Shuttle crew completes daring wing repair
The space shuttle Discovery has uncoupled from the International Space Station and is heading back to Earth, after an eventful 11 day stay in orbit. The shuttle's journey home will take two days, and it is scheduled to land back at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Wednesday afternoon. The crew of Discovery spent time this …
Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
I can't remember to pack them when I go away for a dinner and yet NASA packs several spare pairs for formal dinners on the ISS!
I sense a NASA merchandising opportunity.
Just in time for Conspicuous-consumption-mas too.
"the unextended wing would have undermined the strength of the ISS' structure."
The damage only undermined the strength of the solar panel, not the whole ISS.
Reuters (your source?) made the same mistake.
It is actually quite possible that damage to one component could affect any of the other components of the station. In space you have to worry a lot about resonance and momentum causing torques on manuevers, and a component that doesn't behave as designed could potentially cause damaging vibrations through out the structure.
I don't know if that is the case, but I know that I wouldn't exactly want to orbit in a space station with anything unpredictable going on.
