HELP but not comfort is on its way for the beleaguered astronauts on the International Space Station, although it is at least five years away. Last week, the major partners of the ISS agreed to restore the station to its full complement of six astronauts by 2009, but decided against sending up the module in which the crew was supposed to rest and sleep in relative comfort.
The agreement thrashed out by the heads of the five space agencies 鈥� from the US, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada 鈥� is a crucial step forward. The station has struggled on with a skeleton crew of just two maintaining the station but doing little science.
This had angered Europe, Japan and Canada who funded the project in order to perform scientific experiments in orbit. 鈥淲e have survived this critical period well and we have put the train in motion again,鈥� says J枚rg Feustel-B眉echl, of the European Space Agency, who is in charge of Europe鈥檚 space station operations.
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The revised plans for the ISS depend on solving two key problems. First, NASA will have to successfully redeploy the space shuttle next year. And second, a crew of six will need two Soyuz vehicles permanently attached to the station, each of which will bring back three astronauts to Earth in case of emergency. NASA was originally responsible for the rescue vehicles, but it cancelled the project. NASA could buy the Soyuz crafts, but is prevented from purchasing Russian technology under US law. However, Feustel-B眉echl believes an exception can be made for rescue vehicles.
Meanwhile, the Russian space agency has proposed replacing its research module with three others. And the European Columbus research module, Europe鈥檚 main contribution to the ISS, could be placed in orbit sometime in 2006, Feustel-B眉echl says. As for the crew quarters, the astronauts will just have to find somewhere else to sleep in the absence of a habitation module.