T-2 years and counting: the first hardware has been built for the Alpha International Space Station.
Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC
THE ALPHA INTERNATIONAL Space Station "...isn't a paper programme anymore", says Wilbur Trafton, director of NASA's Space Station programme. "We're talking launches just round the corner."
The Alpha is all systems go. The European Space Agency's (ESA) October decision in Toulouse, France, to commit itself to the Alpha, was one of the final planning milestones. The first Alpha launch will take place in November 1997. It will be a Russian one.
There is little doubt that NASA would have had great difficulty in getting the Alpha off the ground had it not been for Russia joining the programme. Similarly, cash-starved Russia was given an opportunity to launch components of its planned Mir 2 station, which it could not have otherwise done on its own.
NASA's Space Shuttle/Mir missions with the Mir 1 station - the second was launched on 12 November - are allowing NASA to tap into Russia's vast experience of long-duration flights. They are helping to develop the technology and relationships required for the next step, the Alpha, which will be the largest international scientific enterprise in history.
The early stages of the Alpha will be dominated by Russian activity, which may hurt US pride - especially as, in May 1998, three crewmembers will be working on what is a largely Russian station, and "...two of them will be Russian", says Trafton.
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS
The new Alpha station, redesigned on the orders of NASA's administrator Daniel Goldin, almost as soon as he took his new job in 1992, will cost up to $8 billion less than the original Freedom space station. When completed in 2002, at a cost of $17.4 billion, it will have twice the power (maximum 110kW, with 30kW to operate the payloads, double the volume at 1,217m3 (43,000ft3), twice the number of modules (six laboratories, two habitation modules and two logistics modules) and 50% more crew (six at completion).
The Alpha will have 75% of the components designed for the Freedom. Japan, Europe and Canada will provide $9 billion-worth of hardware, and have already invested $4 billion on the project. Canada's Mobile Servicing System, including a 16.7m-long robot arm capable of handling a 125t payload, will be aboard by December 1998; Japan's Experiment Module will be carried in December 2000; and Europe's Columbus Orbital Facility will be aboard in February 2001.
Russia's provision of 140,000kg of hardware for the 377,000kg completed station - including the Functional Energy Block (FGB - see box, P66) and service, docking, research and life-support modules - will be worth $2 billion, and will enable the Alpha to be completed 15 months earlier than originally planned. The only component for which the USA is paying Russia is the FGB, the first piece of hardware to be launched. "Every other bit of hardware is being provided by Russia as a contribution to the programme," says Trafton.
Since Goldin's intervention - "We went ten years with nothing but paper and debate," he says - work on the station has met all cost, technical and schedule goals. The key to progress was Goldin's success in persuading US President Bill Clinton to give a $2.1 billion-a-year, long-term commitment to the Space Station, enabling hardware to be built. By the end of 1995, 34,000kg of hardware will have been completed, built under the management of Boeing, which has a $5.63 billion NASA contract. McDonnell Douglas and Rocketdyne are major subcontractors.
ASSEMBLY SCHEDULE
"Continued stable funding is essential," says Trafton. Cuts will threaten the schedule, costs and the USA's reputation as a reliable international partner. Similarly, Russia has a lot to gain and much to lose if it pulls out for financial or political reasons. The design of the Alpha is such, however, that, if Russia did pull out, "...the USA could continue, although it would cost more and take more time", he says.
The Alpha constitutes 0.014% of the annual US federal budget and costs each American $9 a year. Its cost is less than 15% of the total NASA budget. The US Congress is now far more supportive of the station than it has been in the past (Flight International, 15-21 November).
The assembly schedule is not cast in stone yet, and NASA versions of it vary, but about 46 missions will be required to fully assemble the Alpha space station between November 1997 and June 2002. Seventeen of these, will be flown by Russian Proton, Zenit and Soyuz boosters, at least one by Europe's Ariane 5 and 28 by the Space Shuttle.
Twenty-nine Russian Soyuz TM and Progress missions will also be flown to carry crews and equipment to and from the station and reboost its orbit. The Progress vehicles will fly about four times a year. An up-rated Progress M2, to be launched on a Proton, will double the craft's capacity.
One Soyuz TM Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV) will be permanently attached for emergency crew return, from assembly flight 2R in May 1998. A second CTV is scheduled to be launched on flight 18A in June 2002, and this is likely to be an uprated Soyuz TM, although NASA is studying its own Apollo-like CTV and Europe is funding a study of an Ariane 5-launched CTV. Trafton says that consideration is being given to equip the Alpha with two Soyuz TMs to increase crew size to four or five, before the 2002 assembly completion date. After completion, there will always be two CTVs docked, to allow the rapid evacuation of six crew.
During the assembly sequence, several of the Shuttle missions will be used to carry crews to and from the station, as well as for carrying out joint science operations, during which as many as ten people will be able to work aboard the Alpha, while an orbiter remains attached for about 11 days. The crew and cargo for each flight will be very "mission specific", says Trafton. "We are not taking extra people for the fun of it".
With the change of inclination from the Freedom's 28.5¡ to a "Russian" 51.6¡, the Shuttle's lifting capacity will be strained to the limit on some flights, says Bryan O'Connor, NASA's Space Shuttle director.
It will surprise many that Italy is a major partner in the Alpha programme. In addition to being a member of ESA's Columbus team, Italy is separately supplying Columbus-based mini pressurised logistics modules, the first of which will be launched in December 1998. Five further flights are scheduled to June 2002.
No Japanese, Canadian or European astronaut will be on Alpha shifts until his or her components are attached to the Alpha, says Trafton, but this will not preclude international crews from flying on Shuttle visiting missions. Several NASA career astronauts are from international partner countries.
FLIGHT CONCERN
Three NASA orbiters, the Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, are to be equipped for Alpha flights. The dependence on the Shuttle for assembling major parts of the station is worrying many, particularly as NASA talks openly about the statistical possibility of another accident.
Even if the fleet were grounded, by a serious technical problem or accident, the FGB module could be a short-term saviour, since it will have back-up communications, attitude control and reboost capability. More Soyuz TMs could be launched and "...US expendable launch vehicles are being quietly talked about for potential contingencies", says Trafton.
For the first component flight of the FGB - equipped with a US computer - flight control will be conducted by Russia's Kaliningrad control centre and, after the US laboratory is launched by November 1998, full control will shift to NASA's Houston space centre in Texas, with Kaliningrad acting as back up. From the start, the US-led international partnership will have a US flight director at Houston. NASA and Russian flight controllers will serve at each counterpart's centres throughout the flight sequence to 2002.
English will be the spoken language on the station, but "...we're not going to be unreasonable about a Russian talking Russian to a Russian colleague", says Trafton. "We have come a long way in establishing trust at all levels with Russia. It is one of the success stories of the programme. Co-operating, sharing and solving," he adds.
The Alpha will be fully integrated, and "...everybody knows what is flying and what they will be doing", Trafton says. Discussions about accommodating commercial operations are very preliminary, says Trafton. It is possible that a small node module could be added for proprietary processing. "The Japanese are talking seriously about a hotel", Trafton says.
Source: Flight International
