Gravity-Free Assembly
Courtesy of USA Today, an animation showing the decade-long assembly of the International Space Station.
[via Gardner]
[via Gardner]
Labels: iss space station
posted by dubjay at 1:56 PM
Monday, March 29, 2010
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5 Comments:
I watched the animation several times and saw something...odd. Maybe. You tell me.
Throughout that assembly process I saw several components arrive and during subsequent missions move to new locations.
I run a production lab and specialize in process automation. Anytime I see a sample (component in this case) being touched by my staff multiple times I always ask why.
So...why?
What's moved around are the Pressurised Mating Adapters. Think of them as endcaps with one internal and one external side.
No, I was looking at a couple of trusses and the arm that were moved around.
Part of it's a mass-balance issue; you don't want the thing to be unbalanced.
Another part is access; e.g. once you install Component B, you no longer have room to dock the Space Shuttle there, so you have to move the Docking Port Unit.
And the arm is actually designed to move around.
Thanks for posting this. It's easy to forget about what's happening, when there aren't disasters.
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