While Space Adventures has its fifth space tourist Charles Simonyi returning to the ISS in April for the company's seventh commercial trip the US space tourism provider has acknowledged that the increase in station crew to six from May will mean there are no more spare Energia Soyuz spacecraft seats for its customers
In response to the forthcoming end to ISS flights the company put out a press release entitled Space Adventures Announces Agreement for the First Private Mission to the International Space Station on 11 June 2008 about a private mission to the ISS using the Soyuz-Soyuz launch system in the second half of 2011
But I can't see how that spacecraft can dock with ISS? You have two Soyuz crew craft taking up two ports and a Khrunichev Progress supply ship and either ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) or Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle taking up the others. And if this commercial Soyuz is visiting the station don't you think Houston mission control will want to be involved?
For ESA's ATV Jules Verne flight both Houston and Moscow mission controls were involved. How much will NASA charge for its personnel's time to help with that private mission?
Is this why Roscosmos' head has now said that ISS is "off-limits"?
As of today the ISS will only operate till 2015 or 2016 although in principal all of the station's space agency partners have agreed to an extension to 2020. But NASA must address this in its FY2010 budget (the agency uses five-year plans) and ESA is yet to get an endorsement by its ministerial council, the next one of which is in 2011 (though in theory with its triennial budgets the 2014 ministerial could be the latest, depending upon ATV provision requirements)
Even if an entirely commercial Soyuz was used how many opportunities are there going to be for a private mission to ISS from 2012 to 2015 inclusive?
on January 21, 2009 10:08 PM | Reply
Rob, there will be four active docking ports on the RS of ISS.
1)Zarya Nadir (Later DCM/MRM1 Nadir)
2)Pirs Nadir (On Zvezda Nadir, Later MLM Nadir)
3)MRM2 Zenith (On Zvezda Zenith)
4)Zvezda back
on January 30, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply
H2,Dragon,and Cygnus all use a CBM for docking.
Orion when and if it flies will use the old shuttle APAS-89 docking port with a LIDS adapter likely brought up with one of the COTS vehicles.
This leaves the four Russian ports of which one to three should always be free so there is no shortage of docking ports for a commercial Soyuz.
There would not be a progress and ATV at ISS at the same time for various reasons including incompatibility of rendezvous systems.
Of course with Obama in office expect more commercial US vehicles to get funded but these too would likely use LIDS or CBM vs RDS though by 2011 some of them could end up going to bigelow's station instead.
Sundancer could be an alternate destination for the space adventure's 2011 flight if bigelow decides to move the station into an orbit that Soyuz can reach.
on February 2, 2009 9:59 AM | Reply
What do you mean by incompatibility of docking systems for Progress and ATV? The European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle docks with the Russian segment and yes it does use a different, fully automated system but there is an emergency manual intervention system onboard the Russian segment but there is no technical issue stopping Progress and ATV being docked at the same time.
You seem to forget that there needs to be two Soyuz spacecraft docked as emergency return vehicles at all times once the crew goes to six. The ATV is designed to spend many months at the station so the reality is that with Progress still going there as well all four docking ports could be used at various times during any 12-month period.
As a journalist I am simply not going to accept the claims of anyone and I am actively working to clarify with the ISS partners exactly what can and can't happen after this year. I hope to have a answers in the next couple of weeks. If not sooner.
BTW the LIDS adaptor is called ATLAS. Its actually been manifested for the first two Orion flights to ISS. And in the Shuttle extension study ATLAS appears to be placed on Shuttle flights. No COTS vehicles involved unless you know something I don't. And the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, SpaceX's Dragon and Orbital's Cygnus dock with the US portion.