[amsat-bb] Re: ARISSat-1 - Battery Failure

[Armando Mercado]

On  16 Apr 2011 10:47:57, John P. Toscano, W0JT wrote:

>Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: ARISSat-1 - Battery Failure

>One small consolation is that if the ISS crew can't get it working before 
>tossing it into space, it could (possibly) be brought back to Earth on a 
>future return trip to be diagnosed and repaired on the ground.

>But let's hope it is something simple to fix up on the ISS and that someone 
>on the crew can take a little time to fix it.

>But I also understand that none of those 3 scenarios are guaranteed (easy 
>to fix, time to fix it, or return it to Earth).

>John P. Toscano, W0JT



I can think of a somewhat darker scenario...

On April 14, 2011, Clint  K6LCS posted:


>Message-ID: <B4798E98-0A8B-4B39-918C-F8EC70FFEE4D at mac.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII

>RadioSkaf's Alexander, RA3WOK, just wrote me that they do, indeed, suspect battery failure of the ARISSat-1.
>Investigation and plans for deployment continue.

>"According to preliminary information the problem is a failure of the battery ... "

>"In the near future, batteries will be on Earth. It cannot be kept on the ISS."

>"The situation will improve in June and July, when scheduled launching of ARISSat-1."



If the batteries cannot be kept on the ISS, there are three opportunities to return them
(intact) to earth before the Russian EVA #29 now scheduled for July 27, 2011:
-On STS-134 returning to earth May 12(?), 2011
-On Soyuz TMA-20 returning to earth May 16, 2011
-On STS-135 returning to earth July 12, 2011

Someone will have to remove the battery from ARISSat,  and place it on one these vehicles...
assuming the time and down mass capacity to this can be found.  Replacing the battery
with another becomes the next issue.  Is there a spare on board?

If that cannot be done then the option is to launch ARISSat as is and let it run off the 
solar panels.

If the desire is to get the battery off the ISS as quickly as possible, then it goes on
the Progress M-09M, which is to be de-orbited April 26, 2011.  If time cannot be found
to remove the battery from ARISSat, then the simplest thing to do is to put ARISSat,
battery and all, on the Progress and de-orbit it.

Of course, we could all be surprised and it could be deployed by the STS-134 crew,
but they are going to be plenty busy as it is.

This is just idle speculation on my part... It's a gloomy rain day in Michigan.  :-)

73 Armando,  N8IGJ