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Space Station Plan Would Add Astronauts

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 July 2004, 06:00 CDT

The United States has finished its plans for completing the International Space Station by the end of the decade, including expansion of a science module to accommodate housing for more astronauts.

The plans are to be submitted this week to the heads of the space agencies of all the nations involved in the station project, including the United States, Russia, Japan and those of the European Union, at a meeting in the Netherlands.

President George W. Bush announced in January that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would complete the station and retire the shuttle fleet at the end of the decade, and switch the focus of its station work to research on long-duration human spaceflight aimed at returning people to the moon and later sending them to Mars.

Among other things, NASA officials said Friday, the revised plans call for expanding the use of the United States' Destiny science module aboard the station. Michael Kostelnik, NASA's deputy associate administrator for the shuttle and the space station, said that to do as much research as possible, NASA wanted to increase the complement of astronauts working on the station to as many as six, from the current limit of three. This may require having two or more three-person Soyuz rescue capsules assigned to the station at times, and having the American space shuttle dock at the station for longer periods, Kostelnik said.

He also said that efforts to resume flights of the shuttle fleet, grounded since the loss of the Columbia and its crew 17 months ago, were on schedule.

"We are now less than 12 months away from flight," Kostelnik said. Barring unexpected problems, the modified shuttle should begin flights to the space station next March.

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