The Japanese government formally agreed today to extend its participation in the International Space Station (ISS) program until 2024.  Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated earlier this month that he supported the extension and now it is official.

Japan is one of 15 international partners in the ISS program.  The United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and 11 European countries collectively built and operate the earth-orbiting space station.  There is no exchange of funds among the partners except with Russia.  The United States pays Russia for taking U.S., Canadian, Japanese and European astronauts to and from the ISS and paid Russia hundreds of millions of dollars for space station-related hardware and activities in the 1990s.

The United States began the space station program, initially called Freedom, in FY1985 and Japan, Europe and Canada quickly agreed to participate.   It took three years to negotiate the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) that governs each country’s responsibilities.   Russia was brought in as another partner in 1993, and a revised IGA was signed in 1998.

Japan has delivered exactly what it promised in the original agreement: the Japanese Experiment Module (named Kibo), which has an external platform (the “back porch”) that has become renowned in recent years as the launch site for dozens of cubesats; and approximately annual launches of HTV (Kounotori) cargo spacecraft.  Japan had also agreed to build the Centrifuge Accommodation Module for NASA as part of a barter arrangement, but NASA cancelled it.

Japanese astronauts have flown on 12 missions in support of the ISS so far, either on assembly missions aboard the space shuttle or long duration missions on the ISS.  Kimiya Yui just returned from the ISS on December 11.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), a quasi-governmental institution, executes Japan’s civilian space program.  JAXA President Naoki Okimura said today’s agreement “will step-up the relationship between both countries to the next phase.  In order to realize Japan’s space policy, JAXA will produce desirable outcomes by promoting unprecedented utilization of the Kibo and the KOUNOTORI effectively and efficiently leveraging the new framework.”

Today’s announcement follows statements by Japanese Prime Minister Abe earlier this month in support of the extension.

The Obama Administration declared its intention to continue operating ISS through 2024 in January 2014.  Congress codified the U.S. commitment to operating ISS “at least” until 2024 in the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act.

Russia, Canada and Japan have now agreed to that extension.  The European Space Agency (ESA), through which the 11 European countries participate, is still considering its decision.

 

NASA’s next mission to Mars was scheduled to launch in March 2016, but the agency and its French counterpart, CNES, announced today that it will not be ready.  Spacecraft can be launched to Mars only every 26 months because of planetary alignments, so another opportunity is not available until the spring of 2018.  The cost impact of the delay and what that means for other planetary science missions is not yet known.

The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission is part of NASA’s Discovery program.  NASA planetary science division director Jim Green said during a NASA teleconference this afternoon that the total cost of the mission, including the launch vehicle and all phases from design to data analysis, is $675 million.  Of that amount, $525 million has been spent already, including purchase of the Atlas V rocket that is already at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in preparation for the March launch.

One of the two science instruments for the InSight lander is being provided by CNES.  The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) is a highly sensitive seismometer package designed to detect ground movement on Mars.  The seismometers are inside a sphere.  Air must be evacuated from the sphere to create a vacuum.   Over the past several months, leaks have been detected during tests conducted by CNES at two facilities in Paris.

NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, John Grunsfeld, said that as recently as yesterday morning he was “confident” the problems were solved.  At about 1:00 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST), however, he was informed that another leak had been detected.  NASA and CNES determined that insufficient time remained before the instrument needed to be shipped to the United States and integrated into the spacecraft to make the March 2016 launch date.

InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said during the telecon that he was disappointed, but “I am a patient man” who has been waiting for 25 years to get this kind of data about Mars.  He optimistically sees it “as a minor setback, not a disaster…A hiccup on our path” to learn about the seismology of Mars.  The only other Mars spacecraft outfitted with seismometers were Viking 1 and 2, which landed in 1976.  Grunsfeld said NASA had learned a lesson from Viking — do not put seismometers on the spacecraft legs where they are affected by wind noise.

For InSight, the seismometers are inside a sphere and a “very deep vacuum” needs to be created inside that sphere according to CNES’s director of the Toulouse Space Centre, Marc Pircher.   A leak was discovered in August.  It was fixed, but then another developed.  That was fixed and until yesterday, it appeared that the instrument was good to go.  Then this new leak, of unknown origin, was detected. 

There really was no decision for NASA and CNES officials to make, Grunsfeld said:  “The decision was made by the leak. We didn’t have to scratch our heads and say should we go or not go,” because at the leak rate observed the instrument “would not have worked at all.”

The 3 kilogram SEIS sphere contains three Very Broad Band (VBB) seismic probes and their temperature sensors, three Short Period (SP) seismic probes and their temperature sensors, electronics and other hardware and software.  All of that is working.  The issue is only with leakage from the sphere itself.  The problems also do not affect InSight’s other science instrument, the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, provided by Germany’s space agency, DLR.

Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS).  Image credit:  CNES

Grunsfeld and Green repeatedly indicated that the path forward is still being determined.  The spacecraft is already at the launch site and the first order of business is to return it to its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, for storage.  NASA does not yet know how much that will cost.  NASA also will work with the United Launch Alliance to determine how to utilize the Atlas V rocket.

The next launch opportunity is not for 26 months, so there is no urgency in making other decisions, Grunsfeld said.  He would not commit to launching InSight in 2018, but conveyed that he hopes that will be the case.

In a NASA press release this afternoon, Green referenced the fact that NASA made a decision in 2008 to delay the planned 2009 launch of the Mars Science Lander (MSL) and its Curiosity rover for two years because of readiness concerns. The subsequent success of that mission has “vastly outweighed any disappointment about that delay.”  JPL Director Charles Elachi added that it “is more important to do it right than take an unacceptable risk.”

From a science standpoint, that is obviously correct, but a key concern is the cost impact on other NASA science missions. The life cycle cost of MSL/Curiosity grew to $2.5 billion, $881 million above its 2008 baseline cost according to a 2012 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.  NASA often must pay for cost overruns on one program by not initiating new projects.  The Discovery program is intended to support the launch of a new mid-sized planetary mission every other year, but funding constraints have stretched that cadence.  In September, NASA selected five semi-finalists for the next launch opportunity in 2020, a four-year wait after InSight was expected to launch.  If InSight’s costs grow substantially, the 2020 launch date or the next Discovery mission could be delayed.

Congress is very supportive of NASA’s planetary science program, however, as evidenced by the significant increase it received in the final FY2016 budget.   The Discovery program was one of those singled out in the appropriation bill’s explanatory statement, providing $189 million “to support the current selection as well as funds to enable a 2017 announcement of opportunity” for the next.

Two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will make an unplanned spacewalk as early as Monday to fix the space station’s mobile transporter, which got stuck on December 16.  It must be moved before the next Russian Progress cargo spacecraft can dock at the ISS, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra will try to repair the mobile transporter, which moves along the outside of the ISS to position the robotic Canadarm2 for various tasks, put it in its correct location and latch it into place.   Ground controllers were attempting to do that, but it got stuck 4 inches from where it began its move.

NASA is targeting Monday for the spacewalk, but will not make a final readiness decision until Sunday.

Russia’s Progress cargo spacecraft is scheduled for launch at 3:44 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Monday and docking with the ISS at 5:31 am EST on Wednesday.  NASA and Roscosmos are anxious to get the cargo spacecraft docked before a “beta angle cutout” from December 24 to January 2 when the Sun’s angle relative to the ISS does not provide proper lighting conditions for either spacewalks or dockings.

A time for the spacewalk has not been determined yet, but it will be broadcast on NASA TV when it occurs.

Kelly has been aboard the ISS since March.  He and Russian cosmonaut Mikahil Kornienko are more than half-way through their “year in space” mission.  Kopra just arrived at the iSS three days ago, but he has flown in space before.  This will be Kelly’s third and Kopra’s second spacewalks.

UPDATE, December 15, 2015, 8:50 pm EST:  The crew successfully docked with ISS a bit later than expected because of a problem with the Kurs automated docking system.  Soyuz TMA-19M commander Yuri Malenchenko took manual control of the docking and it took place at 12:33 pm EST (instead of 12:24 pm EST).  The hatches between Soyuz and ISS opened, and the new crew members entered ISS, at 2:58 pm EST.

UPDATE, December 15, 2015, 6:15 am EST:  Launch took place on time at 6:03 am EST.  Soyuz TMA-19M is now in orbit and on its way to a docking with the ISS in about 6 hours at 12:24 pm EST.

ORIGINAL STORY, December 14, 2015: Three new International Space Station (ISS) crew members are set to launch tomorrow morning, December 15, to join three others already aboard the ISS.  One is the first astronaut sponsored by the government of the United Kingdom (UK), which released its first national space policy yesterday.

UK astronaut Tim Peake will fly to the ISS on Soyuz TMA-19M along with NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Rocosmos cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko.  The UK is a member of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Peake is a member of the ESA astronaut corps.  

Launch is scheduled for 6:03 am Eastern Standard Time (5:03 pm local time at the launch site in Kazakhstan) and the spacecraft will dock with the ISS at approximately 12:24 pm EST.  The three new ISS crew members are replacing three who returned to Earth on Friday and will join NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Roscosmos cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergei Volkov.  Kelly and Kornienko are more than half-way through a year-long stint aboard the ISS that began in March; Volkov arrived in September.

Peake is the first person to fly into space as a representative of the British government.  He is not the first British citizen to make a spaceflight, however. That honor belongs to Helen Sharman who visited Russia’s Mir space station in 1991 as a space “tourist.”   Three men born in Britain have flown as NASA astronauts after becoming U.S. citizens (Michael Foale, Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick) and a South African space tourist (Mark Shuttleworth) has dual citizenship in Britain.

Britain is heralding Peake as its first astronaut, however, and its decision to sponsor an astronaut as part of ESA’s astronaut corps does mark a change from its previous focus on space applications, especially remote sensing of the Earth.   Britain is one of 11 European countries that are officially part of the ISS program, having signed the original Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) that governs the ISS program in 1988 and a revised version in 1998 that brought Russia into the program.  It did not financially contribute to the program for many years, however, so the number of European members of the ISS program is variously listed as 10 or 11.

In any event, the UK government appears to have warmed up to the value of human spaceflight and more broadly to space activities.  Yesterday it issued its first national space policy whose opening words are “Space matters.”  The report asserts that in 2014 “the UK space sector directly contributed £11.8 billion to the UK economy and employed nearly 35,000 skilled workers.”  The 14-page document says little about the UK’s plans for future human spaceflight, although the forward by the UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills refers to Peake’s flight as part of the UK’s role in exploration that will deliver cutting edge science and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.