Opposition To Early International Space Station Retirement
Five global space-program leaders voiced concern that the International Space Station (ISS) should be operational through the end of the next decade at least, instead of retiring by 2016 as current U.S. official plans envision.
They also outlined plans to ensure that there will be sufficient spacecraft to move personnel and cargo to the space station after the U.S. space shuttle fleet retires by October 2010.
Those participating in the space station program — Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States — don’t wish to see an immense, and immensely valuable, scientific asset chucked into the cosmic dustbin just because ISS funding could be cut to save money.
Attending the meeting of the International Space Station Heads of Agency in Paris were NASA Administrator Michael Griffin; Guy Bujold, Canadian Space Agency president; Jean- Jacques Dordain, European Space Agency (ESA) director-general; Anatolii N. Perminov, Russian Federal Space Agency head; and Keiji Tachikawa, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency president.
Construction of the space station will be complete in 2010, with the last of the U.S. space shuttle flights that have hauled gigantic components into orbit to assemble the artificial moon.
Scores of astronauts and cosmonauts have manned the station continuously in its years of construction, including times when the building project has been slowed by space shuttle disasters.
Now, space agency leaders involved in the station are voicing concern that the station might have a useful life of only about half a decade beyond its completion, until the 2015 official retirement date. The hope is that it could continue flying at least until 2020, or later.
In a statement released after their meeting, the agency leaders stated that “as the partnership moves closer to completion of ISS assembly, [they] reaffirmed their common interest in utilizing the space station to its full capacity for a period meaningful for stakeholders and users.”
Specifically, the leaders noted that “a continuation of operations beyond 2015 would not be precluded by any significant technical challenges. Recognizing the substantial programmatic benefits to continued ISS operations and utilization beyond the current planning horizon, the [space program leaders] committed to work with their respective governments to assess support for such a goal.”
Supplying The Space Station
The space program leaders also reviewed what spaceships likely will be availablel to continue transporting crew and cargo to the space station after the space shuttle fleet retires in two years.
Those vehicles include the Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle in the next year, the leaders noted.
As well, there may well be cargo transport on private commercial spacecraft being mentored by NASA.
And NASA is funding, fully, the next-generation U.S. spaceship system being developed in the Constellation Program, including the Orion space capsule being developed by <ST>Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT]<E>, and the Ares rocket to lift Orion into space. Various components of the rocket are being developed by <ST>The Boeing Co. [BA]<E>, <ST>Alliant Techsystems Inc. [ATK]<E> and Pratt & WhitneyRocketdyne, a unit of <ST>United Technologies Corp. [UTX]<E>. The Orion-Ares system won’t see its first manned flight until 2015.
As well, there still will be the Russian Soyuz (manned round-trip) and Progress (cargo, ascent only) vehicles. However, the Soyuz has problems that caused problems on two consecutive landings, with a ballistic descent and hard landing far off course that thus far has sent a South Korean and a Russian to the hospital with back injuries.
Then there is the European robotic cargo craft, the Automated Transfer Vehicle.
So there are several transport vehicles to provide “upmass” capabilities in the next decade.
Space agency leaders “also noted new initiatives such as the ESA plan for an Automated Transfer Vehicle-Advanced Return Vehicle system for downmass from the ISS and the Russia- ESA joint preparatory activities on an advanced Crew Space Transportation System.
“The Heads of Agency expressed their interest in making these capacities available for the benefit of the whole partnership and can provide sustainability of the ISS and prepare for future exploration endeavors.”
Because the space station has grown rapidly since U.S. space shuttles resumed flights in 2006, the station crew is slated to double to six personnel, from the current three-at- a-time.
The leaders of the space agencies said they reviewed “implementing plans to maximize the benefits from the increase to a six-person crew in 2009 and discussed efforts to ensure that essential space transportation capabilities (both crew and cargo) will be available across the partnership for the life of the program.”