[ad_1]
The International Space Station is now more than ready for crew-carrying spacecraft. The second planned International Dock Adapter (IDA) was installed on the NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan earlier today.
The dock adapter is actually IDA-3, as the first IDA was lost during the SpaceX launch failure of its CRS-7 mission on June 28, 2015. IDA-2, which was intended to be the second one installed on ISS, instead became the first and was delivered in July 2016 during the SpaceX CRS-9 resupply mission.
IDA-2 has already proven effective, too: When it comes to space, when SpaceX's Crew Demo Dragon-1 test vehicle used the automated docking procedure designed for this are on board.
IDA-3 is the second working dock adapter that uses this automated procedure, which makes it so that vehicles arriving at the ISS Canadarm2 robotic arm. The automated procedure is designed as an industry standard of spells, and should mean that any commercial crew craft, from SpaceX's Crew Dragon, to Boeing's CST-100, and any other potential future craft, can easily and automatically dock with the ISS to transfer over passengers and cargo.
Boeing is the company that has been contracted to design and build these docking adapters. Each weighs about 1,150 pounds, and they're about 42 inches high and 63 inches wide, which means it's a bit of a tight squeeze for crew to come through .
Having the IDAs installed on the Space Station is key in the commercial crew program, but there are still plenty of things to be done – including the first test flights of commercial vehicles with astronauts on board.
[ad_2]
Source link