NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
International Space Station (ISS) => ISS Section => Topic started by: nethegauner on 03/19/2010 10:36 am
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I was under the impression that the ELCs are mostly used to store spare parts, but a number of FRAM sites appear to remain available for science experiments. Are there any specific external scientific payload candidates in the pipeline right now? Are any under review? How will they get up there?
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I dont know about specific experiments, but HTV and dragon can lift external components, while a Cygnus variant also lifts external components so that is how they would come up.
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FRAM sites can be configured to host MISSEs (Materials International Space Station Experiments), as shown at the top of this image of ELC-2.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-21/hires/iss021e031746.jpg
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FRAM sites can be configured to host MISSEs (Materials International Space Station Experiments), as shown at the top of this image of ELC-2.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-21/hires/iss021e031746.jpg
Although worksite #2 as shown in this photo is now occupied, I would assume that any FRAM site could support a science experiment that meets the requirements of a FRAM site, in terms of power, thermal, data, etc.
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Space Test Program to Launch Trio of NRL Space Science and Technology Experiments
The Naval Research Laboratory and the Department of Defense Space Test Program (STP) finalized a Memorandum of Agreement, May 30, 2011, to integrate and launch science and technology experiments to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2013.
The mission, known as Space Test Program-Houston 4 (STP-H4), will include the Global Awareness Data-Extraction International Satellite hosted payload (GLADIS) and will validate the performance of a dual channel UHF and VHF data-extraction payload compatible with the nano-satellite form factor of approximately 20 kilograms and 20 watts total weight and power respectively.
"Access to orbit is the objective of every investigator working in the realm of space science and technology," said Jay Middour, branch head, NRL Advanced Systems Technology. "The DoD STP-H4 mission is an apt illustration, allowing several NRL payloads to demonstrate miniaturized satellite technologies for improved maritime security and measurement of space weather and the radiation environment."
GLADIS includes small, lightweight antennas designed to improve signal reception and mitigate interference associated with space-borne collection of the Automatic Information System (AIS) vessel-tracking signal while simultaneously providing two-way communications to widely distributed Maritime Domain Awareness sensor arrays.
The science payloads are the Small Wind and Temperature Spectrometer (SWATS) and the Miniature Array of Radiation Sensors (MARS).
The objective of SWATS is to make in-situ co-located measurements of the atmospheric density, neutral and ion density, composition and winds on a global scale. These data will support improvements to the thermospheric/ionospheric density and wind models to improve orbit determination and prediction.
MARS is an array of miniature, persistent, ubiquitous sensors that monitor the total dose radiation on the host spacecraft for three dimensional local radiation modeling. These sensors have a small footprint, low mass, and minimal power and telemetry requirements. The MARS sensors will be distributed around the STP-H4 experiment platform and directly attached to the GLADIS payload.
The STP-H4 mission will also include experiments from the Air Force Research Laboratory (ARL), United States Air Force Academy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Goddard Space Flight Center.
GLADIS is designed and built by the NRL Space System Development Department and was funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The two science experiments are designed and built by the NRL Space Science Division with partial funding for SWATS provided by ONR.
In addition to the experimental payloads, STP is funding the NRL Spacecraft Engineering Department to design and build the STP-H4 power interface box.
Delivery of the flight hardware to STP will take place between late 2011 and early 2012. STP will perform systems integration of all experiments into the STP-H4 payload complement, followed by launch vehicle integration and testing in late 2012, with an anticipated launch to the International Space Station in 2013.
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/94-11r
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Each ELC is designed to accommodate 2 payload sites (FRAMs) which provide power and data/command capability to payloads; other FRAMs on ELCs only provide power. The payload sites are therefore designed to support science experiments.
The science payload sites on each ELC are visibly designated.
However, in some cases, the ELC payload sites are obscured/covered by a large item, such as a radiator, and will not be accessed unless the large item is transferred elsewhere.
One of the big differences between an ELC and an ESP is that the ESPs don't necessarily support powered payloads, or at least many powered payloads, and don't support science FRAMs.
It would be great if some ambitious person here would generate a manifest of science payloads for the ELCs, showing the current topology, and planned future science payloads.
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However, in some cases, the ELC payload sites are obscured/covered by a large item, such as a radiator, and will not be accessed unless the large item is transferred elsewhere.
Which ELC/payload site are you referring to here?
It would be great if some ambitious person here would generate a manifest of science payloads for the ELCs, showing the current topology, and planned future science payloads.
Already done. ;)
FRAM payloads:
• ELC-2:
-MISSE (current)
• ELC-3:
-STP-H3 (current)
-SCAN (January 2012)
• ELC-4:
-RRM (August 2011)
-SAGE III-ISS (2014)
• COL EPF:
-SOLAR (current)
-ACES
• Unknown location:
-NOFBX (2012)
-STP-H4 (2013)
-OCO-3 (2015)
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This document has some information of interest, and a draft plan of external payloads until 2015:
International Space Station External Payload Accommodations/Interfaces
JSC-CN-24196 Published March 12, 2011 for Earth Venture 2, Pre-Proposal Conference, 12 Jul. 2011
3.9MB, 53 pages.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110013510_2011014100.pdf (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110013510_2011014100.pdf)
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This document has some information of interest, and a draft plan of external payloads until 2015:
International Space Station External Payload Accommodations/Interfaces
JSC-CN-24196 Published March 12, 2011 for Earth Venture 2, Pre-Proposal Conference, 12 Jul. 2011
3.9MB, 53 pages.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110013510_2011014100.pdf (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110013510_2011014100.pdf)
Any chance someone could upload this document (NTRS servers don't work for me anymore)? Thanks. :)
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This document has some information of interest, and a draft plan of external payloads until 2015:
International Space Station External Payload Accommodations/Interfaces
JSC-CN-24196 Published March 12, 2011 for Earth Venture 2, Pre-Proposal Conference, 12 Jul. 2011
3.9MB, 53 pages.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110013510_2011014100.pdf (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110013510_2011014100.pdf)
Any chance someone could upload this document (NTRS servers don't work for me anymore)? Thanks. :)
At your service :)
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At your service :)
Thank you Robert! :)
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Anyone know anything about planned external payloads for Columbus? Seems strange that ESA will put EuTEF-2 on ELC-1 since they have Columbus.
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Anyone know anything about planned external payloads for Columbus? Seems strange that ESA will put EuTEF-2 on ELC-1 since they have Columbus.
The only payload I know of (apart from the current SOLAR) is the Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES).
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/HSF_Research/SEMJSK0YDUF_0.html
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Anyone know anything about planned external payloads for Columbus? Seems strange that ESA will put EuTEF-2 on ELC-1 since they have Columbus.
I think only two locations at Columbus are dedicated to ESA and those are occupied by SOLAR and ACES.
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I believe that SAGE III will fly on Columbus using Hexapod.
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SAGE III-ISS will fly on a hexapod, but on ELC-4.
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I think only two locations at Columbus are dedicated to ESA and those are occupied by SOLAR and ACES.
Yes ESA has 2 of the locations and NASA 2. But why "rent" a location on ELC-1 when there is room on Columbus to "rent"? Why isn't ESA supporting it's own facility?
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I think only two locations at Columbus are dedicated to ESA and those are occupied by SOLAR and ACES.
Yes ESA has 2 of the locations and NASA 2. But why "rent" a location on ELC-1 when there is room on Columbus to "rent"? Why isn't ESA supporting it's own facility?
Well, Columbus provides more power for the external payloads. That may be a reason for NASA to reserve it for their own experiments...
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It also could be experiment requirements of SAGE III-ISS require it to be out on the truss and away from the modules and human activity. I am sure that the partners are willing to trade sites that they "own" with each other in order to accommodate payload requirements.
Have to admit, always secretly hoped that the dual keel truss would return for ISS as it provided so much more external area for experiments, however it probably is not feasible now.
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Can Dextre install payload as easily on Col as it can on an ELC?
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Can Dextre install payload as easily on Col as it can on an ELC?
Yes - the COL EPF uses FRAMs just like the ELCs. Reach wouldn't be an issue of the SSRMS was based on the MBS.
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Another payload for the COL EPF (aside from ACES): The Atmosphere Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM).
ESA is already developing a payload of interest to climate scientists: the Atmosphere Space Interactions Monitor will be attached to Columbus in 2014 to help us understand the high atmosphere.
http://www.esa.int/esaHS/SEMIVCFTFQG_index_0.html
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I think this will be a payload on STP-H4.
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Firestation in Space to Open Firehose of Lightning Data
When opportunity knocked, NASA heliophysicist Doug Rowland answered. He and his team recently secured another flight opportunity for a pint-sized instrument studying lightning in Earth's upper atmosphere and now are bracing for a veritable "fire hose" of data about a little-understood phenomenon first discovered by scientists nearly two decades ago.
The instrument, Firestation, is one of four experiments manifested to fly on an experiment pallet the U.S. Department of Defense plans to deploy on the International Space Station in 2013. It's a near duplicate of Firefly, which Rowland and his team at the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., began developing more than three years ago to fly on an emerging class of tiny satellites called Cubesats sponsored by the National Science Foundation. That mission also may launch in 2013.
Having secured a berth on the pallet, Rowland and his university partners must complete Firestation by the spring of 2012 for integration onto the pallet.
That shouldn't be an issue, Rowland said. Firestation is a knock-off of Firefly and, in fact, will be cobbled together from Firefly's spare parts. "We're basically ready," Rowland said. "We benefited from the fact that we had completed Firefly and had spare parts on hand. The only thing we need to do is develop a new housing appropriate for the pallet."
Mystery Flashes
Although the instruments are closely related, they are different in key areas. Firestation covers a wider measurement range. It will take advantage of a camera, also onboard the pallet, to snap photos of lightning flashes so that researchers can precisely locate where they are occurring. Furthermore, Firestation will enjoy a data rate that is about 3,000 times larger than Firefly's, which means the team will be able to sample every lightning stroke, instead of Firefly's carefully selected sample.
But perhaps the biggest difference is in mission duration. Firefly is expected to remain in low-Earth orbit for roughly a month, compared with Firestation's one-year sojourn aboard the space station. As a result, Rowland expects Firefly to gather only a tiny fraction of the science data that its sibling will collect. "This represents orders of magnitude better coverage," he said.
Their mission, however, remains the same. With their suite of sensitive photometers to measure lightning flashes, radio antennas to measure the strength of the lighting, and a combined gamma-ray electron detector, both instruments will gather data to find out whether lightning triggers Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs). This little understood phenomenon was first discovered using the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on NASA’s Compton Gamma-ray Observatory and later observed by NASA’s Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) satellite.
Although no one knows why, it appears these flashes of gamma rays that were once thought to occur only far out in space near black holes or other high-energy cosmic phenomena are somehow linked to lightning.
"The fact that they exist at all is amazing," said Rowland, who expects his instruments to observe up to 50 lightning strokes per day, at least one TGF every few hours, and a large TGF every couple days. "The electron and gamma-ray energies seen in TGFs are usually the domain of nuclear explosions, solar flares, and supernovas, not our relatively peaceful atmosphere."
In particular, Rowland and his colleagues, including the Universities Space Research Association in Columbia, Md., and Siena College, located near Albany, N.Y., hope to find out if lightning triggers TGFs or if they trigger lightning. Could they be responsible for some of the high-energy particles in the Van Allen radiation belts, which damage satellites?
"We'll be getting a fire hose of data, which we think will help answer those questions — 20 million times as much data as a matter of fact, given the higher data rate and longer mission duration. It's going to be a little crazy."
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/firestation-rowland.html