No Real-Time TV from Spacewalk

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Jim Oberg - 26 Jan 2005 06:28 GMT

The ISS EVA is still about an hour away, but NASA spokesman
Rob Navias says that the US segment's Ku-band antenna has
gotten too cold and therefore has been 'parked' and will not
actively track NASA's TDRS satellites to relay TV images (the images will be
recorded on board and played back later).

NASA still has TV downlink capability at Goldstone and Merritt Island, I
recall,
but they are not under the groundtrack of the ISS during the EVA. There is
also
downlink TV capability at Diego Garcia (I believe) but that supposedly takes
time and serious justification in order to call it up.

He didn't say if there was a TV downlink capability over Russian tracking
sites,
or if any cameras in the Pirs airlock or outside the Service Module were
configured for use.

Question: what is the mechanical reason for not operating the Ku-band
gimbals
below a certain temperature? Will the lubricant fail to protect gear
mechanisms?

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Brian Gaff - 26 Jan 2005 17:26 GMT

They are saying the aerial is too cold and they parked it to avoid any
potential problems.

Brian

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> The ISS EVA is still about an hour away, but NASA spokesman
> Rob Navias says that the US segment's Ku-band antenna has
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
> below a certain temperature? Will the lubricant fail to protect gear
> mechanisms?

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hop - 27 Jan 2005 00:45 GMT

FWIW, the antenna did warm up, and there was quite a bit of decent
quality real-time coverage. Congrats to the exp 10 crew on what looked
like a smooth operation, at least for the parts I watched.

Slightly OT, the fact that both suits had red stripes (as opposed to
the usual red and blue) made them quite hard to tell appart. Chow was
supposed to have an american flag patch on his, but that wasn't visible
in many situations. I suppose this didn't have much impact on ground
controllers, who weren't expecting live video anyway.

> The ISS EVA is still about an hour away, but NASA spokesman
> Rob Navias says that the US segment's Ku-band antenna has
> gotten too cold and therefore has been 'parked' and will not
> actively track NASA's TDRS satellites to relay TV images (the images will be
> recorded on board and played back later).

Reply to this Message

Space Forum / Shuttle / January 2005

No Real-Time TV from Spacewalk