CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Imagine your closet space was shrinking by the month. And you could only take out the trash about once a month. In that time, you had to find room for the remains of 270 meals you and your family had eaten. Not to mention all that dirty laundry.
That's what's happening on the International Space Station.
As more science experiments and supplies come up, they displace storage space. When shuttle Endeavour launches Thursday from Kennedy Space Center, astronauts will move two more refrigerator-sized racks for science experiments into the laboratory.
"Storage is going to be a huge problem, actually," said astronaut Peggy Whitson, who will be moving onto the station for a 4.5-month stay. "Dan (Bursch, an astronaut aboard the station,) is a really, really organized guy. He's got the station pretty ship shape thanks to the help of Carl and Yuri. He is very concerned about where we're going to put all these things when we get them there."
And we're not talking about a few new pieces of furniture.
On this flight, the shuttle will bring up more provisions and science projects -- 3,500 pounds (1,587 kilograms) of it. All of this will be carried up in the Italian-built Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, which was loaded and prepared at KSC.
To keep the three inhabitants from drowning in stuff once that's unloaded, astronauts and cosmonauts will reload the capsule up to 90 percent capacity with excess packing foam, bags, dirty clothes, unused equipment and food containers that have been slowly accumulating."We'll get the clutter off the station," said Endeavour commander Kenneth Cockrell, who will be in charge of the cargo transfer.
The current station crew has been spring cleaning to get ready for this flight.
| Mission Update |
Launch pad workers are testing repairs of a leaking valve inside Endeavour today and so far the launch remains on schedule for Thursday between 4 and 8 p.m. EDT (2000 and 2400 GMT).Meanwhile, the STS-111 and Expedition Five crews were scheduled to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center today and the countdown is to begin at 11 p.m. EDT (0300 Tuesday GMT). |
"Crew members have been very clever with where they stash things," said Mike Rodriggs, the shuttle mission's launch integration manager. "They find nooks and crannies everywhere."
During the last six months, the station crew has had ways to get rid of some stuff.
Two shuttle missions, a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft and a Russian Soyuz, have managed to take down 3,150 pounds (1,429 kilograms) of trash and unused items.
On this mission, the astronauts also will add some closet space in the Russian Zarya module, said the station's deputy program manager Bill Gerstenmaier.
"That'll help us offset some of the loss of some of these two stowage locations within the lab," Gerstenmaier said.
This crew has a very full schedule when they're docked to the station. If they don't manage to get everything on board this time, Whitson and her two Russian crewmates will just have to keep things tidy on board.
Another cargo module doesn't arrive until January, well into the stay of the following station crew. The rest of the shuttle flights to the station this year bring up large pieces of the truss to fit on the outside of the station.
So NASA has come up with a system to prioritize what goes on the moving-van module first. They'll load Leonardo in layers, and the list for what's going on and off has been frozen, Cockrell said.
For a time, NASA discussed leaving the cargo module on the station as a gigantic float-in closet.
But the capsule was never built for long-term space flight. For one thing, it doesn't have adequate debris shields to protect from micrometeorites and tiny space junk.
In addition, the station crew would have to move it to a new spot on the station so it doesn't interfere with what future shuttles bring up. So for now, the modules will remain cargo transporters with astronauts keeping a close inventory on their stuff.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2002 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
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