Looking at the way the system is rigged to the wall of the station is quite humorous to me in how it is taking full advantage of being weightless. From the arm the camera is attached to the tracker, and then the tracker being mounted to the one arm just seems like it would collapse on itself if it were on terra firma.
I've seen some crazy/shitty rigging done, but this one gets a pass because it's in spaaaaaaaace
fairly easily how? bold statement with no explanation of your ideas on where the wasted mass is.
the front/back plates? looks like your standard 3/8" aluminum plates. could they have used 1/4"? other materials like plastic/carbon would probably not have passed NASA requirements. plastic/carbon could chip into small pieces which is a very bad thing on the ISS. so you're left with a metal, and aluminum is pretty safe choice. it's clear there are several holes in these plates that are not tapped and are there solely as a means to reduce the weight.
moving the pieces closer for a tighter fit resulting in a overall smaller unit size? this thing is meant for ease of use. extra space affords that, and making it more compact complicates its use.
True, I wonder how that would not be a factor, surely they always have stuff they could send up to the ISS as a backup. So if they would have made this 500g lighter, they could have sent 500g more food, for example.
I also can't imagine that the resupply flights are volume limited instead of mass.
NASA's 2-year cert for electronics requirement is puzzling. I understand rules about mission critical electronics: you want to (a) depend on it and (b) avoid fire, magic smoke, and blowing breakers on the Station. But for a non-critical application, you don't care about (a) and the risk of (b) from a 5V/2A microcontroller with a worm drive motor seems reasonably remote.
True, but even for a fully mechanical one, the one shown seems very heavy. It looks like weight wasn’t a real concern, which is strange. The plates are very thick and a lot of material could have been removed to reduce weight.
My only thought is 'RCSPAST' is the joke, but I still don't get it.
Edit: I think maybe Don's reputation as an in-space inventor (first patent for something invented in space) means the clock spring device got a long and contrived name for it's quite basic function.
I think its just them being overly technical on the naming the mechanism, ie "Rotational Coil Spring Powered", rather than just being a plain ol Windup Star Tracker
Looking at the way the system is rigged to the wall of the station is quite humorous to me in how it is taking full advantage of being weightless. From the arm the camera is attached to the tracker, and then the tracker being mounted to the one arm just seems like it would collapse on itself if it were on terra firma.
I've seen some crazy/shitty rigging done, but this one gets a pass because it's in spaaaaaaaace
This tripped me up:
So either this should be "... unless there was no other option", or I'm completely misunderstanding.Neat.
Debbie Downer: Looks like it fairly easily could have been made with like 50% less mass.
Perhaps that wouldn't have mattered though.
fairly easily how? bold statement with no explanation of your ideas on where the wasted mass is.
the front/back plates? looks like your standard 3/8" aluminum plates. could they have used 1/4"? other materials like plastic/carbon would probably not have passed NASA requirements. plastic/carbon could chip into small pieces which is a very bad thing on the ISS. so you're left with a metal, and aluminum is pretty safe choice. it's clear there are several holes in these plates that are not tapped and are there solely as a means to reduce the weight.
moving the pieces closer for a tighter fit resulting in a overall smaller unit size? this thing is meant for ease of use. extra space affords that, and making it more compact complicates its use.
They've got the camera mounted to it using a long moment arm in one of the photos. The tracker needs to be really rigid to hold it I'd think.
"Long" = like 70 cm.
True, I wonder how that would not be a factor, surely they always have stuff they could send up to the ISS as a backup. So if they would have made this 500g lighter, they could have sent 500g more food, for example.
I also can't imagine that the resupply flights are volume limited instead of mass.
NASA's 2-year cert for electronics requirement is puzzling. I understand rules about mission critical electronics: you want to (a) depend on it and (b) avoid fire, magic smoke, and blowing breakers on the Station. But for a non-critical application, you don't care about (a) and the risk of (b) from a 5V/2A microcontroller with a worm drive motor seems reasonably remote.
Did you mean to post this under my comment? I don’t see the connection.
Yes - it might have been 500g lighter if it wasn't fully mechanical.
True, but even for a fully mechanical one, the one shown seems very heavy. It looks like weight wasn’t a real concern, which is strange. The plates are very thick and a lot of material could have been removed to reduce weight.
> Don is a bit of a machinist himself, so we decided to have some fun with the device name.
I don’t get it, anyone able to explain?
My only thought is 'RCSPAST' is the joke, but I still don't get it.
Edit: I think maybe Don's reputation as an in-space inventor (first patent for something invented in space) means the clock spring device got a long and contrived name for it's quite basic function.
I think its just them being overly technical on the naming the mechanism, ie "Rotational Coil Spring Powered", rather than just being a plain ol Windup Star Tracker