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A new module for the space station blasted off today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan at 9:22 a.m. EST. The Poisk (which means “explore” in Russian) is a combination docking module/airlock/future research module. It will meet up with the ISS on Thursday at 10:44 am. Poisk is the first permanent pressurized module to be added since May of 2008, when the Japanese “JEM” research module became part of the ISS, and is the first major Russian addition to the station since the Pirs docking compartment was launched in 2001. The new module will be used as an additional docking port for Russian vehicles, as an airlock for Russian-based spacewalks and as a platform for external science experiments.
The new module is almost identical in size to Pirs, at 2.5 meters (8 feet wide) and about 4 meters (13 feet) long. Its first use will be as a docking port during the relocation of a Soyuz crew vehicle in January.
About 1,800 pounds of cargo is loaded into Poisk’s pressurized compartment for delivery to the space station.
A companion module, the Mini Research Module-1, will be carried to orbit on space shuttle Atlantis’ STS-132 mission, targeted to launch in May 2010. That module will be robotically attached to the station’s Zarya module.
Source: NASA
You know, it’s just a thought, I have a few of thse, but why don’t we just keep adding stuff to the I.S.S? Just keep making it bigger and bigger a few pieces at a time?
I mean instead of just saying “Alright we’re done building, let’s de-orbit this hunk of crap and build something else” We might consider just adding more and more modules to it until it’s actually a sizeable space laboratory?
If we add a module or two each year it’s going to wind up being pretty friggin huge, might not be a bad idea to send up some remote controlled robotic space craft for astronauts to run while they’re up there and maybe begin collecting space junk to recycle on board.
Silver I would agree there with you.
But I think we are unaware of some problems though faced by using stations for years upon years.
I think one of them is a slime build up within the stations, which renders them useless after a few years, there are prehaps other problems also, (orbit boosting etc) I know very little about this and I would be glad if someone else could enlighten me as to way we can’t keep stations in orbit for a long time.