Posted on 08/21/2019 1:53:04 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The new international docking adapter, or IDA, was launched to the station last month aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship. The lab's robot arm pulled the docking mechanism out of the Dragon's trunk section earlier this week and positioned it directly atop a tunnel-like pressurized mating adaptor extending from Harmony's upper port.
Working with electrical cables that were routed three years ago during two earlier spacewalks, Hague and Morgan connected the IDA to station power, allowing astronaut Christina Koch, working inside Harmony, to send commands driving internal hooks to close.
After flight controllers confirmed the $22.5 million IDA was firmly locked in place atop the PMA, the spacewalkers installed wiring to expand the lab's external wireless network and connected a jumper routing backup power to the robot arm.
The U.S. segment of the space station features four ports where visiting vehicles can either dock on their own or be berthed by the lab's robot arm. The Russian segment also features four ports that are used by unpiloted Progress cargo craft and Soyuz crew ferry ships.
Space shuttles docked at the front end of the Harmony module, and that port already has been equipped with a Boeing-built international docking adapter that can accommodate either SpaceX's Crew Dragon ferry ship or Boeing's CST-100 Starliner.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Just curious, what are some of the major breakthroughs from the space station research?
And they said that with a straight face.
Now now, you’re not supposed to ask pointy questions like that
It’s perfectly reasonable to spend $90 billion to find out that newbies retch for their first 3 days in space
Ping.
What about some fresh water and clean air to breathe? They been drinking recycled piss and breathing Russian cabbage farts for years.
snorkel?
*ping*
I am always amused when science fiction writers describe future tech such as docking ports as being universal or standardized tor centuries. I wonder if the ports in this article are destined to be standard equipment in the distant future.
LOL!
iirc the decision was made back in the skylab era to make us and ussr hatches compatable.
iirc the decision was made back in the skylab era to make us and ussr hatches compatable.
If the primary goal is space "travel" (for whatever reason), absolutely nothing has been either researched, developed, or built and tested that supports actual future space "travel"...
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