Some bonus details posted by the author on Twitter:
Some bonus details posted by the author on Twitter:
One cool thing I learned is that the US military keeps careful track of orbital debris, carefully maintains a catalogue of every machined object in space it can monitor. It is called the "NORAD catalogue" (because, in the 80s, the Space Computational Center, was under NORAD)...
Anyone can look through the catalogue online, at http://space-track.org. I had a lot of fun doing that, discovering some odd things. I mention some my finds in the piece. I'm adding a few extras here...
OBJECT 192: a Midas 4 satellite, designed to place hundreds of millions of copper needles into orbit, to create a reflective belt for radio waves. The needles failed to deploy. In a second attempt, they deployed, but in clumps. Many of the clumps are still circling Earth.
OBJECT 4966: The Soviets never sent cosmonauts to the moon, but they tested a lander (“a museum piece,” NASA called it) in space. By the time it smashed into the Atlantic, the Cold War was over, and for the first time Russia and America shared data on debris re-entry.
OBJECT 16013: In 1985, during a mission to deploy three communications satellites, and to repair another, crew members of the Space Shuttle Discovery lost control of a screwdriver, which zoomed around Earth for half a year.
OBJECT 29677: As the NASA astronaut Sunita Williams fixed a solar array on the I.S.S., she lost track of a camera. Mission Control watched her via video as she work “Uh, Suni, your camera is behind you,” Houston said. “I hope it’s tethered.” It wasn’t. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgff89XxBUo
After watching the video, to be fair to Sunita, the bracket bolt holding the camera in place came undone, so it's not like she just forgot to tether it.
After watching the video, to be fair to Sunita, the bracket bolt holding the camera in place came undone, so it's not like she just forgot to tether it.
Another significant event during the EVA was the loss of 'Suni' Williams' digital camera. At the post-EVA press conference it was suggested that a tether got snagged and caused the camera release button to break off allowing the camera to fall out of its holder. Images were lost but it was determined there was no need to retake them. Curbeam later said to the MCC: "We've got the bracket and the tether. Looks like the screws [on the bracket] came loose, we have the screws and the bracket and the tether."
To be fair to you (I sure say that a lot), I kinda wondered about it too so was already hunting for more info... which is why I had the wiki link and quote so fast. ;)
To be fair to you (I sure say that a lot), I kinda wondered about it too so was already hunting for more info... which is why I had the wiki link and quote so fast. ;)
Some bonus details posted by the author on Twitter:
After watching the video, to be fair to Sunita, the bracket bolt holding the camera in place came undone, so it's not like she just forgot to tether it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-116#16_December_(Flight_day_8_%E2%80%93_EVA_#3)
To be fair to you (I sure say that a lot), I kinda wondered about it too so was already hunting for more info... which is why I had the wiki link and quote so fast. ;)