Expansionary Institute

Space station experiences “heavy traffic”

Traffic jams at space station

By Brad Liston

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Dec 1 (Reuters) - Astronauts have been living on the International Space Station for just a month, but on Friday they had to deal with their first traffic jam.

Two Russian spacecraft were already docked to the $60 billion complex, but with the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour on its way, Russian ground controllers made room for Endeavour by undocking one and parking it out of the way.

Endeavour is on an 11-day mission to hang a pair of solar-power "wings" on the space station. The thousands of photoelectric cells on the panels, which stretch 240 feet (73 metres) from tip to tip, will power the station for years to come.

The shuttle and its crew of five will arrive on Saturday. To make way, Russian ground controllers, working with the three astronauts inside the station, undocked a Progress ship and moved it to an orbit about a mile (1.6 kms) beneath the station, where it will gradually move ahead of the station.

"I can see separation," Russian astronaut Sergei Krikalyov told ground controllers as the ship began to inch away from the station.

Progress ships, which are virtually identical to the Soyuz spacecraft used to carry Russians to space for about 30 years, arrive as cargo ships and depart as garbage scows.

Coming in, they are stocked with food, oxygen, fuel, clothing and space-station hardware. Once offloaded, the crew uses the craft to stow garbage, eventually sending into a steep reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, where the friction causes it to burn up.

In this case, the Russians may try to redock the ship after Endeavour departs. The reason is that the ship's automatic pilot failed when it arrived two weeks ago, and Russian Yuri Gidzenko, a member of the station crew, had to complete the docking by remote control. The Russians want to see if they have fixed the problem with a software patch.

On the U.S. side of operations, a redocking is somewhat controversial because a degree of risk is always involved. It was a runaway Progress ship that collided with the Russian Mir station in 1997 and caused an air leak that almost forced the crew to abandon ship.

"We're still waiting for a report from the Russians about why they did not achieve a fully automated docking. We're waiting for the full report and we're waiting for a rationale as to why we would do this," said Bob Cabana, an astronaut and ground-based space-station manager.

Krikalyov and Gidzenko are joined on the station by their American commander, Bill Shepherd. The next crew, which arrives in February, will have a Russian commander and two U.S. crew persons.

Endeavour, which launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in Thursday, will be the sixth shuttle to visit the station but the first to arrive with an expedition crew already aboard.

"Clean up the house and put the welcome mat out," Mission Control advised the Expedition One crew.

"Well, we'll have everything ready in Bristol fashion," said Shepherd, using an old nautical term for orderliness.

The International Space Station is a joint project of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada and scheduled for completion in 2006.

14:38 12-01-00

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Sat Dec 2