Lessons Learned from Mir-A Payload Perspective

Acta Astronautica 56 (2005) 877–882 www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro

Lessons learned from Mir—a payload perspective John J. Uria,∗, Richard W. Nygrenb, Jeffery A. Cardenasc

aISS Payloads Ofﬁce, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA bNASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA cUniversity Space Research Association, Houston, TX 77058, USA

Available online 21 March 2005

Abstract Among the principal objectives of the Phase 1 NASA/Mir program were for the United States to gain experience working with an international partner, to gain working experience in long-duration space ﬂight, and to gain working experience in planning for and executing research on a long-duration space platform. The Phase 1 program was to provide the US early experience prior to the construction and operation of the International Space Station (Phase 2 and 3). While it can be argued that Mir and ISS are different platforms and that programmatically Phase 1 and ISS are organized differently, it is also clear that many aspects of operating a long-duration research program are platform independent. This can be demonstrated by a review of lessons learned from Skylab, a US space station program of the mid-1970s, many of which were again “learned” on Mir and are being “learned” on ISS. Among these are optimum crew training strategies, on-orbit crew operations, ground support, medical operations and crew psychological support, and safety certiﬁcation processes. © 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Mir; International Space Station; Research

1. Introduction this time, the United States flew its highly successful Skylab space station in 1973–1974, and began plan- The Soviet Union launched the first space station, ning for its next space station in 1984. That project, af- called Salyut, in 1971. Through the 1970s and 1980s, ter several significant modifications during its planning the Soviets launched a series of stations of increas- and development, eventually emerged as International ing complexity and sophistication, culminating with Space Station (ISS) in 1993, and brought Russia into the Mir complex, which had an outstanding career an already existing multilateral partnership including as humanity’s outpost in space from 1986 to 2001. Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency. The The Russian philosophy in this time period was to ISS program today is the inheritor of the accumulated make incremental improvements to the newer stations experience, principally Russian and American, of the based on experience from earlier platforms. During past three decades. As a research platform, that experience will provide the necessary skills to maximize ∗ Corresponding author. the quality and quantity of science conducted there.

2. Background erations as required; the Mir Operations and Integra- tion Working Group(MOIWG) was the implementing Evolving out of the original 1992 US—Russian organization, and included subgroups for training and agreement to fly each other’s crewmembers on Shut- operations, hardware integration and Shuttle mani- tle and Mir, the NASA/Mir Program became a more festing of science payloads. As outgrowths of earlier comprehensive international endeavor. The program Spacelab organizations, the MSWG and MOIWG es- was formalized in October 1994, and became known sentially provided the traditional Mission Science and as the Phase 1 Program to note that it was part of the Mission Management functions. overall International Space Station Program, which became Phase 2 and 3, in which Phase 2 is defined as from First Element Launch until the Joint Airlock is 3. Research program planning in place, and Phase 3 is from the Joint Airlock through Assembly Complete. Initial research planning for the NASA/Mir program The Phase 1 Program Plan identified the mission was on a very tight schedule. At the time of sign- and goals of the program: ing of the first intergovernmental agreement in June 1992, the first long-duration astronaut flight on Mir “Phase 1 represents the building block to create was scheduled for September 1994. This 15-month the experience and technical expertise for an In- template was far shorter than what NASA was accus- ternational Space Station. The program will bring tomed to for planning a typical Spacelab research mis- together the United States and Russia in a major sion, which from Announcement of Opportunity (AO) cooperative and contractual program that takes to flight was typically 2–3 years. In the event, the mis- advantage of both countries’ capabilities.” sion, called Mir 18, launched in March 1995, but the The four main objectives of NASA for the Phase 1 shortened template did not allow for the normal pro- Program [1] were: cesses to operate, and the vast majority of science for that flight was solicited from NASA in-house inves- • to learn how to work with International Partners; tigators, many of whom were principally involved in • to reduce the risks associated with development and Shuttle-based research (Fig. 1). assembling a space station; At the inception of the more comprehensive pro- • to gain operational experience for NASA in the gram to be called Phase 1 (the Mir 18/19 long-duration planning and execution of long-duration missions; missions and the STS 71 first Shuttle/Mir docking mis- • to conduct life science, microgravity, and environ- sion became informally known as Phase 1a, while the mental space research. remaining missions were dubbed Phase 1b), the initial missions were also constrained in terms of schedule, To accomplish these objectives, a Joint US/Russian with the NASA 2 mission launching only 18 months Working Groupstructure was established between after the release of the first dedicated AO, which was NASA and the Russian human space flight organi- limited to life sciences. As a result, experiment selec- zations. The nine working groups were responsible tion did not occur until other significant milestones, for the planning and execution activities involved in such as crew training, hardware development and their respective areas, and reported to a Program level timeline development, would have been passed. In Management Team 0, co-chaired by the Program addition, experiment selection was done with an in- Manager from each side. Each Working Groupwas complete understanding of the available resources, jointly chaired and was empowered to make and sign such as on-orbit crew time. agreements within their area of responsibility. At the One of the results of these factors was a significant science level, two Working Groups were established: amount of replanning and “negative” work. For ex- the Mission Science Working Group(MSWG) was ample, the first science requirements document, called responsible for defining the research requirements for Integrated Payloads Requirements Document (IPRD), all disciplines and provided science guidance and pri- for NASA 2 was compiled prior to full definition of the oritization during preflight planning and on-orbit op- selected experiments, but was required by the Russian Download English Version: https://daneshyari.com/en/article/9823190

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