Category The International Space Station

Japan’s National Aeronautical Laboratory was established in 1955, gaining a new Aerospace Division and changing its name to the National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) in 1963. The Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) was also established in 1955, within the University of Tokyo. This led to co-operation between a number of Japanese universities on aerospace projects, including Japan’s infant space programme. In 1984 the ISAS name was changed to the Institute of Space Aeronautical Science. Also, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) was formed in 1969 and assumed overall responsibility for the national space programme, including development of launch vehicles, payloads, and a launch, tracking, and support infrastructure. Finally, on October 1, 2003, these three organisations were merged to form the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency (JAXA). Japan has maintained an autonomous space programme, developing a series of sounding rockets and space launch vehicles since the mid-1960s. In the intervening decades it has developed a series of launch vehicles, initially of American designs under licence, but then of its own design, the latest of which is the general-purpose H-IIB, and it has also built a wide variety of satellites and deep-space probes. Despite plans for development of the HOPE mini-Shuttle, which was the victim of budgetary constraints, the Japanese have never developed their own crewed spacecraft, prefer­ring to co-operate with the Americans from the earliest years of Space Station Freedom. From the outset Japan announced that it would develop a laboratory module for ISS, which would be launched and installed on the station by American Shuttle crews. In 2007, Japan maintains an astronaut group of six men and two women. The first Japanese astronaut flew on the Shuttle in September 1992. Since then four other Japanese astronauts have made Shuttle flights. Two more have been assigned to Shuttle flights relating to the launch and installation of the various sections of the Kibo laboratory module to ISS, and the first Japanese Expedition crew member has been named. Koichi Wakata would fly as part of the Expedition-18 crew.

Kibo would require three separate Shuttle launches before all of its separate parts were installed in ISS. STS-123 would launch the Experiment Module and place it in a temporary location on the exterior of ISS; STS-124 would deliver the Kibo labora­tory module and install it on Harmony. After the Shuttle’s departure the experiment module would be positioned on Kibo’s zenith. Finally, STS-127 would deliver the Exposed Facility. All of the Kibo elements were at Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting launch when this was written in mid-2007. Kibo arrived at the Space Station Proces­sing Facility in May 2003 and was joined by the Exposed Facility in March 2007. Despite being the smallest module in the Original Space Station Freedom design, the dimensions of Kibo have not changed, while the size of the American and European modules has been decreased. Kibo is now the largest of the three laboratory modules in the American sector of ISS.

In the first instance Kibo would house three major experiments:

• Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI)

• Superconducting Sub-Millimeter-wave-limb Emission Sounder (SMILES)

Progress M-46 was launched from Tyuratam at 13:37, June 26, 2002. While the spacecraft carried out a standard Soyuz rendezvous Korzun and Treschev rehearsed the back-up manual docking procedures using the TORU equipment set up in Zvezda. An automated docking occurred at 02: 23, June 29, and the hatches between the two vehicles were opened at 05: 30. The Expedition-5 crew began the long job of emptying the Progress and logging all of its contents on to the ISS’ computerised monitoring system. They also performed standard maintenance inside Zarya.

The first week of July was one of light duties with lots of free time for the three astronauts. On July 3, Whitson repaired the MCOR and bought it back on-line following a 3-week outage.

In a pre-flight interview Whitson had described the future tasks planned for the MT and the SSRMS:

“So, currently our arm is sitting on the Laboratory module. The shoulder is sitting on the Laboratory module, and we’ll use the arm off the Laboratory, grab the Mobile Base System out of the payload bay, and attach it to the Mobile Trans­porter. And then once the Shuttle’s gone… one of the things we’ll do is we’ll check out the Mobile Base, make sure it’s working correctly, and then we’re going to do the step-off procedure, which means we’ll grab one of the Payload and Data Grapple Fixtures with the arm and then release [it] from the Laboratory, so our new shoulder becomes on this Mobile Base System. And that allows us the capability of moving the arm along the truss. And that’s important for the next phase, when [STS-112] arrives with the next piece of truss, because from that Mobile Base on the end of the truss of S-0, we will reach down into the payload bay and grab the S-1 Truss and pick it up and attach it to S-0. And then during [STS-113] we’ll do the same from the other side, except because of the config­uration … the Shuttle arm will pick it up out of the payload bay and then we’ll grab it from the Shuttle and attach it to the station. So it’s going to be an interesting assembly complex, and the Mobile Base is key in positioning the arm in the appropriate place and it is a platform for the arm from which to work.’’

Whitson walked the SSRMS off Destiny for the first time on July 10, when she commanded the free end of the arm to attach itself to a fixture on the S-0 ITS. Following the walk-off, Korzun and Whitson put the SSRMS through the manoeuvres that would be required to support the installation of the S-1 ITS, during the flight of STS-112. Two days later the SSRMS was moved to a series of alternative PDGFs, in order to ensure the power and data flows required for the installation of the S-1 and P-1 ITS elements were functioning correctly.

On July 15, Korzun and Whitson worked together to replace the Desiccant/ Sorbent Bed Assembly in the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA), in Destiny. While one bed had been performing normally, the bed being replaced had been malfunctioning since Destiny’s launch, in February 2001. A valve between the desiccant and sorbent sides of the bed was stuck in the open position. The replacement took 4 hours to complete, but when the unit was activated on July 20, the new bed showed a similar leak to the original bed, but at a lower rate.

Two days later, the entire crew performed a medical operations drill, to maintain their training in that vital area of crew performance. On the same day, Whitson worked with engineers on the ground to work out a repair procedure for a spacesuit battery that had failed to discharge prior to being recharged. During the week the crew continued with their science programme, working with the Micro-encapsulation Electrostatic Processing Experiment (MEPE), the ADVASC, and the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG). Whitson described the importance of the glove box as follows:

“Well, I think science advances a lot slower than any of us would like it to; but specifically during Expedition 5 we’re getting the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox up… this is a facility payload that is going to allow various different investigators to do materials science inside of a confined environment. In the environment of the Space Station, if we do things that involve toxic materials, we need to have several layers of containment, because obviously we can’t just open the window if we have a little toxic fluid escape. So, the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox provides us a level of containment. It allows us to work inside with the rubber gloves up on our arms, and we can manipulate and set up experiments inside a contained environment. And it would be experiments that we couldn’t possibly do without that additional level of containment… We’ve had other smaller glove – boxes flying, which have flown before either on the Shuttle, in Spacelab, and even one on Mir. So there have been previous ones; this is a kind of a facility-class payload, very large, and I think it’s going to really enhance our capabilities in the materials science world.’’

They also participated in an educational broadcast called “Toys in Space’’, whereby they used a number of simple toys to explain the basic principles of physics involved in spaceflight and present on ISS. The scientific work continued throughout the following week, with the crew working on the Solidification Using A Baffle in Sealed Ampules (UABSA) experiment, which was designed to grow semiconductor crystals in microgravity. Whitson activated the MSG and televised the heating and cooling processes involved in heating a semiconductor to melting point and then allowing it to cool. Whitson also monitored the ADVASC, where soybean plants had started growing. All three astronauts performed PuFF experiments in advance of the EVAs planned for mid-August. There was also the Renal Stone Experiment. Whitson said:

“Our experiment is based on some previous data that we’ve collected on the Shuttle and on the NASA/Mir science program, and there we found that crew­members are at a greater risk of forming renal or kidney stones… And that’s a big deal in spaceflight because, if you’ve ever known anybody who’s formed a kidney stone, it is excruciatingly painful if that stone begins to move, and in essence it will incapacitate a crewmember, and you would probably have to abort the entire mission. So we are interested in trying to reduce that risk of stone formation. We’ve had crewmembers form stones after flight, and there’s one case where they aborted a Russian mission because of a crewmember who formed a stone during flight… that moved. And so… we’re looking at a countermeasure to try and alleviate some of those effects. We’re using a drug that’s commonly used on the ground to inhibit calcium-containing stones, and based on the results of our previous research we’re going to be using potassium citrate in the crewmembers on a daily basis to see if that actually reduces the risk of forming renal stones, and collecting the same data that we collected… before and see if the risk is actually decreased… Our research shows that there really is a higher risk, and it has to do with the fact that the crewmembers tend to be somewhat more dehydrated, as well as the fact that their bones are demineralizing, so there’s a greater level of calcium and phosphate in the urine, which can form crystals and form the nucleus of the stone that could occur.’’

Meanwhile, they continued their repair and maintenance work, replacing remote power converter modules in the Quest Airlock after they had shown the initial signs of malfunction. On July 22, the crew’s treadmill began making “clanking noises’’ when they ran on it. Investigation revealed that the problem lay in one of the rollers that the belt ran over, where a ball bearing had seized. The crew also worked on the Elektron oxygen-generating system, but failed to improve its performance.

Following a review of the ISS programme, the director of the US government’s Office of Management and Budget described ISS as one of the Bush government’s “most inefficient and wasteful programmes.” The programme was further described as one of the “biggest [budget] over-runs ever in the federal government.”

The NASA Advisory Council, which had also been tasked to review the ISS programme agreed with the conclusions of the Young Committee. Its report stated that the huge budget over-runs in the ISS programme “cannot be excused and must not be ignored.’’ The Council also agreed that NASA must complete the ISS pro­gramme without further budget over-runs for at least two years, during which NASA could not hope to expand the Expedition crew beyond three people. Beyond the criticism, the Advisory Council suggested that NASA begin assigning a modest budget to revive the American Habitation Module and an American CRV.

In March Sean O’Keefe had established a task force to review the station’s ability to support science of merit. On July 10, the force recommended that 15 of the 35 areas of research reviewed be pursued as “first priority’’. The task force also recommended that NASA stop referring to ISS as a “science-driven programme’’, until the size of the Expedition crew was raised to six people. Meanwhile, a Rosaviakosmos spokes­man stated that the international agreements on which the ISS programme were based were “deteriorating seriously’’. He suggested that Russia should demand those agreements be renegotiated, and suggested that, if it wished, Russia could build and launch a “European’’ space station as an alternative to ISS.

Following the publication of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s (CAIB) Final Report, NASA began preparing for the Shuttle’s Return to Flight. One idea that was developed was the idea of a safe haven on ISS for the crew of any future Shuttle that was damaged during ascent into orbit.

In keeping with the CAIB report’s recommendations, all future Shuttle flights would use cameras mounted on a new Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) to inspect the previously inaccessible areas of the orbiter’s Thermal Protection System (TPS). Additional photographs would be taken by the ISS Expedition crew as the Shuttle performed a nose-over-tail pitch manoeuvre prior to docking. The photo­graphs and videos would then be downloaded to MCC-Houston, where engineers would study them and declare the TPS fit, or unfit, for re-entry. If the TPS was damaged and declared unfit for re-entry, the Shuttle crew would dock with ISS, which would then serve as a safe haven until a new means of recovery could be launched to recover them. This might be a second Shuttle, or in extreme cases, additional Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

With a two-person Expedition crew and a seven-person Shuttle crew onboard, supplies available on ISS would be limited. Under existing conditions a Shuttle crew would be able to utilise the safe haven for up to 86 days, at which point NASA would have to be able to launch the rescue vehicle, a second Shuttle. Excess water and food from the crippled Shuttle would be transferred to the station to support the additional astronauts. In addition, the launch schedule for Progress cargo vehicles would have to be sustained.

Prior to the loss of STS-107, the Expedition-8 crew consisting of Michael Foale, William McArthur, and Valeri Tokarev was due to be launched to ISS on STS-116, with a Shuttle crew consisting of:

COMMANDER: Terrence Wilcutt

PILOT: William Oefelein

MISSION SPECIALISTS: Robert Curbeam, Christer Fuglesang

STS-116 was to have returned the original (three-man) Expedition-7 crew to Earth at the end of their mission.

When the two-person caretaker crews were named on February 24, 2003, Foale and Alexander Kaleri (the third member of the original Expedition-7 crew) were named as the new Expedition-8 crew, with McArthur and Tokarev serving as their back-up crew. Spaniard Pedro Duque was flying under the Roscosmos contract that offered the third couch on a Soyuz flight to ESA if it was not filled by a commercial spaceflight participant. Duque would return to Earth in Soyuz TMA-2 with the Expedition-7 crew. Foale was on his sixth spaceflight, Kaleri his fourth, and Duque his second.

Discussing his training for flying the Soyuz spacecraft during his various crew allocations, Foale has said:

“Well, I’ve had a lot of experience, compared to other U. S. astronauts training for Soyuz flight. First of all, on Mir we had to train for Soyuz emergency descent, and that was basically as a passenger cosmonaut-astronaut in the right seat. On this last training flow before Columbia I was training for the left seat emergency descent with a cosmonaut in the center seat. After Columbia, Sasha and I were named to be the backups to Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko that are on orbit right now, and there I had to train both for launch in the left seat, rendezvous, and then descent. And then at the same time I had to take the same classes that Sasha, the Commander, was taking and do those in the centre seat. So I have seen the whole smorgasbord of crew roles and responsibilities on board the Soyuz.’’

Asked about the possibility that he might also have to return to Earth in a Soyuz spacecraft at the end of the Expedition-8 crew’s occupation, Foale remarked:

“I think, to be quite honest, I’d like to come home in the Soyuz. And that’s mostly because it’s well understood right now. Its ballistic entry was demonstrated by Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit and Nikolai Budarin on the last entry. People called that off-nominal—it certainly was not an expected entry—but it demon­strated yet another aspect of the Soyuz, which is its robustness… [H]owever, I do want the Shuttle to succeed… But I don’t believe… that the Shuttle’s architecture will allow it to be significantly safer without adding crew escape to it.’’

Soyuz TMA-3 was launched at 01: 38, October 18, 2003. Kaleri served as Soyuz Commander, with Foale assuming command only after entering the station. Docking to Pirs nadir occurred at 03 : 16, October 20, as ISS passed over Central Asia. Mean­while, in orbit, pressure and leak checks were followed by the opening of the hatches between the two spacecraft at 05: 19, and the new crew entered the station, where the

Expedition-7 crew, who were on their 177th day in space, greeted them. The flags of Spain and ESA were displayed on the station alongside those of America and Russia. After eating lunch, the three newcomers received the standard safety brief before Duque’s couch liner was transferred to Soyuz TMA-2. Meanwhile, NASA announced details of two minor problems with the flight. The potentially more serious of the two was a small helium leak between the helium pressurisation tank and the propellant tanks of Manifold 2 in the Soyuz propulsion system. Manifold 1 would be used for the remainder of the Soyuz TMA-3 flight.

After Soyuz TMA-3 had safely docked to Pirs, the Washington Post released details of how two “mid-level scientists and physicians” had refused to sign the initial approval for the launch due to their concerns over the deterioration of environmental monitors and the medical and exercise equipment on ISS. The report also claimed that ISS was running low of medicines and intravenous fluids, and the noise levels in the Russian sector of the station were greater than desired, and required a noise – deadening programme. NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe stated publicly that the he did not believe the crew to be in any danger. Both the Expedition-7 and Expedi­tion-8 crews acknowledged the difficulties, but stated that they believed they were in no immediate danger. These reports led to a number of politicians jumping on the bandwagon and using the incident as an excuse to attack NASA and its Adminis­trator. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (Democrat-Houston) stated, “Safety, above all, has to be the highest priority. After the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s report came out, I asked specifically about the safety of the Space Station and the response coming back was not as strong as I wanted. Now it seems there is not only a problem, there is a crisis.’’ NASA also had its supporters, Dana Rohrabacher, head of the House Space and Aeronautics subcommittee, told the press, “I have faith Mr. O’Keefe is doing his best and shouldn’t be second-guessed by politicians.’’ Meanwhile, the two individuals concerned told the media that they had not identified any immediate threats to crew safety, but were concerned over the deteri­oration and long-term failure of equipment measuring the environment on the station since the loss of STS-107, and the grounding of the Shuttle fleet. They stated that they had spoken to NASA officials from JSC and were content that NASA was taking their concerns seriously and had begun to address the issues that they had raised.

When the issues were first raised and became public, in the second week of October, O’Keefe had been blunt. He told the media that if the situation reached a point where the crew was at risk then.. the answer is, get aboard the Soyuz, turn down the lights and leave.’’

Docking was followed by 8 days of joint operations, with Malenchenko and Lu handing over to Foale and Kaleri, while Duque performed his “Cervantes” experiment programme. This consisted of 24 experiments to be completed, in both the Russian and American sectors of the station, over 40 hours. Foale described his feelings on what would happen during the hand-over in the following terms:

“[Tjhere are a number of goals to be achieved during the joint operations… of the oncoming crew and the off-going crew. First and foremost … Spain, through ESA… are paying the lion’s share of this Soyuz flight, and they have serious

science objectives to accomplish during the five days that Pedro is planned to be on board the Station with us. And so, to be honest… I feel obliged, just as Sasha does, to help Pedro get kicked off to a running start as soon as we arrive. There is nothing more important than getting Pedro running. The remaining four days I will spend my time with Ed Lu, and I hope to learn everything he has learned about the Destiny module, about the Airlock, the Node, and all of our stowage there and all of our equipment there, and its operations with the control center here in Houston. However, I must not ignore what’s going on in the Russian segment, where Sasha Kaleri will be spending a lot of time with Malenchenko and learning about Russian operations, work in the Service Module and in the FGB, and in their docking module… By the time four days have gone by, I will know just the bare minimum to be able to find my clothes, wash my body, do my exercise, and work the radio… but the practical knowledge will be there after four days. And at that point, we will be ready to say, Pedro, you’re going to that spacecraft; your seat liner’s in that spacecraft—the old one, the returning one— with Ed Lu and Yuri Malenchenko, and then we’ll close the hatch and breathe a sigh of relief, because joint ops is a very hard time because everybody has a lot to do in a short time.’’

The ceremonial change of command ceremony took place on October 24. Three days later Malenchenko and Lu and Duque sealed themselves in Soyuz TMA-2. They

were preparing to undock when the complex rolled unexpectedly. This caused the thrusters on Zvezda to fire, to correct the station’s attitude. NASA described the incident:

“At 2.57 pm, while ISS was in the XPOP momentum management mode, the station experienced a large unexpected roll manoeuvre event, with momentum increasing from 16 percent to 90 percent in four minutes. As 90 percent triggers a de-saturation of the CMGs, with Service Module thrusters, several de-saturation burns followed, using several kilograms of propellant. Proper attitude control was re-established for the undocking… Troubleshooting by Moscow determined that the cause of the torque was a crewmember, during ingress, contacting the Soyuz hand controllers, which are not supposed to be active at that time. TsUP further determined that the override commands to activate the hand controllers were inadvertently initiated by a Soyuz control panel pushbutton, while the crew was loading return items.’’

As usual TsUP had managed to put the blame on the crew, despite the fact that no one in the Russian control room had noticed that the Soyuz hand controllers had been inadvertently activated.

Soyuz TMA-2 undocked at 18: 17, October 27. The de-orbit burn took place at 20: 47, and the re-entry module touched down on target in Kazakhstan at 21: 41. The

Expedition-7 crew had spent 184 days 22 hours 46 minutes and 9 seconds in flight. Duque had been away from Earth for 9 days 21 hours 1 minute 58 seconds. Initial medical examinations at the landing site showed all three men to be in good health, but the Expedition-7 crew underwent the usual 45-day rehabilitation programme at Korolev, where Malenchenko’s new wife was waiting to welcome him back to Earth.