• Question: How do you supply the international space station?

    Asked by Jed to Andrea, Charlie 🚀, Col Op, Kirsty, Vinita on 12 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 12 Jun 2016:

      The ISS is supplied by a number of counties and different types of spaceships- in Europe, up until last year,we use the ATV or Automated Transfer Vehicle. There where 5 ATV missions in total.

      Russia uses the Progress spacecraft, which is an unmanned Soyuz, Japan uses HTV ( H-II Transfer Vehicle) which is a bit like a large ATV and NASA uses SpaceX Dragon and Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft.

    • Photo: Andrea Boyd

      Andrea Boyd answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      Different crew and cargo vehicles from each ISS country bring up supplies and take home science or take out rubbish.

      Russia: Soyuz crew vehicle and Progress cargo vehicle (Soyuz is the only one that can bring crew and Progress is the only one that can refuel the ISS and do reboosts). Very regular flights every few months. They can dock themselves. Progress takes out rubbish. Soyuz returns crew and fragile/time precious cargo back to Earth.
      These two are the most important: we would not have the ISS without them!

      Japan: HTV (H-II Transfer Vehicle, or we often affectionately call it the “Heavy” or “Huge” transfer vehicle 😉 ) brings up a *lot* of cargo, but only once every two years. It can dock. It also takes out rubbish.

      Europe: from 2008 – 2015 sent up the ATV, Automatic Transfer Vehicle and this brought up tons of cargo plus could refuel the ISS and do reboosts. Now that ATV was turned into the engine for NASA’s Orion. It docked automatically. It took out rubbish too.

      USA: Two small commercial cargo vehicles SpaceX Dragon and Orbital Cygnus go up occasionally but they can’t dock by themselves and they can’t refuel the station. The crew have to perform complex robotic operations to catch and then berth these vehicles. Dragon can bring things back, Cygnus usually takes out rubbish. This week when Cygnus undocks it won’t take out rubbish but it will be set on fire!!!! [on purpose, after it’s a safe distance] from the inside to help learn how big fires spread in space – watch it tomorrow (Tuesday 14th)

      All the vehicles except Soyuz and sometimes Dragon burn up completely in the atmosphere on reentry.

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