HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Experts from NASA will preview an upcoming spacewalk with two American astronauts outside the International Space Station to complete the outfitting of docking ports during a briefing at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, Aug. 16, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Live coverage of the briefing will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website.
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The second International Docking Adapter. (Credit: NASA)
By Steven Siceloff,
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida
A metallic ring big enough for astronauts and cargo to fit through is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station in July as part of the cargo aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft loaded with materials for the orbiting laboratory and its crew. The ring is known as an International Docking Adapter, or IDA, and its main purpose is to provide a port for spacecraft bringing astronauts to the station in the future.
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A Station that Needs Everything
A Scrappy Startup Contracted to Ship 35.4 Metric Tons of It
Ought to be Easy Enough, Right?
SpaceX Dragon freighter at ISS. (Credit: NASA)
By Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
The International Space Station (ISS) is not exactly a self-sufficient outpost. The station’s occupants can’t jump into a Soyuz and pop over to an orbiting Wal-Mart when they run out of food, water or toothpaste. Everything the six astronauts need to survive — save for the random plastic wrench or replacement part they can now 3-D print — must be shipped up from the majestic blue planet 400 km below them.
A massive explosion occurred right after the Antares rocket hit the ground.
Commercial Cargo’s Lower Costs Brought Higher Risks
By Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
In October 2014, NASA engineers were deeply worried about Orbital Sciences Corporation’s upcoming Orb-3 commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
An Antares booster was set to send a Cygnus cargo ship loaded with 2,215 kg (4,883 lb) of supplies to astronauts aboard the orbiting laboratory. It would be the third of eight Cygnus flights to the station under a Commercial Resupply Services-1 (CRS-1) contract worth $1.9 billion.
Dragon capsule separated from Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
NASA’s Response to SpaceX’s June 2015 Launch Failure: Impacts on Commercial Resupply of the International Space Station
[Full Report]
NASA Office of the Inspector General
June 28, 2016
Why We Performed This Audit
On June 28, 2015, just 2 minutes after liftoff, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation’s (SpaceX) seventh cargo resupply mission (SPX-7) to the International Space Station (ISS or Station) failed, destroying $118 million of NASA cargo,
including an International Docking Adapter (Adapter) the Agency planned to use when it begins flying astronauts to the Station on commercial vehicles. In the aftermath of the failure, SpaceX suspended resupply missions pending completion of an investigation into its cause, relicensing of its launch vehicle by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and acceptance by NASA of the company’s corrective actions.
