• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Shuttles' Absence Snarls Work on Space Station

Posted on: Friday, 7 November 2003, 06:00 CST

Nov. 7--NASA, which had once vowed the space shuttle fleet would be flying again by July, now says it will have to rely on Russian space capsules to keep the international space station operating until the fall of 2004.

The delay in the shuttles' return to flight --- along with the hiatus in station assembly caused by the shuttle Columbia accident in February --- now means that the $60 billion orbiting outpost cannot be completed until at least 2010, more than a decade after it was begun.

Michael Kostelnik, NASA's deputy assistant administrator for the shuttle and station, said Thursday that it does not appear that the next Russian supply vessel will be ready to launch this month as NASA had requested, in part because the cash-strapped Russian government has been slow to fund additional spacecraft to service the space station.

Energiya, the Russian company that manufactures the capsules, was forced to borrow money to build spacecraft this year and had to freeze assembly of the spacecraft for future missions.

"There are financial difficulties with all of the international partners," Kostelnik said.

Careful use of food and other supplies by astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri will enable them to get by, under relatively Spartan conditions, at least until January, he said.

Because the shuttle was the logistical backbone for resupplying the station and for ferrying the heavy components used to build it, Kostelnik said, the station is essentially in "survival" mode until the shuttles fly again.

"If we are going to complete the international space station, the shuttle is the only option we have," he said. "These two components of the space program are attached at the hip, and one will not succeed without the other."

Without the shielding that the shuttle would have delivered, parts of the station are also vulnerable to being punctured by meteoroids or space debris.

There is concern that air-filtering systems are not adequately recycling the station's air. NASA scientists are analyzing air samples returned by the last crew for potential problems.

Some space agency officials had argued that the station should be left unmanned until crew safety can be assured. But NASA's senior managers prevailed, arguing that without a crew to tend it, the station might suffer even more serious mechanical problems.

There is also growing attention --- spurred in part by NASA's failure to spot external damage to Columbia before it re-entered the atmosphere --- to inspecting the exterior of the space station with remote cameras.

"So far, there are no signs of any abnormal deterioration," Kostelnik said. He noted, however, that there are a number of blind spots that can be inspected only by space-walking astronauts.

NASA officials have also begun re-examining station management practices in an effort to weed out the kinds of safety-related lapses that investigators said contributed to the loss of the Columbia and its crew.

"We're trying to apply the lessons that we have learned from the Columbia accident investigation to the space station," Kostelnik said.

Although that review is still in its early stages, one potential problem with "major impact and potentially unacceptable risk" has already been identified --- the accidental firing of one of the shuttle's maneuvering jets when it is docked at the station.

A NASA review concluded that such a mishap, which could seriously damage the shuttle, the station or both, had not been properly evaluated when it was first reviewed several years ago. Efforts to prevent the problem are under way.

With station assembly at a standstill, hardware that had been expected to be integrated into the station this year is backing up on the ground. That will require some to undergo costly refurbishment and recertification for use in space.

And without the shuttle to deliver large station components, most of the scientific research that was the station's primary justification is currently on hold as well.

"The big labs are still on the ground," Kostelnik said. "Until we get the shuttle back, science on the station is going to be very limited."

-----

To see more of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.ajc.com

(c) 2003, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

More News in this Category