U.S. SPACE STATION MODULE COMPLETES FINAL PRESSURE TEST
Wed, 20 Nov 1996 15:25:53 -0500
Source: NASA HQ Public Affairs Office
Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington, DC November 20, 1996
(Phone: 202/358-1979)
Kyle Herring
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(Phone: 281/483-5111)
Jim Keller
Boeing Public Relations, Huntsville, AL
(Phone: 205/461-2803)
RELEASE: 96-245
FIRST U.S. SPACE STATION MODULE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETES FINAL
PRESSURE TEST; LAUNCH JUST ONE YEAR AWAY
The first U.S. component of the International Space
Station, known as Node 1, has successfully completed its last
proof pressure test before it is launched next year and the
construction of the Space Station gets underway.
Boeing engineers in Huntsville, AL, conducted the
pressure test on Node 1 at the Boeing Huntsville plant.
During the four-hour test, the node was successfully
pressurized to 22.8 pounds per square inch, or 1.5 times
normal maximum operating pressure. This final successful
test confirms the effectiveness of the eight struts installed
at the node's radial ports. As in a previous successful test
last August, the strains in the node's radial port were
substantially reduced from those encountered during previous
testing without the installed struts.
"This successful pressure test on Node 1 proves that we
have designed and built a critical Space Station component
that will perform as required in space," said Ross Dessert,
Boeing lab/hab program manager.
Node 1 is the first U.S. Space Station component
scheduled to be launched in December 1997. The node serves
as connecting passageway to other modules on the
International Space Station. With the pressure test now
completed, Node 1 will be moved out of the Boeing test
facility and returned to the space station manufacturing
building for assembly and check-out activities at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
Last August, Node 1 and the laboratory module
successfully completed a series of proof pressure tests.
Like this last Node 1 test, data analysis from the August
tests indicated both modules' performance was excellent.
Just six months from now -- May 1997 -- Node 1 will be
shipped out of Huntsville to the Kennedy Space Center in
preparation for its early December 1997 Shuttle launch to
join the Russian functional energy block (FGB). The FGB is
scheduled for launch in late November 1997, just one week
before it is joined by Node 1, 220 miles above the Earth.
The FGB is a self-powered vehicle that provides
attitude control and electrical power through the early
assembly stages of the Space Station.
Boeing, the United States' prime contractor for the
International Space Station, is building five modules at
Marshall. In addition to Node 1, Boeing also is building the
U.S. habitat, or living quarters module, the laboratory
module, another node and an airlock. The major structural
manufacturing of all these modules has been completed.
Additional assembly work currently is underway, including
mechanical installation.
Fourteen nations are involved in the International Space
Station: the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada, Belgium, Denmark,
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain,
Sweden and Switzerland.
The International Space Station will be the largest and
most complex structure ever placed in orbit, sprawling across
an area nearly the size of two football fields and visible to
the naked eye as it passes overhead.
Once assembled, the International Space Station will
have a mass of nearly one million pounds and provide 46,000
cubic feet of pressurized living and working space for
astronauts and scientists.
Construction is scheduled to be completed in June 2002.
-end-
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