Tim Furniss/LONDON
THE US HOUSE of Representatives, has cleared a hard fought Bill, authorising NASA to spend $13.1 billion on the international space station over the next seven years, during which time, construction of the base is scheduled to be completed.
The unprecedented financial forward commitment has still to be passed by the Senate, however. If cleared by Congress, the Bill would limit NASA to spending no more than $2.1 million each year on the space station. NASA will be carefully monitored by Congress during the period, and will have to indicate ways in which the space station can be commercialised.
NASA, Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan, Canada and other countries will spend an estimated $60 billion to establish the international space base by June 2002. The completed space station, consisting of seven laboratories and a habitation module, truss frames and solar arrays, will weigh 42t and span 110m.
The main structure of the 8.5m-long US laboratory module for the space station, was completed by Boeing, at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama, in September.
The 2,720kg laboratory will be launched in November 1998. It will be covered with a debris-shield blanket and a thin aluminum outer shield. Boeing is also completing the Nodes 1 and 2, which will connect the various modules.
Space-station assembly will begin with the Russian launch of the Functional Energy Block module in November 1997, to which the Node 1 and other equipment will be added in December 1997.
Complete assembly will require over 20 dedicated Space Shuttle missions: nearly 40 launches by Russia and at least one by Europe of the ESA Columbus laboratory.
The next structure to be fabricated at Marshall will be the habitat module. The US has completed nearly 37,000kg of space-station hardware.
Source: Flight International
