09.18.06
Space News
I don’t know how big of a milestone this is, but I realized today that right now, there are 13 people in orbit around this planet. The Shuttle Atlantis is on its way back after an 11 day construction mission (more on this later) to the International Space Station. The Atlantis is scheduled to land tomorrow at around 5:30 in the morning at Kennedy. The second space ship in orbit right now is Soyuz TMA9. The ship took off yesterday morning from Kazakhstan and is currently on its way to the ISS, scheduled docking is around 1:30 tomorrow morning. Finally, currently aboard the space station are the 3 crew members of the Expedition 13 crew (representing NASA, RSA, and ESA).
Aboard the Soyuz is the one Astronaut and one Cosmonaut of the Expedition 14 crew, who will replace 2 of the 3 members of the current Expedition 13 crew. The third seat on the Soyuz is being occupied by (to steal a term from NASA) spaceflight participant, Anousheh Ansari. Ansari had the privilege to pay an estimated $20 million to train in Russia, get strapped into a Soyuz capsule to get blasted into space, spend 10 days aboard the ISS, and become (if I remember correctly) the second tourist to go up into orbit (and the first aboard the ISS). What makes a person want to spend millions of dollars to take a “vacation” in space? In case you haven’t heard the name Ansari before, she’s best known for funding the majority of the (appropriately named) Ansari X-Prize, the $10 million prize that went to the first team to build a sub-orbital rocket ship. Ansari is a self-professed space fanatic, her vision is to bring affordable space travel to everyone. For now at least, she gets to realize her own dreams of going into space. All I have to say to that is, you go girl.
Back to Atlantis, they just spent the last few days installing the P3 and P4 truss segments (P stands for port, or left for the non-naval inclined people out there; 3 and 4 mean the 3rd and 4th segments on the left side). NASA released some pictures today of the new configuration of the Space Station. They were taken from Atlantis after undocking on Monday morning. These pictures haven’t been released on the public site yet, so here’s an exclusive:
On the right side of this picture, you can see the newly installed P3 and P4 truss along with the solar arrays. The thing sticking out of the bottom on the arrays is one of the radiators, used to maintain temperature. The solar arrays that are currently sitting on top of the station are actually part of the P6 segment, and will be moved during a future mission, after the S3 and S4 segments are installed (S stands for starboard, imagine the same thing only on the other side of the station). You can also see 2 Soyuz modules attached to the bottom of the station, and another in the back. Two of these are actually Progress automated resupply vehicles. As of this writing, one of the Progress spacecraft has been undocked and is on it’s way to a fiery return to Earth, making room for the new Soyuz craft about to dock later this morning. The other Soyuz craft is used as an emergency escape vehicle for the ISS crew, in case something goes wrong.
Notice in this picture how the solar arrays on the P4 segment are tilted in relation to the rest of the station. The new truss segment gives the ability for the solar arrays to move in 2 degrees of motion, something the station didn’t have before. With this, the arrays can track the sun more easily, maximizing their light gathering abilities and thus maximizing power generation. NASA plans to fly up 2 more sets of solar arrays, giving the station 4 in total.
I really like this picture because it gives you a sense of just how big the station is. This picture is taken from about the center-line of the station, looking out at the newly installed P3 and P4 truss. If you look closely, you should be able to see two astronauts at the end. The T-shaped thing on the right hand side of the image are the actual solar arrays, still in their storage containers.
Well, I hope this post was somewhat educational if not enjoyable. If not, at least you got some cool space pictures out of it. Until next time…