Soyuz module: The Soyuz module flies away from the Russian Space Station Mir as seen from the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Mission Build Facility (MBF) team starts detailed designs
Detailed hardware and software designs for the secure repository for flight software and flight data were begun by the Houston-based McDonnell Douglas Space Station team, under contract to Boeing. As flight computer software goes through the final testing stages, the MBF will be used to manage and control software delivered to Boeing from various developers. As the software is needed from training, launch processing, and testing facilities, the MBF will provide the correct software versions. Flight software will also be provided to Mission Control Center for uplink to the Space Station. A Critical Design Review is scheduled in February.
Trailers will go on the road to test Station equipment
Rocketdyne has completed assembly and checkout of the Integrated Trailer Set which will support testing of the Integrated Equipment Assembly (IEA) in a variety of locations across the country, including Marshall Space Flight Center and Kennedy Space Center. The trailer set consists of two 42-foot-long, air-ride trailers which contain all the electrical test equipment needed to perform functional testing of the IEA assembly. The equipment in the trailers provides programmable loads, power supplies and a data acquisition system which will be used to verify system electrical parameters. The trailers are equipped with an uninterrupted power system to protect data in the case of a power loss. The software used with the IEA and all support equipment is common with the software used successfully for more than five years in Rocketdyne's Space Electronics Laboratory.
Node 1 machining completed
Machining operations on Node 1 have been completed at Boeing PG-3 in Huntsville, Ala. Node1 is the first U.S. flight article scheduled to be launched to the International Space Staton in December 1997. With machining now completed, the node is undergoing final inspection. Late this month, it will move back to the Space Station manufacturing building at Marshall Space Flight Center to begin mechanical installation.
Orbiter Docking System (ODS) and Spacelab: STS -71 View taken from Aft Flight Deck (AFD) window of Space Shuttle Atlantis. This image was produced using an IMAX 70-mm motion picture camera.
Additional information available at:
IMAX Space Station Images
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/NewsRoom/imaxgallery.html
Space Station This Week
http://spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov/NASA.Projects/Human.Space.Flight/Space.Station/
