Sep 7 2010
From The Space Library
RELEASE: 10-266
SPACE STATION PARTNERS RELEASE INTERNATIONAL DOCKING STANDARD
WASHINGTON -- The International Space Station Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) has approved a docking system standard. The international standard will provide guidelines for a common interface to link future spacecraft ranging from crewed to autonomous vehicles and from low-Earth orbit to deep-space exploration missions. The interface definition document is available at: http://www.internationaldockingstandard.com The MCB consists of senior representatives from NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency; the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology assisted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; the European Space Agency; and the Canadian Space Agency. The MCB is the space station's senior level management board. It coordinates the orbiting laboratory's operations and activities among the partners. "The goal was to identify the requirements to create a standard interface to enable two different spacecraft to dock in space during future missions and operations, said Bill Gerstenmaier, MCB chair and associate administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. This standard will ease the development process for emerging international cooperative space missions and enable the possibility of international crew rescue missions. This standardization effort will ensure interface commonality without dictating any particular design behind the standard interface. The document contains the information necessary to describe physical features and design loads of a standard docking interface. The technical teams from the five space station partner agencies will continue to work on additional refinements and revisions to the initial standard. The Multilateral Coordination Board released the document to allow non-partner agencies and commercial developers to review the new standard and provide feedback. Interested parties may send comments to: comments@internationaldockingstandard.com
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CONTRACT RELEASE: C10-061
NASA EXTENDS SPACE STATION CARGO MISSION SERVICES CONTRACT
WASHINGTON -- NASA has awarded a $13 million, six-month extension for International Space Station cargo mission services to Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems of Houston. Under the contract, Lockheed Martin is responsible for launch integration, ground processing, on-orbit operation analysis, and cargo returned from the space station in both pressurized and unpressurized carriers. The work includes managing, planning, supporting, processing and analyzing NASA cargo for safe delivery and return on NASA's space shuttles, the Russian Space Agency's Soyuz and Progress vehicles, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's H-II Transfer Vehicles and the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicles. Additional tasks include performing sustaining engineering, and cargo labeling. The extension brings the total value of the cost-plus-award-fee, fixed-price cargo mission services contract, originally awarded Nov. 5, 2003, to $405 million, and funds the work through March 31, 2011. Work on the contract is performed at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and its immediate surrounding areas, and other locations inside and outside the United States. Major subcontractors include United Space Alliance of Houston, Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville, Ala., and Bastion Technologies of Houston.
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