Outposts on the Frontier: A Fifty-Year History of Space Stations (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)

by Jay Chladek

  The view generated by this new seven-window array is very dramatic. On a couple of occasions, Creamer would bring newcomers into the node while the shutters were closed and have them close their eyes. Creamer said, “I would then open the shutters and have [the newcomers] open their eyes, and every single time I did that, I watched people cry. It is astoundingly, overwhelmingly, awesomely humbling to look out that window.”

  When STS-130 arrived, T. J. Creamer had been in space for about five weeks, and most veteran long-duration crewmembers say that five weeks is about the time when one finally has “arrived” in space. He had achieved a level of station system awareness and body control where he could get from place to place and find things without wasting energy or time. So Creamer was treated to something special when the next shuttle crew visited. “To watch the shuttle guys come up who have only been on orbit for two days and [who] have not been free floating in anything other than their tiny little cabin basically . . . it is really kind of funny to watch,” as Creamer recalled.

  During the time period with a docked shuttle, the priority is helping the shuttle crew to get their assigned tasks done as quickly as possible. It meant that the station crew fell behind as the newcomers needed assistance from ISS crewmembers to find things, conduct short-term experiments, and learn how to move efficiently from place to place in the cavernous interior of the ISS. Therefore, to compensate for this on the next two shuttle missions, the Expedition 23 crew got as much work done as they could ahead of time so that they didn’t fall behind.

  Williams and Surayev returned home in late March, turning over work to Expedition 23 with Oleg Kotov in command. The second half of Expedition 23 in the form of crewmates Aleksandr Skvortsov, Mikhail Korniyenko, and Tracy Caldwell-Dyson arrived on 4 April aboard Soyuz TMA-18. The crew didn’t have long to wait for their next visitors, as STS-131 lifted off from KSC in the predawn darkness of Monday, 5 April 2010, on the final night launch of the shuttle program. Discovery docked two days later. Having three new ISS crewmembers still getting their space legs in addition to seven shuttle crewmembers on board made things a little more hectic, but the team made it work.

  Discovery’s cargo bay held the Leonardo MPLM for more supply off-loads. This was the last shuttle mission to have seven crewmembers on board, and it was the second-to-last mission for Discovery before retirement. The crew included Naoko Yamazaki, a JAXA astronaut who helped engineer the Kibo laboratory; Clay Anderson; and educator-astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. In addition to being the third educator-astronaut to fly from the 2004 class, Metcalf-Lindenburger was also the first alumna from Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, to become an astronaut. She also set another record; with nineteen letters in her last name, she has the longest name on a mission patch. When Metcalf-Lindenburger was selected to become an astronaut candidate, the people in charge of flight gear at Ellington Field near JSC, where astronauts fly T-38 jets, just labeled her storage locker and equipment “M-18” to represent the first letter of her last name and eighteen additional letters. So among some of her colleagues, she is known as Dottie M-18.

  Upon reaching the ISS, Clay Anderson felt kind of like he was home again; although the ISS had grown a bit in the past three years, much of it was familiar. Having Oleg Kotov on orbit also helped. Anderson had also cultivated a friendship with cosmonaut Mikhail Korniyenko, as the two men had joined their respective countries’ astronaut programs in 1998. Anderson nicknamed Korniyenko “Corn,” in reference to his own Nebraska heritage; Korniyenko nicknamed Clay Anderson “Glue,” since “clay” in Russian means “glue.” So when the two men met each other on dock day, Clay called out “Corn!” while Mikhail called out “Glue!” before the two men embraced one another.

  Anderson and lead spacewalker Rick Mastracchio conducted three space walks to replace an ammonia tank on the station, retrieve a seed experiment from the Kibo external rack, and replace a faulty gyro. Anderson’s experience conducting staged EVAs from the Quest airlock came in handy at the conclusion of their EVAs. Both he and Mastracchio took time to stow equipment properly since Anderson knew where it all went, having done it before on Expedition 15. So when the airlock door was opened and T. J. Creamer entered to give them a hand, he was pleasantly surprised that most everything was already put away.

  NanoRacks

  Another cargo inside Discovery was the first elements of the NanoRacks platform. NanoRacks is a commercial firm with the intended goal of making space research available to everyone. Inside the MPLM were their first two payloads, FirstLab and Cubelab-2. Both systems were installed into one of the EXPRESS racks inside the Kibo laboratory. The Cubelab system allows customers to fly small scientific payloads to the ISS in sealed cubical compartments measuring about three inches per side. The cubes are plugged into the rack via a USB port and a cooling water hookup.

  Data from the experiments is sent automatically to the ground. Once the modules are plugged in, there is no need for a crewmember to tend to them. And once each experiment is concluded, the cube is disposed of entirely, making room for the next one and keeping its contents from contaminating the station’s environment. For further study, some NanoRacks payloads have been returned home aboard Soyuz or Dragon flights, but a round trip is more expensive than one way. As of 2013, several companies and government agencies have used NanoRacks’ system on the ISS for research. While the experiments themselves are kept confidential, each proposal has to pass a strict review process for safety and to ensure proper research is being conducted, as opposed to just flying collectibles into space.

  The Final Assembly Push

  Discovery undocked on 17 April and returned home on the twentieth. On the ground, everyone was getting the sense that the shuttle program was nearing its end. When Discovery returned from STS-131, there were only three more missions scheduled on the manifest. Atlantis would fly next on STS-132. Another mission was added to the manifest for Endeavour to fly the final ISS module, and there was a good chance that yet another mission would be added as well. But after that, the shuttle would be retired permanently.

  On 14 May 2010, Atlantis lifted off for the ISS. In its payload bay was the Russian Rassvet (a name meaning “Dawn”) Mini-Research Module. Like Poisk and Pirs, it was a docking compartment with storage bays. Rassvet was a little larger than the other two modules. Its internal size meant that it could be used for additional storage while also providing a docking port for use by Soyuz and Progress craft. At the time Rassvet was launched, it would be the last Russian module flown to the ISS, although there are plans to replace the Pirs docking compartment with a science module called Nauka (a Russian name meaning “Science”) in the near future. Since Pirs is about a decade old, the Russians want to decommission and release it before systems on board start deteriorating. If and when Nauka flies, it will become the primary science module for conducting Russian experiments. Like Zarya, Nauka is based on the TKS spacecraft and designed to dock autonomously with the station.

  At the end of Expedition 23, it was time for Kotov, Noguchi, and Creamer to come home. In orbit, everyone’s spine stretches a little as the lack of gravity causes expansion. In Creamer’s case, he was at just the upper limit for sitting in a Soyuz crew couch, and NASA took steps to ensure that he would fit before beginning his ISS training in 2002. As the crew boarded TMA-17 to come home, Creamer strapped in and noticed that he didn’t quite fit in his suit liner anymore. He was no longer an egg in its carton but rather an egg teetering on the edge. But as the g-forces built up on reentry, Creamer suddenly felt a thump sensation as the gravitational forces caused his body to pop into the couch properly. He was now properly protected and pulled the straps in tight, feeling happy and confident that he could survive reentry and landing with no problems. Soyuz TMA-17 touched down safely.

  Permanent Logistics Module

  It would be nine months before the next shuttle would visit the ISS. Discovery was scheduled to fly its last mission, STS-133, in November 2010, but large cracks in the foa
m of the shuttle’s ET, found after a launch scrub, were traced back to cracked metal stringers on the structure of the tank itself. This forced the stack to get rolled back to the vehicle assembly building for repairs. During the wait, astronaut Tim Kopra, who was supposed to be the lead spacewalker for this flight, was injured in a bike crash and had to be scrubbed from the mission. Astronaut Stephen Bowen, who was a spacewalker on STS-132, took his place since he was already up to speed on the assigned mission tasks. Discovery lifted off into a clear Florida sky on 24 February 2011 for its final mission into space.

  Discovery’s primary payload was the Permanent Logistics Module (PLM) Leonardo. Leonardo had flown as an MPLM on many previous flights, but it was decided by NASA to outfit it as a permanent storage locker for the station since internal space would be at a premium in the coming years. The PLM would also allow equipment previously stored at various locations inside the ISS to be moved to one central area. As part of the PLM’s modifications, coverings were removed from the never-flown Donatello MPLM. They were reinforced with Kevlar and installed on Leonardo. Additional micrometeoroid debris shields were also fitted, and the CBM seal was replaced. These alterations gave Leonardo the same level of protection as other ISS modules.

  Discovery spent nine days docked with the ISS. Two EVAs were conducted by Stephen Bowen and Alvin Drew to place some new equipment outside the station and stow a failed ammonia coolant pump that had been replaced on a previous mission. The failed pump would be returned to Earth on STS-135, a mission that had only just been added to NASA’s manifest a couple of weeks before Discovery’s final launch.

  Robonaut 2

  Another “crewmember” sent to the ISS aboard Discovery’s final flight was Robonaut 2. The Robonaut is a machine resembling a human upper torso with two arms and two hands, plus a head with cameras and sensors located inside it. But instead of a lower torso with legs, the Robonaut features a special giant “finger” that allows it to firmly anchor itself to parts of the station. It is hoped that the Robonaut will allow for maintenance to be performed on the station without the need for risky EVAs, as an ISS crewmember can operate it by telepresence from a special workstation. Future versions of the Robonaut could one day perform critical tasks on future space missions, perhaps to the moon, Mars, or an asteroid, allowing the operator to remain safely inside the spacecraft.

  Twins in Orbit . . . Almost

  Discovery’s return from orbit marked the final flight of the space shuttle with the most time in the fleet. Endeavour would fly next on STS-134. When the mission assignment came up over a year earlier, it had been hoped that its commander, astronaut Mark Kelly, might mark a space first by visiting his twin brother, Expedition 26 commander Scott Kelly, on orbit. Both men were naval aviators. They graduated from the Naval Academy in the same class, and both got their pilots’ wings the same year. Mark Kelly went on to fly A-6 Intruders, while Scott Kelly flew F-14 Tomcats. Both men joined NASA in 1996 as shuttle pilots. At NASA their careers took slightly different paths. Though Mark Kelly flew two missions as pilot before Scott did, Scott Kelly flew as a shuttle commander first. After commanding STS-118, Scott Kelly switched over to the ISS program in preparation to fly on Expedition 25 as a flight engineer, from which he assumed command of Expedition 26.

  However, with the launch delays due to STS-133’s tank problems, the window for a meeting of twins in orbit never came about. For the Kelly brothers, the meeting became the least of their concerns. On 8 January 2011 Mark Kelly’s wife, U.S. congressional representative Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head during an assassination attempt by a lone gunman in Tucson, Arizona, at a public gathering. The attack left six people dead and Giffords critically injured. Scott Kelly received regular updates in orbit, while Mark Kelly took a leave of absence to be at his wife’s side during her recovery. To help continue the training flow for the mission, NASA assigned astronaut Fred Sturckow as backup commander. Giffords was eventually transferred from Tucson to a rehabilitation facility in Houston, where she continued to make steady and almost miraculous progress. So Mark Kelly made the difficult decision to go back to work and fly the assigned mission with the rest of his crew. Scott Kelly returned from orbit in March and, after his rehabilitation period, helped out with Giffords’s recovery while Mark Kelly continued his training.

  Even though the Kelly twins never flew together, having had an identical twin in orbit did help in one aspect. After Endeavour docked with the ISS on 18 May 2011, Mark Kelly went searching for something. While Mark was helping with his wife’s recovery, he wasn’t on hand at NASA to be fitted for his in-flight clothing. Therefore, the measurements used for his pants were totally wrong, and the sets of pants provided were too large. Thankfully, Endeavour’s commander located a used set of pants sized for his brother, and he wore those for the remainder of the mission, as they fit perfectly.

  Never Say “Never”: The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer

  The final U.S. module flown aboard Endeavour was the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). It was the brain child of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Samuel Chao Chung Ting. Ting was born in Michigan to parents of Chinese ancestry who had both attended the University of Michigan. The family moved back to China not long after he was born and got caught up in the invasion by Japan during the 1930s. After the war years and the Communists’ seizing of power in mainland China, Ting continued his schooling in Taiwan before being invited to attend the University of Michigan, where he excelled in mathematics and physics, earning bachelor’s degrees in both. As a physicist, he won a Nobel Prize with linear accelerator researcher Burton Richter for discovery of a new meson particle.

  In 1995, as a research physicist at MIT, Ting proposed that a cosmic-ray particle detector placed in orbit could be used to help in the discovery of unusual materials found in the universe, perhaps including dark matter. At the heart of the new detector is a large magnet, used to help detect these cosmic-ray particles and analyze their chemical makeup. The proposal was accepted, and an early version of what became known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer was flown on STS-91 in June of 1998. Data from the early system was used to help flesh out the design of a larger and more capable AMS.

  It was felt that the power and time requirements needed for the newer AMS were beyond the capabilities of the shuttle, so plans were made to fit the new system aboard the ISS. But when Columbia was destroyed in February 2003 and the decision was made to retire the shuttle program by 2010, the newly built AMS was not part of the flight manifest. Many scientists and engineers had worked on the AMS, and millions of dollars had already been spent. So Ting didn’t take no for an answer. He successfully lobbied Congress, and these efforts got STS-134 added to NASA’s mission manifest with the AMS as its payload.

  The original plans were for the AMS to be equipped with a superconducting magnet cooled with cryogenic liquid helium. This would have given the instrument excellent sensitivity but a mission life of only about three years until the helium supply was used up. Problems were also encountered with the magnet design, so it was decided, instead, to fly the instrument with less powerful magnets. The instrument wouldn’t be as sensitive, but it could stay in operation for a decade or more, allowing for more data collection.

  On 19 May 2011 Endeavour’s RMS handed off the AMS to the SSRMS, which berthed the instrument at its new permanent location on top of the S3 truss segment. It has been collecting readings ever since. STS-134 also delivered a couple of more EXPRESS racks with equipment spares. Finally, Endeavour handed off its OBSS, which was then hooked up to the station’s power grid during one of the EVAs. The OBSS would be available for use as an extension to the station’s SSRMS, in case a future problem cropped up needing an arm extension to fix it. With that, ISS assembly was complete.

  The Final Shuttle Visit

  On 8 July 2011 the space shuttle Atlantis stood on launchpad 39A at KSC for the final time. The mission hadn’t existed in NASA’s manifest a year earlier, but lobbying work in Washington and at
the NASA centers got it added to the roster. Part of the reason for NASA’s decision to fly Atlantis came down to having hardware available. For all the missions after STS-107, NASA made sure to have a second shuttle undergoing launch preparation just in case critical damage to the orbiting shuttle’s heat shield prevented a safe return. For STS-134, Atlantis served as the launch-on-need shuttle for Endeavour, but for this final flight, there would no shuttle to back up Atlantis.

  STS-135 had flown thanks to a successful refurbishment of an ET damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 at NASA’s Michoud facility. The tank was flown on STS-134. That left one more tank and a set of SRBs available for use on STS-135, but a question remained regarding what should be done if Atlantis were to become stranded at the ISS. The crew for STS-135 was reduced to four people, an all-veteran crew consisting of Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Rex Walheim, and Sandy Magnus. The crew visited Russia to be fitted for Sokol pressure suits and Soyuz seat liners in case they had to come home on Soyuz capsules.

  53. Paolo Nespoli on Soyuz TMA-20 photographed the completed ISS with the space shuttle Endeavour docked to it. Visible modules include the Tranquility node with cupola, the Leonardo PLM, and Rassvet on Zarya’s nadir port. The Pirs and Poisk modules hosting Progress and Soyuz craft are also visible, as is the Johannes Kepler ATV. Courtesy NASA.

  The mission of STS-135 would primarily be stockpiling. The Raffaello MPLM was packed with enough supplies and spares to keep the ISS going through 2012. A robot refueling experiment was also sent up. This experiment rack would allow the Dextre manipulator unit to test the feasibility of using a robot system to refuel satellites in orbit. Atlantis would also bring back the busted ammonia pump module that was replaced in 2010 so that engineers could study it and try to find out what prematurely failed on it.