Limited Crew Delays Space Station Work

April 25, 2003 -- The year 2003 was supposed to be big for the International Space Station.

Shuttle flights were scheduled to launch nearly 90,000 pounds of components, supplies and experiments to the station and astronauts were trained to connect and wire the final pieces to the station's core structure.

Back in December, NASA Station Program Manager Bill Gerstenmaier said, "The year ahead will be the most complex so far in the history of the International Space Station and its construction in orbit."

Of course, that all changed when Columbia disintegrated 40 miles above Earth on Feb. 1, prompting NASA officials to delay all shuttle flights until at least this fall.

Instead of a shuttle loaded with supplies and a seven-member crew docking at the station, two men are due to launch late today for the orbital outpost from Kazakhstan in a small, Russian-made Soyuz ship.

"This flight has extra meaning. Our close friends did perish two months ago," American astronaut Edward Lu said in a recent press conference. "But this doesn't mean we should stop what we're doing, stop at the first setback."

Work won't stop at the station, but it will be significantly slowed.

Gyroscope, Spinal Parts Must Wait

The reduced crew of two, Lu and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, will maintain the space station and carry out about 20 hours of research a week over their six-month stay.

Assembly work is on hold since supplies are usually carried on U.S. shuttles and Lu and Malenchenko won't be able to tick off most of the station's previously scheduled work.

Some tabled tasks include the installing of a solar-power gyroscope designed to keep the space station at the correct attitude without sucking up crucial propellant. The new gyroscope had been scheduled to go up in March on an Atlantis flight that was postponed.

Four other postponed shuttle flights were to deliver new sections to the station's truss — or spine — for installation in 2003. The segments not only included the main stem parts but the wing-like solar arrays that are fitted to attach. Also on hold are new wiring and solar panels that had been slated to triple the station's power supply.

All parts will remain Earth-bound until shuttle flights are resumed, which could be some time this fall, according to Michael Kostelnik, deputy associate administrator for shuttle and space station activities.

Science on Standby

Scientific research, already stalled by a limited crew of three, will be further slowed. The space station was originally conceived to house a crew of up to seven astronauts and cosmonauts. Between construction work and basic maintenance little time is left for science among a crew of three, let alone two.

The Soyuz capsule could fly another three people, but NASA planners are restricted by the amount of water that can be supplied on board. The space shuttle fleet normally supplies the bulk of the station's water, which is gathered as a byproduct of the shuttles' fuel cells.

This time, water and food will be carried up in the Soyuz craft, to be supplemented by another Russian ship, the unmanned Progress cargo vehicle. But the Progress' three-ton carrying capacity pales in comparison with space shuttle payloads of up to 110 tons.

The Atlantis shuttle flight that had been scheduled for March was due to ship up materials for more than 18 new experiments, including ones to study spheres and analyze hand movement for development of a possible mechanized glove device.

Richard Grugel, a researcher who studies bubble formation in metal at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, has experiments already operating on board the station. New parts were to be shipped up for further work, but he says they're now trying to find a way of reusing what's already there.

"We're looking at different ways to get more science out of them," he said. "The experiments are ongoing, but not as fast as we'd like."

David Klaus of BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado in Boulder has a research apparatus on the station that will remain there until a shuttle can return it to his lab. And Douglas Watt of McGill University in Montreal has already completed some space station research on the human spinal cord but holds little hope of following up with further studies in space.

"There's just such a long time between when you propose an experiment and when you can do it — I'd be retired before we could begin," he said.

Keeping a Presence

Lu and Malenchenko are due to spend two days chasing after the space station before docking at about 2 a.m. ET Monday. The two will then have a one-week overlap with the current crew before assuming full responsibility for the 130-ton outpost.

The station's current crew — commander Ken Bowersox, flight engineer Nikolai Budarin and science officer Don Pettit — will then return in the Soyuz craft already docked at the station.They have been there since November 2002, and were scheduled to return in March.

After an approximate six-month stay, Lu and Malenchenko will return in the Soyuz craft they traveled up in. Russia has used the Soyuz model since the 1960s and the vehicles are known for their rough but reliable parachute landings.

Although the station's new crew may be limited in the amount of work they can accomplish on board the space station, NASA officials point out that simply keeping a presence at the station is critical. The Russian government made this possible by voting to boost funding to its space program and offer up its transport vehicles.

'The only reason we can continue this program is because Russia has the capacity to launch Progress and Soyuz modules," Lu said recently. "It's very important to show the world what we can do together."