ISS Partners Set Out Plan for Assembly

NASA and its international partners have formally agreed to a revision of the International Space Station (ISS) assembly sequence that supports the Vision for Space Exploration and utilizes the Space Shuttle to complete ISS construction by 2010. The heads of space agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States met at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on March 2, 2006 and reaffirmed their agencies' commitment to meet their mutual obligations.

"We've reached agreement, as agency heads, on final configuration of the ISS, with no major changes," said NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. "The budget here in the United States and the plans for the fly-out of the Shuttle program support these agreements."

The partners also affirmed their plans to use a combination of transportation systems provided by Europe, Japan, Russia, and the United States in order to complete ISS assembly in a timeframe that meets the needs of the partners and to ensure full utilization of the unique capabilities of the ISS throughout its lifetime.

In a Joint Statement, the Heads of Agency wrote, "The partners look forward to the upcoming Space Shuttle flight of the STS-121 mission and a return to ISS assembly activity and a permanent crew of three."

They also noted the upcoming launch of key ISS elements, such as three additional power trusses, the European Space Agency (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the U.S. Node 2, the ESA Columbus Module, the Canadian two-armed Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator Dextre, the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Kibo, the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module and the Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle.

The Heads of Agency expressed their appreciation for the work being conducted by the ISS on-orbit crews and ground support personnel, commending them for their creativity in making full use of available resources to operate the ISS, prepare for assembly missions and carry out scientific research aboard the ISS. "The uninterrupted flow of Russian vehicles, the outstanding performance of Canadarm2, the successful (STS-114) Shuttle logistics flight, and the resourcefulness of all of the partners' ground-based engineers, researchers and operations personnel have served to highlight the strength of the ISS partnership and the importance of international cooperation in space operations," they wrote.

The revised assembly sequence calls for 16 Space Shuttle flights, two "Shuttle-equivalent" commercial logistics flights, advances the European Columbus Laboratory module to the seventh Shuttle flight of the sequence and the JEM and associated equipment to the eighth, ninth and 12th Shuttle flights.

When STS-121 brings ESA Astronaut Thomas Reiter to the ISS, the Station crew will expand to three persons. It will expand to six-person crew operations in 2009.

The European ATV, an unpiloted cargo carrier with more than twice the capacity of the Progress spacecraft, is scheduled to launch on an Ariane rocket between the fifth and sixth flights in the Shuttle sequence, perhaps in the spring of 2007.

"We look forward to future success in returning the Shuttle to flight, completing the assembly of the Space Station, using the Space Station to generate the kind of data and information that will enable our program of Exploration to return to the moon and continue on to Mars, after we have completed the Station," Griffin said.

ISS Expedition 12 commander and NASA Space Station science officer Bill McArthur maneuvers the Space Station Remote Manipulator System from the Destiny laboratory during a survey of the Unity node berthing mechanism. Recently, the ISS international partners agreed on plans to complete the orbiting outpost by 2010.

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