IN A MAJOR PROGRAMME milestone, Boeing Defense and Space Group has completed fabrication of the exterior structure of the first of two US pressurised connecting-node modules for the proposed Alpha international space station.
The 2,267kg aluminium nodes are the 4.8m-long, 4.4m-diameter sections to which the Space Shuttle, space-station main modules and logistics carriers, and Russian Soyuz TM ferries will be docked at six, 2m-diameter, attachment ports. They will also act as the central passageways to other parts of the space station.
Built at NASA's Space Station manufacturing building at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the completed node will be used as a structural test article (STA) for pressure and leak tests. It will then be refurbished to become flight node 2.
The exterior structure of the flight node 1 will be completed in June, using data verified from tests with the STA, and is scheduled to be flown on the first Space Shuttle space-station assembly flight (SSAF-01), STS88/Endeavour, in December 1997. The node 2 will follow on the SSAF-10/STS105/Atlantis in September 1999.
Node 1 accommodates a space-walker's airlock, while node 2 will include a seven-windowed, 1.4m-high, 2.2m-diameter cupola, to be used by the station crew to oversee space walks and docking operations, as well as serving as a science-observation platform.
Another NASA milestone, was the first incremental design review at the Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas, to ensure that the space station meets its specifications for successful flight, on-orbit assembly, operations, science and technology research and its development, schedule and cost targets.
Construction of the US laboratory and habitation modules by Boeing is under way at Huntsville, with the first of a planned 150 racks to hold experiments and operational systems.
The exterior structure of the laboratory module will be completed in December. This module is scheduled to be launched to the Space Station, on SSAF-04/STS94/Endeavour, in November 1998.
Source: Flight International
