Endeavour Mission Will Finish Installing Japanese Kibo Laboratory

16 July 2009

Documents & Texts from America.gov

By Cheryl Pellerin
Staff Writer

Washington -- Endeavour is on its way to the International Space Station to complete the installation of Japan’s Kibo laboratory, after a delay in June to fix a gaseous hydrogen leak on the external tank and a series of July launch attempts canceled due to Florida’s summer thunderstorms.

The 16-day STS-127 mission will feature five spacewalks, during which astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space. Kibo, which means “hope” in Japanese, is Japan’s first human space facility.

“We’re go for main engine start,” Mike Curie, NASA launch commentator, said over the roar of Endeavour’s engines. “We have main engine start. Four, three, two, one … booster ignition and liftoff of Endeavour, completing Kibo and fulfilling Japan’s hope for an out-of-this-world space laboratory.” (See “New Six-Person Space Station Crew Represents All Partners.”)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) laboratory has six components: two research facilities (the pressurized module and the exposed facility); two logistics modules (one for each facility) that serve as storage for tools, supplies and material for experiments; a robotic arm called a remote manipulator system; and an inter-orbit communication system unit.

The communication system allows operators in the mission control room at the Tsukuba Space Center in Japan to send commands to Kibo and receive system, payload and video data from the laboratory for scientific operations. Kibo also has a scientific airlock through which experiments are transferred and exposed to space.

The STS-127 mission will deliver to the space station MAXI and SEDA-AP, two of three initial experiments for the exposed facility.

Initial Experiments

MAXI stands for Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image and is an astronomical observatory that will scan space every 90 minutes with two kinds of X-ray detectors. Data from the observation of transient X-ray phenomena can be distributed via the Internet so observatories around the world can promptly receive and respond to the phenomena.

SEDA-AP stands for Space Environment Data Acquisition Equipment - Attached Payload. It will measure the space environment -- including neutrons, plasma, heavy ions, high-energy light particles, atomic oxygen and cosmic dust -- in the station’s orbit. It will also observe how the space environment affects materials and electronic devices.

The third exposed facility experiment, SMILES -- Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder -- will launch to the station on JAXA’s H-II transfer-vehicle mission targeted to launch September 10.

SMILES will map trace stratospheric gases, including molecules related to ozone depletion such as chlorine, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid and bromine. SMILES data will allow scientists to investigate chlorine and bromine chemistry in the atmosphere and provide a database for ozone variations in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.

Into Space

On each mission, crew members are allowed to pack a few things into the shuttle for the trip. On Endeavour’s STS-127 mission, commander Mark Polansky, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf, Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency and Tim Kopra, who will trade places with station flight engineer Koichi Wakata of JAXA, all are carrying a few commemorative items.

Polansky, who also flew on STS-98 and STS-116, is carrying a banner from East Central High School in San Antonio, his wife’s hometown. Wolf, who flew on STS-58 and served on the Russian space station Mir for 128 days in 1997 and 1998, has several items representing his hometown of Indianapolis, including an airplane paperweight.

Payette, an accomplished singer and pianist, took a piece of sheet music to commemorate her work with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Cassidy, on his first flight into space, reflects his previous career with items from the U.S. Navy’s elite SEAL (for sea, air and land) teams. He has a medallion from the National Navy Underwater Demolition Team-SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida, and medallions and patches representing SEAL units across the United States.

First-time crew member Hurley has a team hat from the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing and a T-shirt from Owego Free Academy in New York. Marshburn took a pin from his hometown of Statesville, North Carolina, and a pewter coaster from the University of Virginia’s engineering department.

Kopra, who piloted helicopters in the U.S. Army before joining NASA, has a copper medallion from McCallum High School in Austin, Texas. Endeavour also is packed with hundreds of items commemorating Kibo’s exposed facility. JAXA will celebrate the installation and mission with patches, pins and flags flying on Endeavour.

Endeavour is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center in Florida July 31.

More information about STS-27 and the International Space Station is available on the NASA Web site.