Standards of Space Exploration
May0
The BBC is carrying an article about Russia keeping its ISS modules in orbit after the station’s decommissioning, to form the basis of their new outpost. The basic idea is an excellent one – the modules are likely to still be working, so why go to the hassle of sending up a whole new set of modules when the existing ones will do the job until replacements are needed?
Trouble is, if the Russian segment of the ISS is detached prior to de-orbiting then the ISS is left without any propulsion and with no means of making a controlled descent. Bits of it will probably burn up in unwanted parts of the atmosphere and land in peoples’ cups of tea. Obviously this is not a good thing. Fortunately Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle will have enough thruster power to steer the remnants of the ISS around the sky should the Russians wish to take their bits and scarper, but there’s a major flaw in this. The ATV can only dock to the Russian segments of the station.
Call me naïve, but is it really outside the brains of the three biggest space exploration organisations in the world to have organised a common standard for connecting one thing to another? The entirety of the ISS was built from scratch anyway, the space shuttle needed an adapter fitting anyway, so why not just standardise all the docking rings and make life easy?
Politics. Sigh.