NASA May Hire Japanese Spacecraft For ISS Service Mission

schliz writes "NASA is talking to Japan's space agency about using one of its spacecraft for servicing missions to the International Space Station, according to Japanese media reports. NASA has been considering various options to maintain its commitment to the Space Station after the Space Shuttle is retired from service in 2010. According to Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, 'unofficial negotiations' between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) began in February."

Comments

Re:This is not true, according to NASA

[crymeph0]

It is on NASA's site, though. Searching Google for some text from the press release yielded this link.

Re:That's odd.

[meringuoid]

And what happened to Russia? I thought they were a huge part of the ISS, and just recently the RSA received a lot more interest from their government if I recall correctly, so why aren't we poking sticks at them?

Russia's Progress supply ships have been keeping the ISS running for years. When the Shuttle was grounded after Columbia, it was the Russians who kept the project alive.

It was a close-run thing, though; the Shuttle's cargo capacity dwarfs Progress, and it was a major loss. Hence the development of independent cargo ships by ESA and Japan. These are much bigger than Soyuz, and also divide the labour three ways instead of relying on Russia alone to produce enough rockets.

Uhm...think again...

[mastallama]

Actually, NASA has said they're not going to use Japan. http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/tariqmalik/

Re:This is not true, according to NASA

[meringuoid]

From my email yesterday:

From: NASA News (hqnews@mediaservices.nasa.gov)
Sent: Mon 7/21/08 4:00 PM
To: NASA News (hqnews@mediaservices.nasa.gov)

July 21, 2008

John Yembrick
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0602
John.yembrick-1@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 08-181

STATEMENT ON INACCURATE REPORTS ABOUT JAPANESE CARGO SERVICES

WASHINGTON -- Contrary to news reports, NASA has not officially or
unofficially been discussing the purchase of H-II Transfer Vehicles
(HTV) -- uninhabited resupply cargo ships for the space station --
from the Japanese Space Agency, or JAXA.

NASA is committed to domestic commercial cargo resupply to the space
station and does not plan to procure cargo delivery services from
Japan. As part of our original agreements as compensation for common
system operating costs NASA has limited cargo capability on the
Japanese and European cargo vehicles. NASA has recently issued a
request for proposal for the cargo needs of International Space
Station beyond those supplied by our current international
agreements. NASA has chosen to depend on commercial resupply of cargo
delivery to the station.

-end-

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