Origins of the International Space Station covers the origins of ISS.
The International Space Station program represents a combination of three national space station
projects: the Russian/Soviet Mir-2, NASA's Freedom including the Japanese Kibō laboratory,
and the European Columbus space stations.
Canadian robotics supplement these projects.
In the early 1980s, NASA planned to launch a modular space station called Freedom as
a counterpart to the Soviet Salyut and Mir space stations.
In 1984 the ESA was invited to participate in Space Station Freedom, and the ESA approved
the Columbus laboratory by 1987.
The Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), or Kibō, was announced in 1985, as part of the Freedom
space station in response to a NASA request in 1982.
In Rome in early 1985, science ministers from the European Space Agency (ESA) countries
approved the Columbus programme, the most ambitious effort in space undertaken by that
organisation at the time.
The plan spearheaded by Germany and Italy included a module which would be attached
to Freedom, and with the capability to evolve into a full-fledged European orbital outpost
before the end of the century.
The space station was also going to tie the emerging European and Japanese national space
programmes closer to the US-led project, thereby preventing those nations from becoming major,
independent competitors too.In September 1993, American Vice-President Al Gore and Russian
Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station, which eventually
became the International Space Station.
They also agreed, in preparation for this new project, that the United States would
be involved in the Mir programme, including American Shuttles docking, in the Shuttle–Mir
Programme.
== Mir-2 ==
The Russian Orbital Segment (ROS or RS) is the eleventh Soviet-Russian space station.
Mir ("Peace") and the ISS are successors to the Salyut ("Fireworks") and Almaz ("Diamond")
stations.
The first MIR-2 module was launched in 1986 by an Energia heavy-lift expendable launch
system.
The Energia's core stage and boosters worked properly, however the Polyus spacecraft fired
its engines to insert itself into orbit whilst in an incorrect orientation due to a programming
error, and re-entered the atmosphere.
The planned station changed several times, but Zvezda was always the service module,
containing the station's critical systems such as life support.
The station would have used the Buran spaceplane and Proton rockets to lift new modules into
orbit.
The spaceframe of Zvezda, also called DOS-8 serial number 128, was completed in February
1985 and major internal equipment was installed by October 1986.The Polyus module or spacecraft
would have served as the FGB, a foundation which provides propulsion and guidance, but
it lacks life support.
Polyus was a satellite interceptor/destroyer, carrying a 1 megawatt carbon dioxide laser.
The module had a length of almost 37 metres (121 ft) and a diameter of 4.1 metres (13
ft), with a mass of nearly 80 t, and included two principal sections, the smallest, the
functional service block (FGB), and the largest, the aim module.In 1983, the design was changed
and the station would consist of Zvezda, followed by several 90 tonne modules and a truss structure
similar to the current station.
The draft was approved by NPO Energia Chief Semenov on 14 December 1987 and announced
to the press as 'Mir-2' in January 1988.
This station would be visited by the Soviet Buran, but mainly resupplied by Progress-M2
spacecraft.
Orbital assembly of the station was expected to begin in 1993.
In 1993 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a redesigned smaller Mir-2 was to be built
whilst attached to Mir, just as OPSEK is being assembled whilst attached to the ISS.
== Freedom ==
Approved by then-president Ronald Reagan and announced in the 1984 State of the Union Address,
"We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful economic
and scientific gain", the proposed Freedom changed considerably.
NASA's first cost assessment in 1987 revealed the "Dual Keel" Station would cost $14.5 billion.
This caused a political uproar in Congress, and NASA and Reagan Administration officials
reached a compromise in March 1987 which allowed the agency to proceed with a cheaper $12.2-billion
Phase One Station that could be completed after 10 or 11 Shuttle assembly flights.
This design initially omitted the $3.4-billion 'Dual Keel' structure and half of the power
generators.
The new Space Station configuration was named Freedom by Reagan in June 1988.
Originally, Freedom would have carried two 37.5 kW solar arrays.
However, Congress quickly insisted on adding two more arrays for scientific users.
The Space Station programme was plagued by conflicts during the entire 1984–1987 definition
phase.
In 1987, the Department of Defense (DoD) briefly demanded to have full access to the Station
for military research, despite strong objections from NASA and the international partners.
Besides the expected furore from the international partners, the DoD position sparked a shouting
match between Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and powerful members of Congress that extended
right up to the final Fiscal 1988 budget authorisation in July 1987.
Reagan wanted to invite other NATO countries to participate in the US-led project, since
the Soviet Union had been launching international crews to their Salyut space stations since
1971.
At one point, then-anonymous disgruntled NASA employees calling themselves "Center for Strategic
Space Studies" suggested that instead of building Freedom, NASA should take the back-up Skylab
from display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and launch that.An agreement
signed in September 1988 allocated 97% of the US lab resources to NASA while the Canadian
CSA would receive 3% in return for its contribution.
Europe and Japan would retain 51% of their own laboratory modules.
Six Americans and two international astronauts would be permanently based on Space Station
Freedom.
Several NASA Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s and early 1990s included spacewalks
to demonstrate and test space station construction techniques.
=== Kibō ===
The Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), christened Kibō ("hope") in 1999, is Japan's first manned
spacecraft.
Kibō consists of a pressurised laboratory dedicated to advanced technology experiments,
education and art, a cargo bay, an unpressurised pallet for vacuum experiments in space, a
robotic arm, and interorbital communication system.
While the proposed space station was redesigned many times around Kibō, the only significant
change has been the placement of its ballistic shielding.
Its final position at the front of the station increases the risk of damage from debris.
The ESA and NASA, by contrast, both reduced the size of their laboratories over the course
of the programme.
The Japanese National Space Development Agency (NASDA) formally submitted the JEM proposal
to NASA in March 1986, and by 1990 design work began.
Constructed in the Tobishima Plant of Nagoya Aerospace Systems Works, by Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries, Ltd., Kibō made its way to the Tsukuba Space Center and in 2003 Kibō was
shipped, first by river barge and then by ship, to America.
In 2010, Kibō won the Good Design Award, a 61-year-old consumer and industry award
which identifies the best of Japanese craftsmanship.In the 1980s Japan was working on the HOPE-X
spaceplane, intended to launch on the H-II rocket.
Depending on the configuration of the rocket, it would have a mass of between 10 and 20
tonnes, and be able to carry both crew and cargo.
It would launch vertically and land horizontally.
The programme was terminated by JAXA in 2003 after scale mockup testing.
== Columbus ==
In 1987 the ESA approved the Columbus laboratory.
1988, Europe was working on several space projects including the Columbus module, the
Man-Tended Free Flyer (MTFF), and the Polar Platform (PPF), supported by the Ariane 5
rocket and the Hermes spaceplane.The Columbus Man-Tended Free Flyer (MTFF) was an ESA programme
to develop a space station that could be used for a variety of microgravity experiments
while serving ESA's needs for an autonomous manned space platform.
The MTFF would be a space station without long term life support, visited by short term
crews to replenish and maintain experiments in a Zero-G environment free of vibrations
caused by a permanent crew.
The project was cancelled after budget constraints caused by German reunification.
The Hermes spaceplane is comparable in function to the American and Soviet space shuttles,
with a smaller crew of up to 6 (reduced to 3 with ejection seats after the Challenger
disaster) and substantially smaller cargo capacity, 4,550 kg, comparable to ISS unmanned
cargo ships.
By 1991 the Columbus and Hermes pre-development activities were good enough to progress into
full development, however profound geopolitical changes prompted examining broader international
co-operation, in particular with the Russian Federation.
ESA Member States approved the complete development of the Attached Pressurised Module (APM) and
the Polar Platform (PPF) for Columbus, but the Man-Tended Free-Flyer (MTFF) was abandoned.
The Hermes programme was reoriented into the Manned Space Transportation Programme (MSTP),
and a three-year period extending from 1993 to 1995 was agreed on to define a future manned
space transportation system in co-operation with Russia, including joint development and
use of Mir-2