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July 9, 1998: The
end of materials science research on the Space Shuttle, and plans
to start it on board the International Space Station, will be
previewed at a three-day conference scheduled for July 14-16 in
Huntsville, Alabama.
"The conference will bring together over 100 principal investigators - lead scientists - funded by NASA's Microgravity Research Division," said Dr. Don Gillies, the vice chairman of the Microgravity Materials Science Conference. "It's their way of getting together and explaining to each other what they have achieved over the last year or two and introducing them to the NASA Research Announcement cycle that starts again at the end of the year."
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A firsthand explanation of what it will be like to conduct those experiments will be given by Dr. Roger Crouch who flew as a payload specialist on the MSL-1 mission. Above: Dr. Roger Crouch conducts an experiment in the glovebox during last year's Microgravity Sciences Laboratory-1 mission. Crouch will talk about his MSL-1 experience and about science activities planned for International Space Station. Highlighting the meeting will be some early result from the Microgravity Sciences Laboratory-1 (MSL-1) mission flown aboard the Space Shuttle in April and July 1997, the U.S. Microgravity Payload-4 (USMP-4), flown at the end of 1997, and aboard Russia's Mir space station. MSL-1 and USMP-4 were the last dedicated microgravity materials sciences missions to be flown by the Shuttle. Several principal investigators will discuss their results even though the formal one-year review is set for this August. Dr. Ivan Egry of the Germany Space Agency will cover results from TEMPUS, a unique electromagnetic levitation furnace used on two Spacelab missions. |
Left: The first systems rack is installed inside the U.S. Laboratory module of ISS this past March. Materials experiment facilities will be installed inside racks similar to this one.
Most of the materials scientists using the Space Station will
conduct their experiments in the Materials Science Research Facility
(MSRF) in the United States Laboratory Module. Current status
and plans for the MSRF will be given by Dr. Frank R. Szofran,
MSRF Project Scientist, and David A. Schaefer, MSRF Project Manager.
Their talk will be given from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Heritage Room
of the Huntsville Hilton Hotel on Monday, July 13, 1998.
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"We anticipate that at least 10 of the current investigators will be accommodated on ISS," Gillies said. "They will cover a variety of subjects from metals and alloys to glasses and ceramics." The conference will also continue a new direction that materials sciences field has taken. "We will have a session about materials that might protect crews from radiation on interplanetary missions and on in situ resource processing, using the materials of other worlds to make propellants and structures," Gillies explained. Stories from the conference will be posted during the week. |
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