I just read the news below and it made me think about the acceleration imparted upon the ISS during such a manoeuvre. I wonder what the typical thrust of such a burn is. Also if the ISS is not perfectly symmetrical about the thrust vector then there will be a torque imposed causing a rotation about the nadir-zenith axis and an inclination altering vector component. I know these will be very slight effects but I wonder what they would be. It only takes a minute velocity vector to cause a significant change over a number of weeks and years. I’m not worried about the z-axis quite so much, because changing the altitude is the whole reason of the burn (or maybe I should).

Does anybody have any ideas what the target delta-v tolerances are for a successful burn? I wonder whether the Russians and the US worked to different tolerances in the past when they both had their own Space Stations and, if different, how a compromise was achieved. What would be the Engineering constraints the govern the calculation of such tolerances?

Marcus Massey 51degN 0degW
www.marcusmassey.com

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From CBS Space News:

Russian engineers must resolve a problem that cut short a space station
rocket firing today about three minutes into a planned 18-minute 22-second
burn. The rocket firing, using engines in the Progress-23 supply ship
docked to the aft of the Russian Zvezda command module, is required to
adjust the station's orbit, permitting the shuttle to dock on the third
day of its 12-day mission. The next opportunity to complete the
interrupted reboost maneuver is Friday.