NASA sending supplies to station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A space station supply ship is set to blast off tonight with a commercial-quality 3-D printer for astronaut as well as public use — for a price — and the makings for a large-scale fire.
Don’t worry: The blaze is for scientific purposes only and won’t ignite until the unmanned craft is clear of the International Space Station at mission’s end. NASA project manager Gary Ruff said this blaze will be second in size only to the 1997 fire on the Russian Mir space station, which was caused by a defective oxygen-generating canister.
Orbital ATK’s capsule, named Cygnus after the swan constellation, holds nearly 8,000 pounds of station supplies for NASA. One-fourth of that is scientific research, including robotic grippers inspired by the tiny, sticky hair on geckos’ feet.
An Atlas rocket provided by United Launch Alliance will provide the ride from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Excellent weather is forecast for the 11:05 p.m. launch.
A look at some of the experiments bound for the space station and its six-man crew:
FIRE ON BOARD
NASA will deliberately set a fire inside the trash-packed Cygnus cargo ship, once it leaves the space station in May and is a safe distance away. Researchers want to understand how a fire spreads in weightlessness — how fast and how big does it get? The goal is to improve fire safety on future spacecraft. An electrical igniter will be used to light a yard-long cotton-fiberglass sheet inside a box. The burn should last 15 to 20 minutes, with a pair of cameras recording the flames and sensors making measurements. A week or so later, the capsule will burn up as planned over the Pacific.
3-D SPACE PRINTS
This new 3-D printer is an update to one launched to the space station in 2014. Northern California-based company Made In Space says the new printer is bigger and better. The first printer created items no bigger than an iPhone, this new printer will churn out items as big as an iPad mini. It will be controlled from the ground, with minimal input from the astronauts. The intention is to make 3-D items as needed for real-time use.
GECKO GRIPPERS
Researchers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have based their new mechanical spring-loaded grippers on the thousands of tiny sticky hairs found on geckos’ feet. Five hand-held grippers will be tested on the space station; one will remain on board an entire year. Researchers envision using these so-called Gecko Grippers for robots’ hands and feet, allowing them to crawl around the outside of a spacecraft to perform inspections or repairs.
