ISS Computer Problems

After a beautiful, seemingly perfect launch, the mission of STS 117 has experienced a couple disturbing problems. NASA still seems confident that the torn thermal tile isn't a critical issue. That said, however, NASA has added an extra spacewalk to the mission, partly to repair the tile. NASA says repairing it in space before reentry would be potentially loss costly than waiting until the shuttle returned and possibly having a bigger repair job.

The second problem involves the Russian-built computer that keeps ISS properly oriented in space. That is a critical issue. Currently, Atlantis is maintaining ISS's proper orientaation. Without orientation control, the station would tumble through space, making resupply impossible and rendering ISS useless. Indeed, in the worst case-- if the computer problems cannot be fixed before the shuttle has to come home-- the station might have to be abandoned.

NASA says the problem can be fixed, however. We should also remember that the Russians have decades of experience in operating space stations, from Salyut to Mir to ISS. The assumption must be that they know how to do this; the computer program that seems to be balking may have its roots in a program thirty years old.

This computer problem points out the complexity of spaceflight. If it is successfully ironed out, though, this effort will also show how robust the systems and machines that have been developed to explore space actually are.