November 2007 - Page 2 of 7

2007-11-25

November, 24th ISS spacewalk a success

Astronauts Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani conducted a successful spacewalk yesterday. It was the last in a series of important construction space walks which readied the international space station ISS to receive the European Columbus module.

Columbus will be delivered by space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-122 mission, set to launch from Kennedy Space Center on December, 6th 2007. As such, success of the spacewalk was also important for STS-122. Without it, a launch would not have been possible.

Now, with the successful spacewalk and everything going very smooth in the processing of Atlantis, it looks like weather is becoming the only constraint for the launch attempt. This is good news, because STS-122 has a very short launch window. It extends for just one week. So there is not much room for delays.

Here is also some more detail information from the NASA homepage:

Spacewalkers Peggy Whitson and Dan Tani completed Saturday’s spacewalk at 11:54 a.m. EST. The 7 hour and 4 minute excursion started an hour and 10 minutes early. They completed their main tasks well ahead of the timeline then moved on to perform some get-ahead work.

The two spacewalkers moved the 300-pound, 18.5 foot Loop B fluid tray from the station’s main truss to the port side of Destiny and completed fluid and electrical connections.

Tani did an inspection of a Solar Alpha Rotary Joint that had previously shown increased power consumption and vibration while rotating as it followed the Sun. Whitson deployed and mated cables to be used as part of the Station to Shuttle Power Transfer System, or SSPTS. A portable foot restraint was also installed on Node 2 for upcoming spacewalks when the European Columbus laboratory is installed on the STS-122 mission.

If you like even more details, you can find them on an additional NASA page devoted to Saturday’s spacewalk.

2007-11-23

Spaceports: Obama Would Delay Moon Return

I have some time to review other space blogs right now (an advantage of doing business with the US – if it is a holiday over there, I’ve some spare time, too ;)). I read this interesting report on potential cuts into NASA’s budget:

Spaceports: Obama Would Delay Moon Return

I do not like the idea at all. What needs to be known is that the money that fuels NASA’s Constellation moon program already is taken from the regular budget. There was no budget increase that came together with the plan to go to the moon again. NASA’s science program is already suffering very badly.

If now additional funds are taken from NASA’s budget, that would IMHO severely compromise NASA’s ability to do useful missions. Not to mention that fact that it would be depending on Russia for all its manned space flight activities for at least a decade.

Even though I am German, I do not at all like this idea. But, granted, it’s the same problem everywhere: Germany cut the space budget that much that even though we have a number of slot in current ESA and NASA missions, we do not have any funding left to use them :( …

2007-11-23

Apollo Mission in Pictures…

I just found a nice link I’d like to share – it is a nice, quick look at NASA’s Apollo mission in pictures. I personally think that the new “moon race” carried out now is at least as interesting as the Apollo missions. And I find it very interesting that the NASA’s Constellation program is building on so many Apollo concepts.

Give the link a try, the pictures are really inspiring. BTW: does anybody have a recording of the old moon TV coverage? Having a few samples online would be really great…

2007-11-22

Unlinke Apollo, Orion will touchdown on land

I just read an interesting article. With the Constellation program re-using so many of the clever Apollo-day concepts, I was under the impression that Orion capsules would splash down into the pacific, too. But I was (probably) wrong.

NASA engineers plan to do Orion touchdowns on land – just like the Russian Soyuz capsules. While it is challenging to do a land touchdown, it has a number of advantages. The Orion capsule is reusable (planned to be usable for up to ten missions). A splashdown in salt water means a lot of corrosion potential and thus a number of problems. It also requires an expensive fleet of recovery ships. So NASA has its preferences. On the picture, you can see testing of airbags that should absorb some of the remaining energy after the descent (though it is not expected to be much, Orion glides down on parachutes).

The landing area is supposed to be in the western Unites States. That comes at no surprise, a lightly populated area is definitely a plus for such an endeavor.

An ocean splashdown, however, is yet not fully ruled out. NASA keeps this option in case it is needed.

If you’d like to dig down into all the details, I recommend this Scientific American Article.

2007-11-22

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish a happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers! As it looks, most NASA folks will also enjoy a nice four-day weekend. Processing flow on space shuttle Atlantis STS-122 mission seems to be so smooth that only very limited work is scheduled for now until Sunday evening. It is really nice to see that the engineers worked so well that this is possible.

As far as me is concerned, I do not have a holiday over here but obviously there will not be much to report. So do not expect too many STS-122 related news. Except, of course, on the upcoming ISS spacewalk (November, 24th), which is critical for an on-time launch of Atlantis.

Enjoy the holiday!

2007-11-21

recent rsyslog changes

I am back to my routine of posting rsyslog changes. You may also imply that this means I am actually developing some things (and not just writing about it ;)). After I had a somewhat slow start today, things evolved quite nicely this afternoon. If I did not overlook anything important, I even managed to complete the “clean unload process” for loadable modules. That also brought me back to good working knowledge of the code. Actually, I am at least a day ahead of my schedule. But, of course, I’ll check if I overlooked something – but that’ll be tomorrow.

So on to the promised change log (it also covers some past days where I had not reported):

2007-11-19
– applied gssapi patch from varmojfekoj – gss-api is now supported
– added some debug message to ommysql
2007-11-20
– added user doc for gssapi patch from varmojfekoj – thanks!
– bumped version number to 1.20.0, because of new gss api functionality
2007-11-21
– begun to look at dynamic module unloading – this is currently a hack
and works with the mysql module only (which is the only one, so there
is no problem in practice. But it would be good to begin to do it right ;)
– added new modExit() entry point to loadable module interface
– added an identifier to command handler table – need to identify which
command handler entries need to be removed when module is unloaded
– added support so that linkedlist key can be used for owner handle
– enhanced llExecFunc to support deletion of list elements (on behalf of
user function being called, slight interface change)
– enhanced linkedlist class so that list elements can now be deleted based
on the key value they have
– created entry point so that CfSysLine handlers are removed on modExit()
– some cleanup
– modules are now correctly unloaded and de-initialized

2007-11-21

going back to rsyslog coding…

As promised, I have started to look at the rsyslog code this morning again and done so in an effort to enhance it. My first target is unloading loadable modules in a “well done” way. So far, this is a hack that does only work because ommysql (and probably a postgres module basing on it soon) does not use some of the interface functionality. Namely cfSysLineHandlers do not work with the current code.

So what I am set now for is doing it right and making sure that a loadable module can be cleanly unloaded under all circumstances. That, of course, requires some interface changes, but nothing major (keep in mind the interface is not yet finalized!). This work provides the basis for upcoming work, which will utilize many more loadable modules for other functionality, too. So it is a critical task.

I have to admit, though, that I think I need another day or so to get fully re-acquainted to the code. There was really a toll from my absence and I begin to notice it ;)

2007-11-21

ISS Crew successfully completed Spacewalk

The international space station’s expedition 16 crew successfully completed an important spacewalk yesterday. It was needed to get the ISS ready for the arrival of space shuttle Atlantis, which delivers the Columbus space lab. This spacewalk, as well as another one scheduled for November, 24th, is needed to be able to attach Columbus. So successful completion of these tasks is a critical perquisite to launch STS-122.

The spacewalk was threatened by a problem with the spacesuits, which thankfully got cleared a few days ago. The ISS spacewalking schedule was not affected by the problem investigation.

This series of spacewalks is needed to attach the Harmony module to its permanent location. Harmony was delivered during Discovery’s STS-120 mission. It could not be attached to its permanent location because that was used as the docking port for Discovery. So it was stowed at a temporary place and has been removed after Discovery departed. Yesterday’s spacewalk, as well as the upcoming one, is dedicated to rewire Harmony to the station, so that the module is fully functional. In December, Atlantis will delivery the Columbus module, which will be attached to the Harmony module.

Visit NASA’s space station page for a detailed report on the spacewalk.

2007-11-21

Countdown demonstation test for STS-122

The terminal countdown demonstration test for Atlantis’ STS-122 is being carried out at Kennedy Space Center. During the test, astronauts and ground crews practice count down procedures including emergency procedures that will protect the astronauts during a mishap immediately before launch. This includes a ride in the basket evacuation system as well as driving the emergency escape tank (which, in popular rumor, is always an astronaut’s favorite). The astronauts also try on the launch and entry suites, as can be seen on the picture above.

In NASA‘s latest information on the shuttle home page I noticed a slight slip in launch time. I now says 4:31pm and I think it previously was 4:38pm. But I guess these seven minutes don’t really make a difference. So, everything looks still quite well. If this is another as-schedule shuttle launch in a very successful 2007? Let’s hope for the best…

And here is the relevant quote from the NASA shuttle home page (they don’t archive it, its a shame):

It looks a lot like launch day at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the crew of mission STS-122 put on their pressure suits and get ready to climb aboard space shuttle Atlantis. However, the work is all part of the countdown dress rehearsal designed to get the launch team and astronauts set for the real thing on Dec. 6.

The crew of seven men, including two from the European Space Agency, will follow their normal launch day routine including riding in the astrovan to Launch Pad 39A and taking their places inside Atlantis.

They will sit inside Atlantis as the pretend countdown winds down. The engines will not ignite, of course, and the astronauts will practice emergency escape procedures on their launch pad to conclude the drill.

Atlantis is targeted to launch December 6 at 4:31 p.m. EST on its 11-day mission to the International Space Station.

2007-11-20

rsyslog- what’s next?

I posted an outline of my next actions on the rsyslog mailing list and would like to share it here as well:

I have thought about setting up a full lab for GSS-API before carrying on. For now, I have decided to NOT do that. I am sure that the contributors have tested it quite well and the code that I have reviewed looks excellent.

So I will pull it in as is and wait for some feedback from the field (with the assumption “no feedback” equals “OK”).

I will then begin to look at the loadable module de-initialization. This is not really clean in the current release, but that’s no problem because modules never get unloaded. However, in the long term we need this to be clean.

The mysterious segfault issue is still dangling. I was hesitant to do any larger-scale new development without fixing it. But given the fact that it is extremely hard to find, and obviously happens very seldom, I’ll continue developing. I am right now looking into upgrading the dev machine to an x64 OS, where most of the problems happened. My hope is that I will see a segfault during further development work and then hopefully be able to tackle it. I still think that the segfault must be well understood and fixed before I go into some serious multithreading redesign. As such, unfortunately, this issue still holds some of the work scheduled for the next *major* version.

I thought I give you an update here in my end (will also post this to the blog for the others). Any feedback/suggestion is highly welcome.