The STS 100 Endeavour Space Shuttle mission due to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 19 April has been described as "the most complicated in the history of the programme" by its commander Kent Rominger.
Endeavour/STS 100 is the first of three planned missions to install the Canadian robotic Mobile Servicing System (MSS) on the International Space Station (ISS).
The MSS will play a key role in space station assembly and maintenance, moving equipment and supplies around the station, releasing and capturing satellites, supporting astronauts working in space and servicing instruments and other payloads attached to the ISS, says NASA.
The first MSS component being taken on the Endeavour mission is the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), a second-generation Canadian-built arm bigger and more "intelligent" than the current version of the Space Shuttle's Remote Manipulator System (RMS) robotic arm. Later MSS components destined for the ISS will include the Mobile Base System (MBS) and Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM). The SSRMS is 17m (56ft) long when fully extended, with seven motorised joints. The arm is capable of handling large payloads and assisting with docking the Space Shuttle.
Once in orbit, Endeavour's RMS will be used to move the pallet-mounted SSRMS out of the payload bay and onto the top of the Destiny laboratory module on the ISS. Two Endeavour spacewalkers will unfold the arm, connecting its two main booms together.
Inside Destiny, members of the ISS Expedition Crew 2 will manoeuvre the arm onto the lower part of Destiny where the SSRMS will hand the pallet back to the Shuttle's RMS, in the first robotic space manoeuvre of its kind, operated by two separate teams, one in the attached Shuttle and one in Destiny.
The first use of the SSRMS is expected to be during a Shuttle mission in June when it will have to be used to carry an airlock from the Shuttle's payload bay and place it onto the ISS, a task unable to be completed by the Shuttle's RMS because of the position of the airlock on the ISS.
The SSRMS is self-relocatable so it can later be attached to ports spread along the station's exterior surfaces. It will inch itself around the ISS holding one fixture while the other end of the arm attaches itself to another.
The MBS, a work platform that will move along rails covering the length of the space station, is to provide lateral mobility for the SSRMS as it traverses the main trusses, supporting such work as placing solar arrays. The MBS is due to be launched in 2002.
The SPDM, a smaller two-armed robot capable of handling the delicate assembly tasks currently handled by astronauts during spacewalks, will be attached to the ISS in 2004.
A Russian Strela robotic device, will be used to support EVAs and will be operated by spacewalkers.
Source: Flight International
