Mir Glovebox Facility

The Glovebox Facility on Mir was developed by the Marshall Space Flight Center for use on the space shuttle middeck and modified slightly for use on the Mir Space Station. Its design is based on a similar facility provided by the European Space Agency for use on Spacelab and flown on the USML-I and 2 missions. Its purpose is to provide a work space for experiments which is isolated from the manned environment while allowing a high degree of access to the experiment apparatus. It also provides experiment power, lighting, and data acquisition. This facility has successfully supported 7 experiments representing the fluid physics and combustion disciplines during NASA increments 2 - 5. During over 400 hours of operation, only 3 minor facility anomalies were encountered, none of which prevented science operations or resulted in hazardous conditions. No in-flight maintenance has been required through increment 5. Crew comments have been generally favorable, stressing the usefulness, reliability and ease of use of the facility. The success of the glovebox to date demonstrates the value of this type of multi-use facility in a space station environment.