Space Station Node 2 'Moves' Toward Major Milestone

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall...tos05-023.html


Space Station Node 2 'Moves' Toward Major Milestone

03.02.05


Steve Roy
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256.544.0034)


Workers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida use an overhead crane to move
Node 2 - the second of three connectors between International Space Station
modules - in preparation for its element leak test, a major milestone in
processing the hub module for launch. Node 2 was moved from the Space
Station Processing Facility, where it is being prepared for flight, to the
Operations & Checkout Building, where it was tested in a large vacuum
chamber.

Node 2 is more than 20 feet long and 14.5 feet wide, and weighs
approximately 30,000 pounds. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala., coordinates the day-to-day technical activities necessary
for integration of the Node 2 systems and preparing this "utility hub" for
flight. Once on orbit, it will make the Space Station roomier, permitting
attachment of the Japanese and European laboratories that will expand the
orbiting facility's useable space from that of a typical three-bedroom house
to that of a five-bedroom house. These labs - which will be used for science
research, and are expected to reach the Space Station in 2007 - are part of
the joint effort of NASA and 15 other international partners to build the
orbiting complex. International contractor Alenia Spazio, based in Rome,
Italy, built Node 2 at its facility in Torino, Italy, under an agreement
between NASA and the European Space Agency.

After the testing was successfully completed, Node 2 was returned to the
Space Station Processing Facility to continue being readied for a December
2006 launch to the Station aboard the Space Shuttle.



--
--------------

Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info