Small Spacecraft Ejected from Space Station Airlock Will Provide Same-Day, On-Demand Parcel Delivery

Monday, November 3, 2014

Small Spacecraft Ejected from Space Station Airlock Will Provide Same-Day, On-Demand Parcel Delivery

Small Spacecraft Ejected from Space Station Airlock Will Provide Same-Day, On-Demand Parcel Delivery:

Artist concept of the Terrestrial Return Vehicle (TRV). Credit: Intuitive Machines

Getting to the International Space Station is no easy task. Generally speaking, it involves loading up a space capsule with several tons of cargo and then expending millions of liters of fuel to get it into orbit. This process is time consuming and very expensive. And what if astronauts want to send some things back? Currently, their only option for return capability is provided by the same cargo capsules that are sent up to them.

Which means that the only way the ISS can send things back to Earth is for us to spend several million dollars sending a return vehicle up to them. Luckily, this is about to change, thanks to a project known as the Terrestrial Return Vehicle (TRV).

The TRV represents a collaborative effort between NASA and CASIS, the non-profit Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which was recently endowed with the responsibility of making sure that we make good use of the US laboratory aboard the ISS. Towards this end, they have contracted with Intuitive Machines – a Texas-based private space firm – to create a return vehicle that will enable the on-demand, rapid return of experiments from the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory.

“I believe with this new ‘on demand’ delivery capability for returning scientific samples to earth we will extend the viability of the ISS National Laboratory as a research platform for commercial benefit,” Steve Altemus, the president of Intuitive Machines, told Universe Today via email. “The principle investigators and scientists engaged in microgravity research in space can now begin to imagine new and different experiments and methodologies enabled by returning samples on a nearly daily basis and landing them precisely and gently on the Earth.”

The proposed TRV is a small, wingless capsule that can be loaded up with samples and ejected from the airlock in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), guaranteeing delivery back to Earth in under 24 hours. From the outside, the design looks a little like the Space Shuttle, or the Boeing X-37B space plane. Minus the stubby wings, of course.

The International Space Station. Credit: NASA

For the ISS crews, having these vehicles on hand will be a major boon for research, allowing for the delivery of critical or perishable samples to Earth laboratories in a timely manner. A number of these TRV’s will be shipped to the ISS – presumably as part of a normal cargo run using a SpaceX Dragon capsule.

Once there, the process for using them to make deliveries will be quite straightforward. First, astronauts will load them with the scientific samples they intend to send home. Then, they will push them out the airlock and shunt them out into space using the Station’s Japanese-made robotic arm.

The TRV will then return to Earth much like any other spacecraft, descending through the atmosphere and eventually deploying a parachute to slow it down from supersonic speeds. Another larger parachute will deploy once it’s closer to the ground and bring it safely down to a landing site in Utah.

This return trip will take six hours, and since the ISS orbits the Earth about 15 times a day, the total delivery time should always be less than 24 hours. This will be especially useful considering that a number of scientific experiments take place on the International Space Station, mainly because the zero-gravity environment is more ideal for growing cell cultures in three dimensions.

Getting a TRV from the Space Station back to Earth. Credit: Intuitive Machines (some images courtesy of NASA)

“The International Space Station, with its unique microgravity laboratories and crew, enables research over a wide range of disciplines from physics through biology,” said Dr. David Wolf, a research scientist and former astronaut. “This small payload return capability will provide controlled conditions and flexible choices for timely sample analysis. The scientific team will be able to much more efficiently adjust experimental parameters in response to results, exploit unique results, and correct problems encountered.”

In short, if astronauts are busy testing techniques for bioprinting organs or developing new types of pharmaceuticals, they would certainly prefer to send the samples produced straight back to Earth rather than being forced to wait weeks for a cargo ship to arrive.

However, beyond facilitating the research efforts of astronauts, Intuitive Machines sees the TRV as a means of enabling new and exciting research aboard the ISS National Laboratory, as well as opening the door for commercial ventures in space.

Currently, Intuitive Machines plans to provide its TRV technology to a wide range of customers – including scientific, academic, commercial, and government interests. It is their hope that the new same-day capability will enable increased utilization of the ISS as a national laboratory, and improve the commercialization opportunities of experiments for terrestrial benefit.

The first batch of TRVs is scheduled to be sent up to the ISS in 2016. At first, they will be used strictly to return scientific samples – but apparently, a version that would be capable of returning live rodents is also in the works.

Further Reading: Intuitive Machines

About Matt Williams

Author, freelance writer, educator, Taekwon-Do instructor, and loving hubby, son and Island boy!

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Monday, November 3, 2014