NASA is
pressing ahead with plans to use part of the International Space Station (ISS)
as a national laboratory, a move that would reserve about half of the outpost's
U.S. science facilities for outside use by 2011.
The plan
hinges on the completion of the half-built $100
billion space station by September 2010, when NASA's shuttle fleet
is due to retire, the space agency said Monday.
"What we're trying to do is open up the U.S. segment of the
space station to be utilized by a variety of folks, both governmental and maybe
commercial, in the future so that we can take the maximum advantage of the
space station that we're in the process of assembling right now," said
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, during
a teleconference with reporters.
In late
May, NASA presented Congress with a 14-page
report detailing the agency's plan to use the U.S. segment of the ISS as a
national laboratory as directed under the NASA Authorization Act of 2005.
NASA and
its international partners plan at least 12 more space shuttle flights to
complete ISS construction by 2010. Still awaiting launch to the station are the
European Space Agency's Columbus module, Japan's three-part
Kibo laboratory, additional Russian-built modules, as well as
supporting solar arrays, connecting nodes
and other hardware.
"Previously,
we had anticipated that all the research conducted on the station would be
research within NASA's mission portfolio," said Mark Uhran, the space
agency's associate administrator for the ISS. "Now what we're looking to
do is make the facility available to other government agencies or private firms
to pursue their own research interests."
NASA's
restructuring in recent years, which shifted away from earlier ISS
science efforts to a more focused exploration program to support the
planned return of astronauts to
the Moon, led to the surplus of science time available aboard the
station, space agency officials said.
The level of
interest among non-NASA agencies to use the ISS could ultimately decide how
long the space station remains in operation beyond its current 2016 design
lifetime, they added.
"Technically,
the space station could fly to 2020 or 2022," Gerstenmaier said, adding
that a decision on whether to extend the station's lifetime would have to be
made around 2014. "What really drives the practical lifetime of the space
station is how useful it is and does it fit a niche."
When
complete, the space station's pressurized U.S. science facilities will include
the 12 experiment racks inside NASA's Destiny laboratory already in orbit, as
well as five others inside both the Columbus and Kibo laboratories. NASA has
also reserved about five payload slots on the Kibo laboratory's porch-like
exposed platform and has room for science experiments on other U.S.-built
external cargo carriers.
About half
of all those U.S. assets are expected to be available for use by private
commercial enterprises or non-NASA government agencies, Uhran said. Science
payloads will be skewed to include more automation, since the amount of crew
time available for non-NASA work remains to be determined, as well as focused
on experiments that return data only, rather than require a return trip to Earth,
he added.
While NASA
would continue to assume the current operational and maintenance costs of the
ISS, as well as those to launch astronaut crews and cargo, national laboratory
users would be responsible for the cost of their payloads and research under
the current plan. The anticipated cost of NASA's ISS operations once the
station is complete is estimated at about $1.5 billion per year, Gerstenmaier
said.
The space
agency is also relying on the anticipated availability of private launch
services to the ISS, such as those sponsored by NASA's Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services program, as well as the station's planned expansion to
a six-person crew in 2009 to maintain the orbital laboratory.
"The
success of this plan does clearly rely on being able to reach a six-person
crew," Uhran said.
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