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International Partners Predict Space Station Completion by 2010

03 March 2006

Modified assembly sequence calls for 16 space shuttle flights

By Cheryl Pellerin
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The heads of space agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States announced March 2 that the International Space Station will be completed by 2010, without major changes to the original design.

The partners met at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to review space station cooperation and endorse a change to the station configuration and assembly sequence.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said the main change is that use of the station will be deferred as the partners assemble the station piece by piece in a series of missions to come.

“Our earlier plans,” Griffin said, “which were better plans, frankly, allowed us to utilize [the space station] as we built it to a much greater extent than we can now accommodate. That is the difference you are seeing, but the end product is very much as we have envisioned it.”

The new assembly sequence includes 16 shuttle flights and a combination of transportation systems provided by Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States to complete the space station.

The schedule builds in almost a year's cushion for completing the assembly by 2010.

The completed station will have a mass of about more than 450,000 kilograms. It will measure 110 meters across and 88 meters long, with almost half a hectare of solar panels to provide electrical power to six laboratories.

European Space Agency (ESA) Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said ESA’s short-term technical milestones are to deliver the Columbus laboratory to Kennedy Space Center by the end of May 2006, and to launch the European Automated Cargo Vehicle, an unpiloted cargo carrier, in May 2007 – an earlier launch than originally scheduled.

The science module Columbus is ESA's largest single contribution to the space station. During the 4.5-meter cylindrical module’s 10-year lifespan, Earth-based researchers – sometimes with help from the space station crew – will conduct thousands of experiments in life sciences, materials science, fluid physics and other disciplines.

“The most important result of this International Space Station is partnership,” Dordain added, “and each time we meet I think we consolidate that partnership.”

In Japan, said Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) President Keiji Tachikawa, JAXA has been steadily preparing for Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) operations and is progressing with development of the Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV), which will supplement the space shuttle's role of transporting goods to the space station.

The JEM, called Kibo – which means "hope" in Japanese – is Japan's first human space facility. Experiments in Kibo will focus on space medicine, biology, Earth observations, material production, biotechnology and communications research.

JEM and its equipment will be launched on three space shuttle flights – one in 2007 and two in 2008.

The station's crew will expand to three people with the Atlantis STS-121 mission, now targeted for a May launch. By 2009, the crew will expand to six members.

Mission Specialist Thomas Reiter, representing ESA, will travel to the space station aboard Atlantis, then remain on the station to work with flight engineer Valery Tokarev and space station commander William McArthur under a contract between the ESA and Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency.

Key space station elements also scheduled for launch over the next few years include:

• Three more power trusses, the components that generate power for space station modules;

• ESA Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), an unmanned vehicle that provides the space station with pressurized cargo, water, air, nitrogen, oxygen and attitude-control propellant, removes waste from the station and re-boosts the station to a higher altitude to compensate for atmospheric drag;

• U.S. Node 2, an aluminum structure that increases living and working space inside the station to about 500 cubic meters and allows the addition of international laboratories from Europe and Japan to the station;

• Canadian two-armed Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (“Dexter”), a two-armed robot, called the Canada Hand, that can handle delicate assembly tasks now handled by astronauts during space walks; and

• Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module, a component of the space station that will be used for experiments, docking and cargo, serve as a crew work and rest area, and be equipped with an altitude-control system that the space station can use as a backup.

At the briefing, NASA’s Griffin praised the international partners for their help with space station assembly.

“Our international partners are … bringing to bear – with the HTV from JAXA and ATV from ESA – substantial resupply capability,” Griffin said. “Our Russian partners have steadfastly sustained the station while the shuttle has been down.”

He added, “This is truly an international project that I think we can all be proud of.”

The equipment launch schedule and space station configuration graphic are available on the NASA Web site.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)