WASHINGTON — More than eight years after a crew of three opened the international space station for business, the outpost is finally upgrading to a six-member crew, which NASA says will enable it to begin serious scientific research.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft, set to launch today from Kazakhstan, is scheduled to dock Friday with the station about 220 miles above Earth. It will bring astronauts from Russia, Canada and Belgium to join a crew from Russia, Japan and the United States.
“NASA and its . . . partners are working together to realize one of the most inspiring dreams of the last 50 years — the establishment of a station in Earth orbit for the conduct of various types of research,” Chris Scolese, NASA’s acting chief, recently told Congress.
Up to now, station crews have spent about three hours a week on science; the rest of their time was devoted to ensuring the station stayed aloft. The station — roughly the size of a football field — until recently lacked working laboratory space and accommodations for more than three people.
Now, with six full-time members, the crew can take on research projects, including nearly 100 new experiments that range from the study of the human heart in spaceflight to how bacteria respond to solar radiation and the vacuum of space.
But even as the station celebrates the milestone, talk has begun on when its life should end. NASA’s budget plans call for the station to shut down in 2016, although there has been a push in Congress and abroad to make it 2020.
“It would be huge waste to cut the cord on this $100 billion investment after 2016, so soon after it becomes fully operational,” said Edward Ellegood, a space policy analyst at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Part of the pressure weighing on NASA is how it plans to replace the space shuttle, which is due to retire in 2010 or 2011. Afterward, the U.S. must pay Russia to send crew members to the station until NASA builds a replacement rocket or a domestic company can develop one.
