Cupola

Cupola
Cupola with Ronald John Garan , ISS Expedition 28
Space station:	International space station
Start date:	February 8, 2010
Launcher:	Space Shuttle Endeavor ( STS-130 )
Coupling:	February 12, 2010
Dimensions:	1,805 kg
Length:	1.50 m
Diameter:	2.95 m
Adjacent modules
Flight direction   ─ Zenith / Nadir ─ Tranquility / ─ ─   ─

Cupola (Italian dome ) is a dome-shaped observation tower of the International Space Station . It is located on the most earth-facing side of the Tranquility module .

construction

Cupola from the inside

Canadarm2 is served from Cupola (pictured: Paolo Nespoli and Catherine Coleman )

Cupola is 1.50 m high, has a maximum diameter of 2.95 m and had a mass of 1,805 kg at the start. The maximum mass in orbit is 1,880 kg. Cupola has six side-mounted windows as well as a larger 80 cm window on the "roof" and thus offers an all-round view in one direction of observation. The windows can be sealed off with special shutters to protect them from micrometeorites and space debris.

Cupola is primarily used for observation purposes, with space for two crew members at the same time. The most important tasks of the module include controlling the station's robotic arm , communicating with astronauts during an exit, and observing Earth and space. Various command and control workstations can be installed in Cupola for this purpose. A no less important task of the Cupola should be its use as a relaxation place for astronauts.

Cupola is part of the American part of the station and should initially be built by Boeing . After cost overruns, the development of the module was stopped in 1993 and handed over to the European Space Agency (ESA) five years later . In return, ESA received transport options on the space shuttle for European components and tests as well as extra experiments on Columbus .

SatkomRuhr-Tower (Hattingen) with the first version of the Cupola

Two months after the contract with NASA, on February 8, 1999, ESA awarded the EUR 20 million contract to build the module to Alenia Spazio ( Italy ). The case of the Cupola was built by the Vereinigte Schmiedewerke GmbH on the site of the former Henrichshütte in Hattingen . A previously produced version of the Cupola is today at the SatkomRuhr-Tower in Hattingen. Another six European companies were working on components for Cupola under the leadership of Alenia: CASA ( Spain ), APCO ( Switzerland ), SAAB Ericsson and Lindholmen Development ( Sweden ), EADS Space Transportation ( Germany ) and Verhaert ( Belgium ). Cupola was officially handed over to NASA on July 7, 2005 at the Kennedy Space Center and stored there.

Transport and assembly

Mission emblem

On August 31, 2009, Cupola was prepared in the Space Station Processing Facility for transport with Tranquility; on November 20, ownership of this module was transferred from ESA to NASA at a ceremonial ceremony. It was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor on February 8, 2010 as part of the STS-130 mission to the ISS. The Tranquility module was mounted together with Cupola on the Unity module and then the Cupola was moved from the front coupling connector to the nadir coupling connector Tranquility. The older plans included a direct extension of Cupola to Unity.

Web links

Commons : Cupola  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• ESA: Dates of the Cupola (English)
• Astronews.com: Cupola - a room with a view

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Janis Brinkmann: The window to the world. March 12, 2010, accessed on November 19, 2019 (German).