International Space Station Payload Accommodations

Abstract

The International Space Station (ISS) is a low Earth orbiting facility for conducting research in the life science, microgravity, earth observations, astrophysics, space processing, and engineering disciplines. The ISS will be assembled on-obit at an altitude of 220 nautical miles with contributions from the United States, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency, and Russia. The ISS provides a shirt sleeve environment for conducting research in the US Laboratory (US Lab), the Centrifuge Accommodations Module (CAM), the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), and the European Columbus Orbiting Facility (COF). The Mini Pressurized Logistics Module (MPLM) provided by Italy serves as a conditioned pressurized transport carrier to replenish and return passive and perishable payload cargo. External Earth observations can be performed by utilizing the payload attachment points on the truss and the JEM Exposed Facility. The pressurized and external locations are equipped with a variety of electrical, avionics, fluids, and gas interfaces to support the experiments. ISS solar arrays, thermal radiators, communication system, propulsion, environmental control, and robotic devices provide the infrastructure to support sustained research. The Russian payload accommodations are presently being defined by the Russian Space Agency. This paper reflects the design maturity of data regarding payload accommodations at the time of its submittal. This paper is based on the assembly complete configuration of the station. As the design matures (qualification tests of components and associated analyses of the integrated performance are updated), the ISS Payload Accommodations Customer Documentation Tree will be updated accordingly to reflect this design maturity.