Category The International Space Station

A. Establish the ISS Program Office separate from, but residing at JSC, reporting to a new Associate Administrator (AA) for ISS.

B. Consolidate prime and non-prime contracts into a minimum number of resulting contracts all reporting to the program office.

C. Develop a life cycle technical baseline and manage the ISS Program to total cost and schedule as well as fiscal year budgets.

D. Consider revising the ISS crew rotation period to 6 months and reducing the

Space Shuttle flight rate accordingly. The result would be a delay in U. S. core complete assembly sequence by up to 2 months. Target cost savings: $668m, and continue to examine Strategic Resources Review (SRR) and institutional cost reductions. Target cost savings: S350M-S450M.

E. Develop a credible program road map starting with core complete and leading to an end state that achieves expanded research potential. Include gate decisions based on demonstrated ability to execute the program and identify funding to maintain critical activities for potential enhancement options.

F. Establish research priorities. The Task Force is unanimous in that the highest research priority should be solving problems associated with long-duration human space flight, including the engineering required for human support mechanisms, and provide the Centrifuge Accommodation Module (CAM) and centrifuge as mandatory to accomplish top priority biological research. Availability as late as FY08 is unacceptable, and establish a research plan consistent with the priorities, including a prudent level of reserves, and compliant with the approved budget.

G. Provide additional crew time for scientific research through the use of extended duration Shuttle and overlap of Soyuz missions.

H. Create a Deputy Program Manager for Science position in ISS Program Office. Assign a science community representative with dual responsibility to the Program and OBPR.

I. “The IMCE Report proposes a strategy to restore confidence in the ISS Programme”

J. “The goals of the US International Space Station Programme are not well – defined”

K. “The IMCE strategy raises serious issues for the ISS International Partners”

L. “NASA cannot afford to delay”

M. Manage strategically

N. Provide aerospace products and capabilities

O. Generate knowledge

P. Communicate knowledge.

The IMCE addressed the two major concerns over the ISS programme. The problem of severe cost overruns was responsible for the introduction in the report of the new concept of bringing ISS to “American Core Complete”, rather than the original, legally agreed, “Station Complete”. Core Complete was a unilateral American decision to save money by reducing American involvement in ISS while retaining America’s role as the controlling partner in the alliance. Core Complete deleted the American Habitation Module, the American CRV, and Node-3 from the ISS design, without any negotiation with Russia and the International Partners. The decision to eliminate the Habitation Module effectively limited future Expedition crews to just three people for the foreseeable future, which would severely constrain the European and Japanese agencies’ access to their own laboratories.

The cancellation of the X-38 CRV development programme meant that the Space Shuttle would remain NASA’s only access to ISS for the foreseeable future, given that American access to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft was limited by the Iran Non-proliferation Act at that time. Even without that legislation, the idea of NASA paying the Russians to carry American astronauts to and from space had never been very palatable to the Americans, even though it would be cheaper than continuing to fly the Shuttle. Attempts to replace the Shuttle were plagued by lack of long-range goals and a too narrow focus on ISS. Problems developing the X-33 Flight Test Article proved that Lockheed-Martin’s bold talk of the VentureStar vehicle were nothing but hyperbole. The Orbital Space Plane (OSP) would be criticised as being too poorly defined and too narrowly focused on the ISS CRV role. Finally, in the wake of disaster (STS-107, with seven people onboard would be lost in February 2003), NASA would be set a new goal and the definition of a new spacecraft would become easier to complete.

The second area that the IMCE addressed was the lack of science that would be able to be completed on a station that was restricted to the new Core Complete configuration. One recommendation that the committee made was one-month-long Soyuz taxi flights. In this scenario one Expedition crew would already be in space. Their relief would be launched one month before the original crew’s occupation came to an end. The six astronauts would then work together for one month with two Soyuz CRVs docked to the station. At the end of that month the original crew would return to Earth, leaving the new crew in orbit. In turn their relief crew would be launched one month before the end of their occupation and the two crews would work together for one month before the second crew returned to Earth, leaving the third crew alone in orbit. Due to restrictions on consumables, Shuttle flights would only visit the station during the periods when a single Expedition crew was in occupation. This recommendation would not be acted on after Node-3 was re-instated with living quarters for a further three occupants.

On December 5, 2002, representatives of all the national space programmes partici­pating in ISS met in Tokyo, Japan to discuss the future of the programme. Despite earlier words of warning to the contrary, a Rosaviakosmos representative said that his company was not only prepared to meet its Soyuz and Progress commitments to ISS, but was ready to begin work on a living module designed to raise the Expedition crew to six people. The representative pointed out that NASA was responsible for the station’s advanced living quarters and Rosaviakosmos could only construct their new module if NASA compensated them, paid for it. The Russian representative stated that ISS member states had reached an accord to begin six-person operations in 2006.

EXPEDITION-6

Following Endeavour’s departure on December 2, Bowersox, Petitt, and Budarin spent the afternoon unpacking items that the Shuttle had delivered to ISS. Asked what his priorities were for the Expedition-6 occupation, Bowersox had told a pre-launch interview:

“Our number one goal is to have a positive experience for the crew and for the people on the ground. There’s a lot of things that come under that sub-goal: [N]umber one being come back alive, for it to be a safe flight; number two, to show people that Americans and Russians can work together in space and accomplish something meaningful; and then, the last thing is to accomplish some of our science objectives for the mission.’’

Padalka and Fincke began their solo occupation of ISS with three days of light duties to help them get over the hectic hand-over week that had just passed. Padalka described his goals for the occupation as follows:

“The biggest goal for us as a crew is to keep the Space Station in operational condition and maintain the human presence aboard the Space Station because [the] last malfunction—I mean the situation with the leakage—showed us that if we had not had crew on board, we could have lost the Space Station.”

He added:

“We have the West science program, and currently about 40 experiments on behalf of the American side and the same number on behalf of the Russian side, are scheduled for us, and about 20 experiments for the European Space Agency… If we conduct all of the science program, if we can keep Space Station in operational condition, if we manage to perform scheduled spacewalks, if we keep our friendship with Mike, if we hand Space Station in operational condition to the next crew, in this case I would say that our mission was successful.”

The first week of May was spent carrying out a programme of Russian, Amer­ican, and European biomedical experiments to determine how their bodies adapted to microgravity. They also completed maintenance on the battery chargers and the batteries in the American EMUs and the station’s EVA tools, as well as beginning a procedure to regenerate the canisters that would remove C02 in their exhaled breath from the EMUs. The EMUs had not been used for over a year. A second

series of battery recharging took place at the beginning of the next week, while Fincke serviced the water-cooled underwear that would be worn under the EMUs. Both men also spent part of the week loading rubbish, including an Orlan EVA suit that was past its maintainable date, into Progress M1-11, which was scheduled for undocking on May 24. During the week American flight controllers up-linked new software to two multiplexer/demultiplexers and two S-0 ITS MDM computers, as part of a major programme to update the software on the station throughout 2004. The crew also installed the EarthKam in one of Zvezda’s windows on May 11, and performed biomedical experiments.

The Expedition-9 crew’s first month on ISS ended with a week of preparations for the Stage EVA to replace the CMG that had lost electrical power in April. The EVA was originally planned to take place on June 10, with both men wearing American EMUs and egressing from Quest. That changed on May 19, when they began a planned 7-hour check of the two pressure suits. Shortly after beginning the checks, Padalka reported that he had no circulation of cooling water in his EMU. Closer inspection revealed that the water held in the suit was bubbling and frothing. During the same tests Fincke’s EMU also suffered difficulties with its water-cooling system, caused by a sticking valve. On May 21 the water tank in Padalka’s EMU was drained and refilled. America admitted that only one of the three EMUs on ISS was operational. As a result, the EVA was delayed until June 16, and on that date both men would wear Russian Orlan suits and egress from Pirs. Russia would negotiate “compensation’’ for the use of their suits and consumables by having American astronauts spend additional hours working on Russian ISS experiments. The new plans complicated the EVA in that the astronauts would now exit Pirs and use one of the two Russian Strela cranes to reach the required area on the S-0 ITS, which was not as readily accessed from Pirs as from Quest. The two ISS Strela cranes had not been human-rated at that time, and the Russians were concerned for their capabil­ities. Also, the two men would be under Russian control while they exited the station and used the Strela to reach the junction between the Russian and American segments of ISS; once they were on the outside of the American sector and making their way to the S-0 ITS they would pass to American control. They would return to Russian control as they returned to the exterior of the Russian segment for their return to Pirs.

During the week, Progress M1-11’s thrusters were fired to raise the station’s altitude in preparation for the launch of Progress M-49. The burn also corrected the station’s orbital inclination, as NASA explained:

“Since the last inclination correction, about 3 years ago, [the] orbit inclination has decreased by approximately 0.01 degree, to a current value roughly mid-way between the ground rule range of 51.62 and 51.68 degrees. The lower limit would be approached in approximately 5 years, but doing part of the upward correction right now propellant is more efficiently used. Once the inclination is adjusted to the upper limit, no further inclination adjustments should be required for the remaining life of the ISS.’’

Progress M1-11 undocked from ISS at 05: 19, May 24, manoeuvred clear of the station, and entered a parking orbit. For the next 10 days the spacecraft was

monitored to see if future Progress vehicles could be used to support microgravity experiments, although no experiments were conducted on this occasion. Progress M1-11 was commanded to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up on June 3, 2004.