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| Image above: With the tracks of the crawler transporter
visible in the foreground, Space Shuttle Atlantis is in position at
Launch Pad 39B for lift off of mission STS-115 to the International
Space Photo Station. Photo credit: NASA/Troy Cryder |
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Watch NASA TV
Shuttle, station missions ahead are most challenging ever
Program managers and the six-member crew of the next space shuttle Atlantis
flight will participate in a series of media briefings Friday, Aug. 11,
at the Johnson Space Center, Houston.
With the remaining shuttle missions, NASA will embark on a series of
flights as difficult as any in history to complete the International Space
Station.
"The flights ahead will be the most complex and challenging we've
ever carried out for construction of the International Space Station in
orbit," said Mike Suffredini, NASA station program manager. "The
station literally becomes a new spacecraft with each assembly mission,
and that will be true starting this year with dramatic changes in its
cooling and power systems, habitable volume, utilization capability as
well as its appearance."
The station is nearly halfway through assembly. The next four flights
will bring new truss segments, massive structural girders, to the complex.
The new segments will increase the mass of the station by almost 40 tons.
Two of the trusses include huge sets of solar array wings, totaling more
than 17,000 square feet and more than 130,000 solar cells. The new segments
include giant rotary joints to allow the tips of the station "backbone"
to move as the massive panels track the sun.
Together, the new arrays will add 50 kilowatts of power for the complex.
The increased electrical power will set the stage for the addition of
European and Japanese laboratories that will far surpass any previous
research capability in space.
The installation of the new truss segments and unfurling of the arrays
require unprecedented robotic operations. Those operations will use the
shuttle and station's Canadian-built mechanical arms to delicately maneuver
school bus-sized station components into place. The operations will rely
heavily on the station's mobile transporter, a sort of space railway that
positions the robotic arm along the truss to install the components.
Later this year, the station and shuttle crews face a unique challenge
to activate a permanent cooling system and the new power sources. They
must rewire the orbiting laboratory and change its electrical supplies
without interrupting the continuous operation of any of its critical systems.
Once the power grid is in place, additional shuttle flights will launch
a connecting node and the European and Japanese
laboratories.
"The assembly of the station on these flights has no parallel in
space history," Suffredini said. "We have planned, studied and
trained for these missions for years. We know they will be hard, and we
may encounter the unexpected. But we are eager to get started, and there
is tremendous excitement building in NASA and among our international
partners."
The station's assembly and maintenance in orbit, the long-duration spaceflight
experience gained aboard the complex, and the research into the effects
of long spaceflights contribute to NASA's plans for future missions to
return to the moon and travel beyond.
The current station represents only a fraction of its eventual capabilities.
Between now and station completion:
* The volume and mass of the station will more than double. The space
station will be larger than a five-bedroom house with a cabin volume of
33,023 cubic feet. When completed, it will have a mass of almost a million
pounds.
* The number of research facilities on the complex will more than triple.
The percentage of total power dedicated to research will increase by 84
percent.
* The total power generated by the complex will almost quadruple.
* The station's truss, currently 134 feet long, will grow to 354 feet,
the longest man-made object to fly in space.
* To construct the station, more than 100 international space flights
will have been conducted on five different types of vehicles launched
from four different countries.
* More than 140 spacewalks, totaling nearly 800 hours, dedicated to assembly
and maintenance of the space station will have been completed. That is
more spacewalks than were conducted in all of U.S. space history before
construction of the station began.
* There have been 115 space shuttle flights, of which 18 were dedicated
to the space station. With 15 remaining assembly flights planned to the
station, more than one-quarter of all shuttle flights will have been dedicated
to station assembly.
Friday's briefings about the mission will be carried live on NASA TV
beginning at 9 a.m. EDT. For NASA TV schedules, downlink information and
links to streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For information about the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
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