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NASA reaches limits of space station utilization as a laboratory

NASA are tackling the growing amount of cargo needed for scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station, rethinking how astronauts conduct them.

Posted Updated
Christina Koch
By
Tony Rice
, NASA Ambassador

Whether in one of the many telecommunications or biotech and life science companies that dot the Research Triangle Park, or 250 miles up on the International Space Station (ISS), the goal of each laboratory is full utilization. Making the most science possible is coming out of the lab by getting the most out of its resources, including the people working in the lab.

NASA thinks the ISS is not only doing that, but has has maxed out its utilization of its share of the space station given crew and cargo limitations, leading the agency to rethink how it processes scientific investigations in space and stores all the stuff needed to make that happen.

In the ISS’s first 22 years, more than 3000 investigations were conducted for 4,418 scientists back on the ground over 48,500 hours of crew time according to a NASA report utilization of the orbiting laboratory.
Commenting this week at a committee meeting of the National Academies working on plans for the next decade for biological and physical sciences research in space, NASA ISS chief scientist Kirt Costello described passageways between ISS modules lined with large cargo bags in a SpaceNews report.

“To get at equipment for research, for some of our investigations, the crew has to wade through this stowage and find the right bags,” Costello said.

NASA is looking to new vehicles such as Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser cargo vehicle, Japan’s HTV-X, and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle to help solve the problem.

Expedition 8 Commander and Science Officer Michael Foale conducts an inspection of the Microgravity Science Glovebox/Exchangeable Standard Electronic Module (ESEM) in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. (image: NASA)

The research process itself is being rethought with more emphasis on astronauts completing more analysis in space instead of returning samples to the ground for additional study. Cargo limitations mean less than 1/3 of what goes up can come down with today’s cargo servicing capabilities.  Much of that cargo capacity is consumed by freezers and refrigerators needed to keep samples cold.

“We are flying everything full,” Costello added.

NASA is the biggest user of the ISS as a laboratory, completing more investigations than the Canadian, European, and Japanese space agencies combined.

research disciplines by International Space Station partner agencies.  During the first 22 years, NASA completed 1243 investigations, more than the Candian, European, and Japanese space agencies combined.

Impacts of ISS research

The top five most cited scientific papers based on research aboard the ISS:

AMS-02 has collected and analyzed billions of cosmic ray events, and identified 9 million of these as electrons or positrons (antimatter), providing data that may lead to the solution of the origin of cosmic rays and antimatter, increasing the understanding of how our galaxy was formed. (AMS Collaboration, Physical Review Letters, 2013. )
Subregional Bone studied space-induced bone loss and found the greatest amount in pelvis, hip, and leg bones. (Lang TF, et al, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 2004)
MAXI, observed the instant that a massive black hole swallowed a star located in the center of a galaxy 3.9 billion light years away. Previously only theorized, this first-ever observation helps better understand of the current state and evolution of the universe. (Burrows DN, et al, Nature, 2011.)
Microbe, a study of Hfq (RNA chaperone) protein and its role in salmonella (Sittka A, et al, Molecular Microbiology, 2007)
Astrovaktsina studied the V-antigen in Yersinia and how it can be used to fight plague. (Mueller CA, et al, Science, 2005. 2)

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