PARTNERS

The American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is fond of stating in its media releases that there are 16 partner countries participating in the ISS programme. While technically true, this is misleading. America and Russia are the principal partners in the ISS programme and both of them brought several decades of experience and achievement in human and robotic spaceflight to the programme. Japan, Canada, and Brazil also bring national programme experience to ISS. The remaining 11 nations are all involved in the ISS programme by way of their member­ship of the European Space Agency. Even then, five ESA member states chose not to participate in the ISS programme. Brazil became involved in ISS by agreeing to construct an external experiment rack, in return for a flight by a Brazilian astronaut to the station.

America

NASA was established in October 1958 and has maintained an Astronaut Office since 1959. In the intervening five decades NASA has established a technical superiority in human spaceflight that is second to none. The one-man Mercury spacecraft allowed the Americans to learn how to reach and survive in space. Gemini, with two astro­nauts, gave experience in orbital rendezvous, docking two vehicles together, and EVA. All of that experience made it possible for the three-man Apollo spacecraft to support six two-man landings on the Moon, while the third astronaut remained in lunar orbit. Apollo hardware was then developed into the three-man Skylab proto­type space station, where NASA learned many of the lessons that it is now applying to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, in 1969 NASA had decided to develop a partially re-usable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle, with a crew of up to seven people. The Shuttle programme was when NASA introduced the first female, and ethnic astronauts. They now select small groups of astronauts bi-yearly, as required.

From the beginning, NASA had hoped that the Shuttle would be used to build a large, permanent space station in Earth orbit. Although development of the Shuttle began in 1972, the Presidential call to develop a space station did not come until 1984. Today, America talks proudly of the international co-operation involved in the ISS programme. What NASA carefully forgets to mention is that the original pro­gramme, which led to the current ISS, was an American-led programme to build a space station with the principal goals of being bigger and better, and producing better science than the Soviet Mir space station. Europe, Japan, and Canada all agreed to participate in Space Station Freedom.

Despite lots of misleading promises of what might be achieved on Freedom, almost annual budget cuts meant that the bold American designs came to nothing and the whole concept was continually downsized. Two complete sets of Solar Array Wings (Port-2 and Starboard-2) were deleted completely from the design while the pressurised modules were halved in size and minimised in number. Like its predecessors, the new, much more conservative design would be constructed in a modular format, using the Space Shuttle to deliver individual elements to orbit. Freedom would be used to run experiments requiring a human presence when the Shuttle was present and automated experiments when it was not. The station would not be permanently occupied until the last element, the Habitation Module, was delivered and put in place. Thereafter, permanent crews of six astronauts would perform maintenance and experiments, being relieved regularly by Shuttles that would deliver new crew members and take away those that had completed their time on the station. A new American Crew Return Vehicle (CRV) would ensure their safety when the Shuttle was not present. The CRV was added to the specification after the loss of STS-51L in 1986, when it was realised that crews on Freedom would need an emergency escape system if the Shuttle fleet were to be grounded.

With the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union, America’s President Clinton insisted that the Russians be brought into the Space Station programme, in an attempt to prevent their missile engineers taking their experience to nations that were politically unfriendly towards America and her allies. This led to yet another new design, the one that is now being constructed in orbit. Since then, severe budget over-runs have led to the unilateral decision to ignore the Memorandum of Agree­ment, a legally binding contract that America signed with the other ISS partners, and cancel the American Habitation Module (reducing future Expedition crews from six to three people) and the American Crew Return Vehicle (causing the Americans to have to rely on the Russian Soyuz for this facility). Despite this decision America still insists that all of the other ISS partners stick to the letter of the Memorandum of Agreement, and provide everything that they promised they would.

Nevertheless, despite the cancellation of the hardware listed above, America has still provided most of the major elements of ISS:

• Zarya was built by the Russians under contract to Boeing, America’s prime contractor for ISS. The Russian TKS-style module provided attitude control prior to the launch of Zvezda.

• Unity was the first of three Nodes (pressurised junctions, gateways) providing docking systems for and access hatches to the different modules of the station. Unity was docked to Zarya’s ram and served as the gateway between Zarya and Destiny.

• Destiny was the American science laboratory at the heart of the American sector of ISS. It contained 24 standard equipment racks of which half hold experiments and the other half contain vital systems. Destiny also housed a single sleeping quarter. The Pressurised Mating Adapter (PMA) on Destiny’s ram was the standard docking location for visiting Shuttles, until Harmony was added. Destiny was docked to Unity’s ram.

• Z-1 Truss provided an early mounting point for the Port-6 Solar Array Wings, which provided electrical power to the American sector of ISS during its con­struction. The Z-1 Truss’s principal role was to house the station’s four Control Moment Gyroscopes, the electrically driven primary attitude control system.

• Quest Airlock provided extravehicular activity access to the exterior of ISS from the American sector. It was capable of supporting both the American Extra­vehicular Mobility Unit and the Russian Orlan-M pressure suits, but was used primarily with the American suit.

• Integrated Truss Structure (ITS) was the huge cross-beam, assembled from nine pieces (Port-3/4 and Starboard-3/4 were both launched as single pre-joined units) that held the eight solar array wings to provide electrical power and the radiators to provide cooling for the American sector of ISS. The central ITS element was mounted on Destiny’s Zenith.

• Harmony was constructed for NASA by the European Space Agency (ESA), at the Europeans’ expense, in return for a free launch of Columbus. It was a utilities centre to provide resources from the ITS and Destiny to Columbus and Kibo, the International Partner modules that were to be docked to it. Harmony was docked to Destiny’s ram, with PMA-2 being placed on its own ram.

• Node-3 ( ) was constructed for NASA by ESA. It would serve as a

replacement for the cancelled American Habitation Module, allowing the stan­dard three-person Expedition crew to be raised to six people. It also contained much of the Life Support system and environmental Control system that was originally intended for the cancelled American Habitation module. Node-3 will be docked to Unity’s nadir.

• Cupola was a seven-window observation portal mounted on Node-3, where it will provide all round observation for the astronauts operating the Space Station Remote Manipulator System. It was built by ESA under a NASA contract.

Most of NASA’s field centres were involved in the development of the various

ISS modules and ITS elements, co-operating with Boeing, NASA’s prime contractor.

Five principal centres were involved in the on-orbit operations of ISS:

• NASA Headquarters (NASA HQ), Washington DC, was at the centre of the Administration, providing managerial oversight of the field centres.

• Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre (JSC), Houston, Texas, was where the American Astronaut Office was based and where Shuttle and Expedition crew members were trained. It was also the principal centre for human spaceflight, crewed spacecraft design, development, and operation, and the location of the Shuttle flight control room.

• John F. Kennedy Space Centre (KSC), Florida, was the location where all American, Canadian, European, and Japanese ISS modules were prepared for flight. The Shuttle was launched from Launch Complex-39, using facilities con­verted from those used for the Apollo Moon landings. ISS modules and ITS elements were prepared for launch in the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF).

• George C. Marshall Space Flight Centre (MSFC), Huntsville, Alabama, was NASA’s principal propulsion and launch vehicle development centre. MSFC was responsible for overseeing the development of most of the American ISS modules. It was also the location of the Payload Operations Centre (POC), the control centre for American experiments and daily operations onboard ISS.

• Four NASA field centres, including JSC and MSFC, also house Tele-science Support Centres, capable of performing automated scientific experiments in the American sector of ISS. The other two centres were the Ames Research Centre (ARC), Moffett Field, California and the John H. Glenn Research Centre (GRC), Cleveland, Ohio.