International Space Station

Snapshot of the International Space Station

On March 13, 2008, the International Space Station passed across the field-of-view of Germany's remote sensing satellite, TerraSAR-X, at a distance of 195 kilometers, or 122 miles, and at a relative speed of 34,540 kilometers per hour, or more than 22,000 mph.

 

In contrast to optical cameras, radar does not 'see' surfaces. Instead, it is much more aware of the edges and corners which bounce back the microwave signal it transmits. Smooth surfaces such as those on the station's solar generators or the radiator panels used to dissipate excess heat, unless directly facing the radar antenna, tend to deflect rather than reflect the radar beam, causing these features to appear on the radar image as dark areas. The radar image of the station therefore looks like a dense collection of bright spots from which the outlines of the space station can be clearly identified. The central element on the station, to which all the modules are docked, has a grid structure that presents a multiplicity of reflecting surfaces to the radar beam, making it readily identifiable. This image has a resolution of about one meter (about 39 inches). In other words, objects can be depicted as discrete units--that is, shown separately--provided that they are at least one meter apart. If they are closer together than that, they tend to merge into a single block on a radar image.

 

Since this image was taken, the station has expanded and is more than 90 percent complete, including a full complement of solar arrays.

Image Credit: DLR

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Space Station Module Named - Tranquility

NASA New Space Station Module Name Honors Apollo 11 Anniversary

WASHINGTON -- The International Space Station module formerly known as Node 3 has a new name. After more than a million online responses, the node will be called "Tranquility." The name Tranquility was chosen from thousands of suggestions submitted by participants on NASA's Web site, http://www.nasa.gov/. The "Help Name Node 3" poll asked people to vote for the module's name either by choosing one of four options listed by NASA or offering their own suggestion. Tranquility was one of the top 10 suggestions submitted by respondents to the poll, which ended March 20. "The public did a fantastic job and surprised us with the quality and volume of the suggestions," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations. "Apollo 11 landed on the moon at the Sea of Tranquility 40 years ago this July. We selected 'Tranquility' because it ties it to exploration and the moon and symbolizes the spirit of international cooperation embodied by the space station." NASA announced the name Tuesday with the help of Expedition 14 and 15 astronaut Suni Williams on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." The show's producers offered to host the name selection announcement after comedian Stephen Colbert took an interest in the poll and urged his viewers to suggest the name "Colbert," which received the most entries. "We don't typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people and this is no exception," Gerstenmaier joked. "However, NASA is naming its new space station treadmill the 'Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,' or COLBERT. We have invited Stephen to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to try out a version of the treadmill that astronauts train on." The treadmill is targeted to launch to the station in August. It will be installed in Tranquility after the node arrives at the station next year. A newly-created patch will depict the acronym and an illustration of the treadmill. Tranquility is scheduled to arrive at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in May. There, it will be prepared for space shuttle Endeavour's flight, designated STS-130, which is targeted for launch in February 2010. Tranquility will join four other named U.S. modules on the station: the Destiny laboratory, the Quest airlock, the Unity node and the Harmony node. Tranquility is a pressurized module that will provide room for many of the space station's life support systems. Attached to the node is a cupola, which is a unique work station with six windows on the sides and one on top. Suni Williams made the announcement on "The Colbert Report" two years after running the Boston Marathon in space on a station treadmill similar to COLBERT. Video of Williams' run and the name announcement on "The Colbert Report" will air on NASA Television's Video File.

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Recent space station images

STS-126 Space Shuttle Mission Report #13

10 p.m. CST Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008 Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

STS-126 MCC Status Report #13

Two down, two to go. Building on Tuesday’s spacewalk experience, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper and Shane Kimbrough headed out of the International Space Station’s Quest Airlock at 11:58 a.m. CST to continue the process of removing debris around the starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ) and applying lubrication in an effort to eventually restore it to full functionality. The EVA ended at 6:43 p.m. for a total time of six hours and 45 minutes.

As the spacewalkers were finishing up their activities, ground controllers noticed that Kimbrough’s carbon dioxide levels were increasing, so he made his way back to the airlock a few minutes ahead of Piper. Piper and Kimbrough began the second spacewalk by relocating two equipment carts in preparation for February’s installation of the final pair of solar arrays. Once that task was completed, the two applied lubrication to a balky snare on the end of the station’s robotic arm before concentrating on repair of the rotary joint designed to automatically track the sun as the station circles the Earth.

The balance of the spacewalk was focused on replacing four more of the 12 trundle bearing assemblies (TBA). One of them was over-torqued during installation, so Piper installed one of the two back-up TBAs instead. The 116th spacewalk dedicated to station assembly and maintenance was the second of the four planned during space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-126 mission. It set the stage for Saturday’s third excursion to complete the cleaning and lubricating process. Station flight controllers plan to briefly test the repair early Sunday morning by commanding the solar array into “auto track” mode to evaluate its performance.

On the 10th anniversary since station construction began with launch of the Zarya Control Module atop a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the station worked inside and outside to increase the capability and performance of systems to eventually support doubling the crew size from three to six. Friday at 11:10 a.m., shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Eric Boe and Flight Engineer Steve Bowen will oversee a small reboost of the station’s altitude using spare propellant aboard Endeavour.

At 2:05 p.m., both the crews will hold their traditional news conference before reviewing procedures for the third spacewalk scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

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Progress Launched to International Space Station

Progress Launches to Space Station
09.10.08

A new Progress cargo carrier launched to the International Space Station at 3:50 p.m. EDT Wednesday with almost 2.7 tons of fuel, air, water, propellant and other supplies and equipment aboard.

Image above: The ISS Progress 30 cargo craft poised atop its Soyuz rocket on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: Roscosmos.

The station's 30th Progress unpiloted spacecraft brings to the orbiting laboratory more than 1,900 pounds of propellant, more than 110 pounds of oxygen, almost 465 pounds of water and 2,865 pounds of dry cargo. Total cargo weight is 5,357 pounds.

P30 replaces the trash-filled P29 which was undocked from the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module on Sept. 1 and deorbited for destruction in the Earth's atmosphere on Sept. 8.


P30 will use the automated Kurs system to dock to the aft port of the station's Zvezda service module. Expedition 17 Commander Sergei Volkov will be at the manual TORU docking system controls, should his intervention become necessary.


Once the cargo is unloaded, P30 will be filled with trash and station discards. It will be undocked from the station and like its predecessors deorbited to burn in the Earth's atmosphere.


The Progress is similar in appearance and some design elements to the Soyuz spacecraft, which brings crew members to the station, serves as a lifeboat while they are there and returns them to Earth. The aft module, the instrumentation and propulsion module, is nearly identical.


But the second of the three Progress sections is a refueling module, and the third, uppermost as the Progress sits on the launch pad, is a cargo module. On the Soyuz, the descent module, where the crew is seated on launch and which returns them to Earth, is the middle module and the third is called the orbital module.


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Currently in Space ISS Expedition 17