Blog #3: NASA Gearing Up to Reassemble the Space Station

NASA Gearing Up to Reassemble the Space Station


The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is developing plans to reconfigure and to construct two new docking ports for the International Space Station so spaceships delivering cargo or personnel to the station will have new places to park once they arrive. This is the first major project centered on construction to the station since it was completed a few years ago in 2011 after many years of global cooperation and many different launches to build the International Space Station (ISS).

Presently, in order for NASA to get cargo and personnel to the ISS, NASA goes through Russia at the cost of $70 Million per person. With the development of these two new spaceports, NASA hopes to end its reliance on Russia and move to private industries such as Space X to transport people and things up to the ISS. With the move from Russian to private space industry space flight NASA will be able to send four people at a time while Russian rockets could only send three at a time. This will increase the amount of people on the ISS at any given time and also save money since less flights would be needed to transport people into space. NASA would save about $12 Million with this transition that can then be put to other use.

The seven spacewalks that are scheduled for this year are all meant to help develop these space ports so that they can be finished by the end of the year as NASA hopes. The first spacewalk is scheduled to take place on Friday February 20, 2015 and its intention is to prepare cables and communication gear. A few more spacewalks are scheduled in the upcoming few weeks, all planning to help get the ISS ready for more ships to dock with it unloading cargo for future spacewalks.



Ryan Campbell
February 20, 2015
12:05

http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/nasa-is-gearing-up-to-reassemble-the-space-station-150218.htm