The Year Ahead

Credit: NASA

Happy 2015! This year will mark 15 years of continuous human presence in space, which has been the record for nearly 5 years. 

Think about that: for the last 15 years, there has always been at least 2 people in space at any moment. Currently, there are six, all on the International Space Station. 

This year will be busy for the ISS. The big news item for ISS will be in March, when Scott Kelly, and Mikhail Korniyenko launch to the station. They are to be the first ISS crew to stay in orbit for one year. Kelly and Korniyenko are part of a study to watch how astronauts bodies react to being in micro-gravity for a year. In particular, Kelly’s twin, Mark, will be on the ground to compare with. Year long missions are yet another stepping stone in learning how to go to Mars, which would last two to three years from start to finish.

In addition to the year long ISS mission, the European Space Agency will see the final reentry for their cargo ship, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). The George Lemaitre, as it is named, will leave the station in February, and burn up in the atmosphere. Europe will no longer build ATV cargo ships, and will instead focus on helping NASA by building the service module of the Orion spacecraft based on the ATV. 

This year will bring up to four more SpaceX Dragon cargo ships to the station, as well as one Cygnus cargo ship. Cygnus will launch on an Atlas V rocket since its normal launcher, the Antares, is grounded due to the launch failure in October, which destroyed the Cygnus that it was carrying. 

With these items and all the research to be conducted, this should be an amazing year for the International Space Station.