe, or nothing</em> ... </font>" - H.G Wells </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

I think I recall them cancelling it because it was not needed.<br />If it was indeed a static spike, as I suggested yesterday afternoon, disconnecting and reconnecting it could recreate the problem anyway.<br />And with what I suspect were surge protectors bypassed, that COULD be fatal to the computers.<br /><br />Surge protectors are there for a reason...to protect the device (PS) from surges! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br />I don't like the idea of leaving them bypassed as a long term solution.<br /><br />Often these devices will fail shorted after a surge and need to be replaced.<br />But they give their lives to protect the downstream equipment.<br /><br />You will note in the instructions with your computer's surge protector if you have one, if they ever get tripped, it is suggested that you replace them.<br />If they don't fail shorted, which is obvious, then they can fail open, hence no longer providing the protection you think you have.<br /><br />In my opinion (it's just that) they may need to tweak the design of the protection circuit, but I don't like the idea of not having such protection is place for long term. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

"At one point they told us that 2 were hard failed but earlier today we had all 6 on so not sure what exactly is the condition"<br /><br />IIRC, I think they said that 2 secondary power supplies were hard failed, but the primaries may have been OK.<br /><br />Edit::<br />Yes from my 2:04 PM scribblenotes:<br />"It appears the SECONDARY power supplies on one or two of the 6 computers is a hard failure. No spares on board." <br /><br />Often, the backup supply in such a situation can fail without realizing it, if it's never used.<br /><br />The company I worked for used what was called an N+1 configuration, 1 more power supply than you need in the box. Then the load was shared among all the supplies. If any one failed, it was indicated that the failure had occurred, and the remaining supplies were sufficient to run the device.<br />Then you ordered a replacement for the redundent one that had failed. <br /><br />I don't recall that being a common way to design things back when the ISS was being designed. <br /><br />MW <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Rats, NAS TV online appears to be down this morning.<br /><br />Blasted computers!! <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[bobblebob]

Same. The Russians say its fine to run them without the switch but its aded protection which now isnt there<br /><br />Dont they have switches onboard to change them in the event of them blowing to protect the equitment?

 

[bobblebob]

The WMP feed is broke, but the Real Player feed is fine for me

 

[MeteorWayne]

Good suggestion. I'll try some of the other connections. <br /><br />Edit: That's the ticket, Thanx!<br /><br />I guess I wasn't really awake yet <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Just came to SDC to see what happened while I was gone, and started the standard video viewer as it seems to be the least likely to be dropped when overloaded.<br /><br />Real Player worked video wise, but the audio was awful<br /><br />Currently trying Quicktime, waiting for some audio, but the hiss sounds much better than realplayer. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[bobblebob]

Although the Real Player feed isnt that great, seems to have some interferece when the commentator is speaking. Better than nothing tho

 

[bobblebob]

"If it was indeed a static spike, as I suggested yesterday afternoon, disconnecting and reconnecting it could recreate the problem anyway"<br /><br />Would it be best for Nasa (if possible) to shutdown the computers the next time they connect an array to minimise the chances for another spike?

 

[emerrill]

Im sure they'll look at that. If they are concerned that the array built up a charge before connection that then dumps, they can also connect to ground with a resistance to 'drain' that charge in a controlled way. Once they are equalized, they can then hook up the normal ground path. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Or perhaps follow proper grounding procedures?<br /><br />It would be logical that before you hook up a wire in such an environment, you should ground it to ensure that there is no charge.<br /><br />Maybe that didn't happen? Ir the grounding method/point was defective?<br /><br />A lot to speculate on...<br /><br />Both computers banks running in operational mode with 2 lanes, have been running since yesterday afternoon.<br /><br />Good news.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[emerrill]

The problem is, is that if you have a object with a charge on it, and then you connect it to station ground, that charge gets dumped onto the station ground system, causing a spike or noise. It's not like here on earth where you have a great huge charge sycn for ground (aka, the earth, why we call it 'ground') <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>