A new tool for tracking hurricanes and tropical
storms, ISS-RapidScat is the first instrument specifically created to watch
Earth from the International Space Station.
RapidScat's two-part payload is shown in the trunk
of a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Image Credit:
NASA
NASA's ISS-RapidScat wind-watching scatterometer, which is scheduled to
launch to the International Space Station no earlier than Sept. 19, will be the
first science payload to be robotically assembled in space since the space
station itself. This image shows the instrument assembly on the left, shrouded
in white. On the right is Rapid-Scat's nadir adapter, a very sophisticated
bracket that points the scatterometer toward Earth so that it can record the
direction and speed of ocean winds. The two pieces are stowed in the
unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft at Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station in Florida.
Howard Eisen, the ISS-RapidScat project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, California, said, "Another mission had the idea of a
two-piece payload first, but we beat them to the punch." The RapidScat team
designed and built both parts of the science payload in an 18-month-long sprint
so as to take advantage of an available berthing space on the space station and
a free ride on a resupply mission. The other two-piece payload is still a year
and a half from launch.
Each piece of the ISS-RapidScat payload is attached to the space station by a
standardized interface called a Flight Releasable Attachment Mechanism, or FRAM.
JPL's Stacey Boland, an engineer on the ISS-RapidScat team, explained, "The
space station is almost like a Lego system, and a FRAM is a particular type of
Lego block. We had to build on two separate Lego blocks because each block can
only hold a certain amount of cargo."
Eisen noted, "We are not only robotically assembled, we are robotically
installed." When the Dragon spacecraft reaches the station, a robotic arm will
grapple it and bring it to its docking port. Using a different end effector -- a
mechanical hand -- the arm will first extract the nadir adapter from the trunk
and install it on an external site on the Columbus module of the space station.
The arm will then pluck the RapidScat instrument assembly from the trunk and
attach it to the nadir adapter, completing the installation. Each of the two
operations will take about six hours.
NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of
satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA
develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems
with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our
planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global
community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world
that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.
For more information about NASA's Earth science activities in 2014,
visit:
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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