SPACE EXPLORATION | Expanding the boundaries of human understanding
16 June 2008
Shuttle Returns After Expanding Space Station Size, Capability
NASA chooses spacesuits for astronaut trips in new Orion space capsule
Washington -- Space shuttle Discovery and its crew touched down June 14 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing the STS-124 mission to install and outfit the largest component of the Kibo laboratory from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The mission included three spacewalks to install and outfit the bus-sized pressurized module and activate its robotic arm system. The lab's logistics module, delivered and installed in a temporary location in March, was attached to its permanent position on top of the pressurized module.
“Discovery is rolling out at runway one-five at the Kennedy Space Center,” Mission Control Houston announced mid-morning on June 14, “wrapping up a 5.7-million-mile [9.1-million-kilometer] mission to further expand a global city in space.”
STS-124 was the second of three flights to carry Kibo components to the International Space Station.
“This success was a great step forward for Japan,” JAXA Vice President Kaoru Mamiya said, “for exploration of space and for further manned space activities. ... We now join the sharing of all this possibility of [the International Space Station] and to contribute to this great triumph for international cooperation.”
NEXT STEPS
Mark Kelly commanded the flight. The crew included pilot Ken Ham, mission specialists Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan, Mike Fossum and Greg Chamitoff, and JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.
Chamitoff stayed aboard the space station, replacing Expedition 17 flight engineer Garrett Reisman, who returned to Earth on Discovery after nearly three months on the station. Chamitoff will return on shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission, targeted for launch November 10.
During the next shuttle flight, scheduled for October 8, Atlantis will carry seven astronauts on an 11-day repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. (See “Discovery to Deliver Heart of Japanese Lab to Space Station.”)
The Hubble mission will create a 3.5-month gap in shuttle missions to the space station, but Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations, said the downtime will give mission control centers for the European Space Agency’s Columbus lab and JAXA’s Kibo lab a chance to work with the space station crew to begin using the new science facilities.
“Even though the shuttle’s not flying,” he said, “we can be very busy with [the] space station, learning how to operate this international facility and getting better prepared [for] when flights start coming back in the fall and we start preparing for a six-person crew” on the space station in 2009.
Gerstenmaier said the pace of work on the space station is increasing and astronauts are beginning to work in space routinely.
During STS-124, for example, while some astronauts were doing spacewalks, others were outfitting the new Kibo module. For one spacewalk, astronauts took a failed camera from its place outside the space station, fixed it inside, then replaced it during another spacewalk.
“What we’re learning are the skills, the maintainability things, that we’re going to use as we push on out to the moon and Mars,” Gerstenmaier said. “We’re starting to break that tie to the planet Earth.”
NEW SPACESUIT
NASA on June 12 awarded a contract to Oceaneering International Inc. of Houston to design, develop and produce new spacesuits that will protect astronauts during the Constellation Program’s Ares-Orion voyages to the space station on the new Orion crew capsule beginning in 2015 and to the moon’s surface by 2020.
"The award of the spacesuit contract completes the spaceflight hardware requirements for the Constellation Program's first human flight in 2015," Jeff Hanley, Constellation program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement.
NASA will need suits and support systems for up to four astronauts on moon voyages and for six space station travelers. For short trips to the moon, the suit will support a week's worth of moon walks. The system also must support the number of moon walks needed during potential six-month lunar expeditions.
The suit and support systems will offer protection in the launch and landing environments, including against problems like spacecraft cabin leaks.
The contract, which runs from June 2008 to September 2014, has a value of $183.8 million. Oceaneering and its subcontractors will do design, development and test work culminating in the manufacture, assembly and first flight of the suit components needed for astronauts aboard the Orion crew exploration vehicle. The contract includes initial work on the suit design needed for the lunar surface.
"I am excited about the new partnership between NASA and Oceaneering," said Glenn Lutz, project manager for the spacesuit system at Johnson. "Now it is time for our spacesuit team to begin the journey together that ultimately will put new sets of boot prints on the moon."
