Aug 13 2007
From The Space Library
Astronauts Richard A. Mastracchio and Dafydd R. Williams undertook the second EVA of STS-118, to install the 600-pound (272-kilogram) CMG on the Z1 segment of the ISS’s truss, and to remove and replace the gyroscope that had failed in late 2006. The defective gyroscope was one of four such devices controlling the ISS’s position. NASA announced it had added a new computer program, the Inductive Monitoring System, to assist in monitoring these four gyroscopes. NASA had begun using the system earlier in 2007. David L. Iverson, the computer scientist at NASA’s ARC who had led the five-year effort to develop the new system, explained that the purpose of the software was to alert ground controllers to anomalies, so that they could analyze the situation immediately and take any necessary preventive measures. During the test phase, the new software had identified problems with the gyroscopes long before the previous system would have flagged anomalies. Engineers had also used the software program in F-18 fighter planes and in the Space Shuttle’s leading-edge impact-detection system, as well as in monitoring electric-power plants and water quality.
NASA, “New NASA Software Monitors Space Station Gyroscopes,” news release 07-201, 13 August 2007, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/aug/HQ_07201_ISS_Gyro_Software.html (accessed 14 June 2010); Traci Watson, “Endeavour Astronauts Replace Faulty Gyroscope,” USA Today, 14 August 2007.
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