A little late, but I think it's about time to start this topic.Airbus Defence & Space and Teledyne Brown Engineering have the ambition to add an external platform to the ISS, so more external payloads can be hosted. The first time I read about this was in the slides from Nanoracks Workshop 2015 (europe). [Christian Steimle - Bartolomeo Concept]Linked to the twitter accound of Christian Steimle are a Poster and a Presentation about the Bartolomeo platform.The June 2th Airbus Defence & Space posted this press release; English PDF. Airbus D&S and ESA signed the collaboration contract to start the development and planning for Bartolomeo.Multiple Satellite and Space news outleads posted an article about this. Satnews; Satellite Today; Parabolic Arc; SpaceRef.This topic is for news about Bartolomeo, and your oppinion about it.
Will the existing Columbus external payload locations continue to be used? I haven't heard of anything being mounted on them post-Shuttle, though I haven't been tracking them too closely.
What do SDN and SDX stand for?
Could bartolomeo be a major part of ESA's ISS contribution for the ISS exploitation 2020-2024 period?Becides te ACLS-rack, and possibly a second Orion service modue (not my favorite option).I think it could also be mounted to PMM.Bartolomeo can support 4 or 5 FRAM /EPF payloads and 8 CLPA (wedge) payloads. This will nearly double the external ESA and US payload locations. A EDRS transmitter/receiver could also be very usefull to the ISS.
1 kg mass will be sent together with our Neumann Drive to be operated in space for up to twelve months. We are glad to rely on Airbus Defence and Space to handle launch, power, in-orbit installation, communications down from the ISS and all the other bits
Airbus has a Bartolomeo page inside it's website.http://space.airbus.com/portfolio/human-spaceflight/bartolomeo/(It's low quality info)And a Bartolomeo status update presentation was given at the ISS R&D 2017 conference.Conference Abstracts; BartolomeoThe design of Bartolomeo has changed.
We expect to launch Bartolomeo in 2018.