Successful International Cooperation of the ISS
“Node 2 is the expansion of the space station’s capability to bring international laboratories up,” Commander Pam Melroy said, adding that it will also allow to the space station crew to double to six members. “It’s this big boost in the capability which is really exciting.”
Comfortable it is not, bulky space-suited astronauts Scott Parazynski and Douglas Wheelock worked outside the ISS for more than six hours to prepare the Harmony node for its installation, doing just one part of their “honey do” list given to them by NASA. Some other things the astronauts completed were the stowing of a broken ISS antenna in Discovery’s payload bay for a return trip to Earth. Port 6 of the ISS was also prepared for its planned move on Sunday, during which Parazynski happened to notice ice crystals of toxic ammonia drift free while he was disconnecting four coolant lines between the P6 and the Z1 truss base. This required a decontamination procedure to make sure his spacesuit was clean before he could reenter the ISS airlock.
Italian-built, the United States Harmony connecting module is also known as Node 2, the gateway for future expansion of the International Space Station. Weighing 31,500-pounds, 23.6 feet long and 14.5 feet in diameter, the ISS’s liveable space will increase by more than 2,500 cubic feet to allow crewmembers to live more comfortably than before. Node 2 is also essential for the 2010 completion of the orbital laboratory and the last step before the space shuttle fleet is retired as “a job well done between international cooperation.”
Harmony is important because according to a space.com article, “Gateway to Space Station’s Future Reaches Orbit”, by Dave Mosher, it is the first pressurized module that has been added to the ISS since 2001. Once it is permanently placed, the nodule will serve as a main core for many things – distribution of air, water, electricity and other systems. This distribution will be for two major scientific hubs that will be attached at a later date. December is bringing another addition to the ISS, the ESA Columbus Research Laboratory, which will be launched at this time after it is attached to one of Harmony’s four available ports during the STS-122 mission.
Harmony was built by Thales Space, in Torino, Italy, whereas the Italian-made nodule was the result of a goal between NASA and ESA together. Then name Harmony was chosen by Margaret Brackey, an eight-year old little girl in a school contest for the name of the nodule. “Harmony was selected to symbolize the spirit of international cooperation embodied by the space station, as well as the module’s specific role in connecting the international partner modules,” said Steve Huning, STS-120 launch package manager.
This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Mars News, Mission Objectives, Space Agency News, The Gear to Get There. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
