America and Alabama stay in the space station business – AL.com

On New Years Eve, the Biden-Harris Administration announced America will continue to support the International Space Station through 2030.

That was good news for NASA and its international partners on the station, and it was good for NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

About 650 people at Marshall support the science done on the station. Another 400 government employees and contractors in Huntsville work other aspects of the station program.

We were hoping that was coming, Marshalls Joseph Pelfrey said Thursday. Weve been preparing and expecting that announcement may get made. Its a big day for the agency and for Marshall. Were coming up in March on 21 years weve done continuous operations from Huntsville, from the Payload Operations Integration Center.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who recently toured the center on a visit to Marshall, also praised the presidents decision. Im pleased that the Biden-Harris administration has committed to continuing station operations through 2030, Nelson said in a statement. The International Space Station is a beacon of peaceful international scientific collaboration and for more than 20 years has returned enormous scientific, educational and technological developments to benefit humanity.

Pelfrey manages the Human Exploration Development & Operations Office at Marshall. His teams work with and study the astronauts and the systems that control their environment in space.

How do we mitigate the risk and the different changes the body goes through? Pelfrey asked. Understanding that is critically important for us to go back to the moon and even do the longer duration missions that we want to do to get to Mars.

Late in 2021, NASA launched a carbon dioxide scrubber developed at Marshall to the station. It was an example of the orbiting stations research value.

Thats a technology we developed to increase our ability to scrub off CO2. And were able to demonstrate that on the space station, Pelfrey said. Its working so well were relying on it as part of the main station system.

The system or one like it will be expanded into a version that goes to the moon and on the ship that takes astronauts to Mars. The stations life extension means other systems developed in Huntsville can now be tested in space, including oxygen and water reclamation for the long haul to Mars.

Were also doing new things like more 3-D printing in space, Pelfrey said. When we go to Mars, if we had to carry everything we would need for the trip with us, thats a whole lot of mass and equipment.

Other experiments include growing food in space. We are successfully growing food in different chambers of the station, Pelfrey said. Again, if we can perfect that technology, its another thing we can grow on our way to Mars versus having to carry it with us.

Pelfrey said these examples just touch on the more than 300 experiments running on the station, all of it coordinated and managed by Huntsville and Houston, where the station itself is managed.

COVID has temporarily ended the regular tours where visitors could see the operations center working. Weve had to idle those tours, unfortunately, just for the safety of the team and reducing the number of people coming on site, Pelfrey said. Wed like to get everybody back to the office and get back to being able to tell that story.

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America and Alabama stay in the space station business - AL.com