Early use of Space Station Freedom for NASA's Microgravity Science and Applications ProgramThe paper describes microgravity science opportunities inherent to the restructured Space Station and presents a synopsis of the scientific utilization plan for the first two years of ground-tended operations. In the ground-tended utilization mode the Space Station is a large free-flyer providing a continuous microgravity environment unmatched by any other platform within any existing U.S. program. It is pointed out that the importance of this period of early Space Station mixed-mode utilization between crew-tended and ground-tended approaches is of such magnitude that Station-based microgravity science experiments many become benchmarks to the disciplines involved. The traffic model that is currently being pursued is designed to maximize this opportunity for the U.S. microgravity science community.
Document ID
19920074507
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Rhome, Robert C. (NASA Microgravity Science and Applications Div. Washington, United States)
O'Malley, Terence F. (NASA Microgravity Science and Applications Div., Washington; NASA, Lewis Research Center Cleveland, OH, United States)