Moving the ISS?

[bigdad84]

I've been doing a lot of reading about the ISS lately, and was wondering.... Is it possible to move it, into a lunar orbit? They do regular station keeping, so why not hook up an extreme ATV, and boost the thing to the moon?

[Motokid600]

Well.. think about it. In KSP you make a LARGE station. Strap a booster on to it and fire engines.. what do you think will happen?

[bigdad84]

Well.. think about it. In KSP you make a LARGE station. Strap a booster on to it and fire engines.. what do you think will happen?

But KSP is a lot different than in real life...

[Motokid600]

Not in this sense. Newton's first law still applies. The booster will go.. the rest of the station will not. It will fold in half. The station wasn't designed to withstand a lateral force like that. Especially the force needed for a TLI burn ( and then again for the insertion burn ) Unless we REALLY did it kerbal style and strutted the thing all to hell.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Motokid600

[Ralathon]

You probably could move it to lunar orbit if you really wanted to. IIRC it's getting a VASIMR drive pretty soon, so a few shipments of fuel should give it the needed dV (Even if it would take months to raise the orbit to the moon).

Why would you want to though? It's not like the ISS could do significantly different science in lunar orbit. It'd still be a 0G environment, you'd just have a different view. Not to mention you now need a saturn V size rocket to ferry crew to and from the station and you no longer have a quick escape route if you need to bail out quickly.

[K^2]

You can raise ISS's orbit until it matches Lunar. So you can stick it in on of the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. The problem is going to be getting captured by the Moon. ISS cannot withstand any significant acceleration, and getting a capture with minimal thrust in a real 3-body scenario seems like a huge challenge.

[MBobrik]

Van allen belts. You have to stay under them, or you have to provide all the shielding by yourself.

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ISS cannot withstand any significant acceleration, and getting a capture with minimal thrust in a real 3-body scenario seems like a huge challenge.

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There have been ion drive probes which flew to the moon with minimal acceleration. The same can be done in principle with ISS.

Edited January 5, 2014 by MBobrik

[Motokid600]

Yea, but an ION drive can't brake a craft into Lunar Orbit. A free return flyby might be possible, but.. then what? The TWR needed for orbit insertion would collapse the structure. Unless again we added more struts then you can count.

[K^2]

There have been ion drive probes which flew to the moon with minimal acceleration. The same can be done in principle with ISS.

On a fly-by or actually getting a capture? If you have a link, I'd be interested in taking a look at what sort of maneuvering it'd take.

[Kryten]

On a fly-by or actually getting a capture? If you have a link, I'd be interested in taking a look at what sort of maneuvering it'd take.

He's referring to SMART-1, which entered lunar orbit, albeit starting from GTO.

[K^2]

He's referring to SMART-1, which entered lunar orbit, albeit starting from GTO.

That's not a problem. You can build up to GTO from LEO on VASMIRs. Might have to refuel here and there, but nobody said it has to be on the single "tank" of propellant.

I looked at the info on SMART-1. That's actually a surprisingly smooth transition. I didn't realize there were such simple transfer options. So yeah, looking at that, I'd say it's definitely possible to move ISS to Moon orbit. Might cost a hell of a lot and take a long time, but it can be done.

I'll have to think about this. Maybe I'm thinking about it all wrong, and 3-body actually makes things easier due to L1. Hm...

[MBobrik]

He's referring to SMART-1

that's right. I thought there has been another, but I checked, and it used conventional hydrazine thrusters. So not "probes" but "probe".

[Faark]

Since we are talking about changing the orbit of the ISS... what would it cost to move her into a higher "parking" orbit for future generations instead of letting her burn up? On earth we have a bunch of landmarks for nearly every epochs, but most of our space habitation history trends to "disintegrate" once its out of service

It could be a great tourist attraction for future generations, maybe even enough to make profit^^

[MBobrik]

It could be a great tourist attraction for future generations, maybe even enough to make profit^^

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Not in the short term. And as our civilization nears its close, short term thinking is more and more the only game in the town down here.

[softweir]

The engines could do it, probably, given extra fuel tanks and a few fuel deliveries. Achieving the delta-v needed would take a lot of time and - because it has such low acceleration and a VERY slow turn rate - would require some nifty navigation so it would require years of planning and some very precise changes of orientation, but it might well be able to get there - assuming 100% engine reliability and all other factors being allowed for.

Those "other factors" might be killers.

The ISS's cooling and power systems were designed with the assumption that it would spend slightly over 50% of its time in sunlight and slightly less than 50% in shadow - change that too much and it would either overheat or run out of electricity. On the way to the moon it would be very likely to do both! So, in order to migrate to Lunar orbit, it would require significant upgrades to power and cooling systems.

I'm also not sure the electronics are sufficiently radiation-hardened to survive outside Earth's magnetosphere: probably, given that they have to survive for years in orbit, but further up things get even hotter.

The ISS depends on regular supply trips. A transfer to lunar orbit might take a very long time and once it had got going it would be beyond any supply capability we currently have. If it used fuel too fast, or too many redundant units failed then it would be beyond any chance of restocking or replacement.

And finally, there is the political situation. A lot of the partner nations managing the ISS do so on the understanding it will be available for Earth Science and microgravity projects. Even mention sending it to the moon and they would be furious that their orbital lab would be snatched away from them. (Yes, the microgravity research currently being conducted would continue - until it needed to be taken home for analysis.) Funding would dry up faster than than a pool of **** in the Sahara, and you wouldn't even have a LEO station, let alone a lunar orbit station!

[maccollo]

Since we are talking about changing the orbit of the ISS... what would it cost to move her into a higher "parking" orbit for future generations instead of letting her burn up? On earth we have a bunch of landmarks for nearly every epochs, but most of our space habitation history trends to "disintegrate" once its out of service

It could be a great tourist attraction for future generations, maybe even enough to make profit^^

I would guess the cost of raising the orbit would be quite cheap compared to the cost of maintaining such a large station in moon orbit.

As for making in a tourist attraction.... Maybe? I know there was some company that wanted to turn mier into a space hotel, but the Russians said "Nope" and de-orbited it.

[Aghanim]

Actually, I have tried to move the ISS once, in Orbiter. I cheated some DGIVs to the ISS docking ports, and fire up their engines. It makes ISS spins although killrot (SAS) has been enabled.

[DerekL1963]

Here's what will happen if you try to move the ISS with a magic drive that somehow doesn't cause it bend and break in most inconvenient ways: First, it's electronics will fry as it passes through the Van Allen belts and beyond - it's only shielded for the (very) benign radiation environment of LEO. Next, it will freeze solid - it's thermal system is balanced around having the relatively warm Earth filling most of it's sky. (Yes Virginia, things in full sunlight in space can freeze - Q.V. Apollo 13.)

[NovaSilisko]

Not to mention once you've got the now-bricked ISS into lunar orbit, you now lack any means to get crew or cargo to it for several years. Without adequate station keeping, the station eventually drifts to an unstable lunar orbit and, after a few years, smacks into the surface with a spectacular flash visible from earth's surface. NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos collectively ask themselves "why the hell did we do that again"

[Scotius]

Those pesky mascons... Is it possible to build a long term space station around the Moon at all? When we begin proper exploration of our satellite, such station would be very useful. I guess it would require almost as much stationkeeping as ISS now.

[Nibb31]

The ISS is designed for low earth orbit, which is a totally different environment to lunar orbit. It would be like converting a Mini Cooper for off-roading. You could do it, but you would have to do so much conversion and redesign work that you would be better off buying a Land Rover directly.

As for raising the ISS for future generations, it's also a silly idea. You can't simply power it down. Without station-keeping, gravitational forces would end up pulling it apart. Pieces would break off. Paint and insulation will flake. It will just end up becoming a cloud of debris and a hazard for any future space missions.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Nibb31

[K^2]

Without station-keeping, gravitational forces would end up pulling it apart.

That's just silly.

[Nibb31]

More specifically, without station-keeping, it would simply tumble out of control. After a while, the various forces induced by the erratic spinning, mass imbalance, drag, fluid leaks, and gravitational pull, will cause stress, fatigue and structural failures.

[K^2]

Tidal pull would align first moment of density distribution radially over time, which means the station will be making one revolution per orbit rather than tumble randomly. In a high orbit, the station can stay there pretty much indefinitely. Or more specifically, until it has a chance encounter with an asteroid or other debris.

[Nibb31]

Drag from the solar arrays would have more effect than tidal pull.