ISS International Space Station

Après son lancement réussi du 10 septembre dernier, le HTV (H-II Transfer Vehicle) a réalisé plusieurs manoeuvres sur orbite à proximité de la Station afin de tester différentes procédures, dont celle d’éloignement d’urgence en vue de protéger l’équipage de l’ISS si un problème survenait à l’approche.
Hier soir, le vaisseau cargo automatique parvenait comme prévu à une dizaine de mètres de la Station. À bord du complexe orbital, l’Américaine Nicole Stott de l’Expédition 20 manœuvra le bras robotique canadien Canadarm 2 afin d'agripper le HTV à 19h47 TU (Temps Universel, heure du méridien de Greenwich en Angleterre), soit avec 3 minutes d’avance sur le planning des opérations. Le Belge Frank De Winne et le Canadien Robert Thirsk l’assistaient pendant le rendez-vous. Ce fut ensuite au tour de ce dernier de prendre les commandes du Canadarm 2 pour amener le cargo nippon vers le module Harmony de la Station et de l’amarrer à l’un de ses ports d’attache libres, en l'occurrence celui qui est orienté en permanence vers la Terre.

WASHINGTON, 4 déc 2009 (AFP)Le pdg d'Arianespace Jean-Yves Le Gall devait rencontrer vendredi l'administrateur de la NASA, Charles Bolden, pour discuter de possibles missions américaines pour le lanceur européen Ariane 5 vers la Station spatiale internationale (ISS), a-t-il indiqué à l'AFP.

CAP CANAVERAL, Floride, 23 décembre (Reuters) - Trois nouveaux membres d'équipage sont arrivés mardi à bord de la Station spatiale internationale (ISS) pour renforcer l'équipe réduite à deux spationautes depuis trois semaines. Le vaisseau russe Soyouz parti lundi matin de Baïkonour s'est amarré à l'ISS mardi à 22h48 GMT, alors qu'elle se trouvait à 350 km au-dessus de Rio de Janeiro.
La capsule russe a emmené à bord de la station le Russe Oleg Kotov, l'Américain Timothy Creamer et le Japonis Soichi Noguchi. Tous trois devraient rester à bord jusqu'en mai.
"C'est vraiment une belle manière de finir l'année", a déclaré Peggy Whitson, responsable des astronautes à l'agence spatiale américaine (Nasa).
"Nous n'avons actuellement à bord que deux membres d'équipage, donc je sais qu'ils attendent de la compagnie avec impatience", a-t-elle ajouté.
Les nouveaux arrivants rejoignent l'Américain Jeff Williams, commandant de l'ISS, et l'ingénieur russe Maxim Souraïev, qui se trouvent à bord depuis le 30 septembre et sont seuls depuis le 1er décembre.
Le programme de navettes spatiales de la Nasa prévoit encore cinq missions vers l'ISS, mais aucune pour y convoyer des astronautes.
Ces vols seront consacrés aux dernières opérations d'assemblage et de construction de la station et constitueront les dernières missions des navettes américaines avant leur retrait définitif, prévu dans moins d'un an.
L'agence développe actuellement une capsule de remplacement baptisée Orion, mais elle ne devrait pas entrer en service avant 2015 au plus tôt.
D'ici là, le vaisseau Soyouz demeure donc le seul moyen de transport d'astronautes ou de cosmonautes vers l'ISS. La facture s'élève à 50 millions de dollars par astronaute pour la Nasa.
Durant leur séjour, Kotov, Creamer et Noguchi superviseront la fin de la construction de l'ISS, un projet de 100 milliards de dollars impliquant 16 nations depuis plus de dix ans.
Le dernier composant d'importance fourni par la Nasa, un nodule appelé à servir de second espace habitable sur l'ISS, devrait être livré en février prochain.
Un petit module de recherche russe, un appareil d'analyse des particules, le spectromètre alpha magnétique, et plusieurs tonnes de matériaux ou de ravitaillement doivent également être acheminés vers l'ISS.

High transportation costs to space and inadequate funding on the ground may prevent NASA from using its expensive orbiting microgravity laboratory -- the International Space Station -- to the full extent, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
In a report prepared for the congressional panels that authorize NASA spending, the watchdog agency also found that uncertainty over the long-term future of the station -- whether it will be funded beyond the current 2015 U.S. shutoff date -- has made it difficult to sustain a "robust ISS user community" of scientists, who need time to replicate their research before it can be published.
"[T]he uncertainty of the ISS program beyond its 2015 retirement date has deterred members of the scientific community from considering the station as a platform for fundamental research," GAO says.
This is the case even though there are extensive research facilities on the station under NASA control that have no scheduled users. Under current plans only 79 percent of the internal payload sites on the station ultimately will be used, and of those only 50 percent are currently required for NASA programs. On the external payload sites, only 62 percent will be filled by the end of 2015. By comparison, NASA's partners are using all of the space available to them, and the European Space Agency could use some more, GAO found.
NASA officials told GAO evaluators they consider lack of funding the primary block to full station utilization. At an estimated $44,000 per kilogram, station payloads are priced out of many researchers' budgets. And there is no uniform peer review process or central authority to decide which experiments reach the U.S. portion of the ISS labs. As a result of the fiscal demands of developing the space shuttle follow-on vehicles under the Constellation Program, GAO found, NASA's budget for ISS research has dropped from $700 million in Fiscal 2002 to about $150 million a year.
Rather than scientific merit, "NASA prioritizes payloads based on operational or tactical needs, such as if there is a need for parts or spares to be flown to the ISS and if NASA can accommodate the research," GAO's report says.
The problem is compounded by the upcoming retirement of the space shuttle fleet after five more missions, and NASA's decision not to use Russian Progress capsules for cargo transport to the station after 2011. NASA is estimating an 88,000-pound shortfall in cargo capacity in 2010-15, and severe shortages in the ability to return samples and other scientific cargo to Earth. Commercial vehicles NASA is counting on to ease the shortfall -- the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Orbital Sciences Taurus II -- are behind schedule, as is the Ares I/Orion vehicle NASA is developing in-house. Developed under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiative with federal seed money, both commercial vehicles are critical to using the station for research.
"NASA officials stated that if the COTS vehicles are delayed, they would pursue a course of "graceful degradation" of the ISS until conditions improve or until NASA's commitment to operate the ISS expires at the end of 2015," GAO says. "In such conditions, the ISS would only conduct minimal science experiments."
If the funding is extended, NASA should set up a body that "centrally oversees U.S. ISS research decision making, including the selection of all U.S. research to be conducted on board and ensuring that all U.S. ISS research is meritorious and valid," GAO says.

Boeing officially handed over U.S. portions of the International Space Station to NASA Friday.
The signing of a government form following an acceptance review meeting in Houston is "often referred to as 'handing over the keys'" and "is equivalent to a final bill of sale that formally transfers ownership," Boeing said.
"It was 10 years in the making, but NASA's acceptance today confirms that the U.S.-built portion of the International Space Station meets its requirements and that its hardware and software are in excellent shape," Joy Bryant, Boeing ISS vice president and program manager, said in a news release. "The vehicle is capable of being fully utilized as a national laboratory, and we look forward to sustaining it for many years to come."
The U.S. segment includes the four solar arrays and several pressurized modules:

• Unity and Harmony, connecting nodes 1 and 2;
  
• The Destiny laboratory module;
  
• The Quest airlock;
  
• Pressurized mating adapters;
  
• The Zarya storage module, built in cooperation with the Russian Federal Space Agency;
  
• More than 2 million lines of software code to operate all the components.
  

The prime contractor to NASA for the space station, Boeing designed and built all the major U.S. elements and is responsible for ensuring successful integration of new hardware and software and for providing sustaining engineering work.
"Research conducted aboard the ISS will benefit the entire world with unique scientific breakthroughs, and its crews will inspire a new generation to look toward space," Bryant said.