Astronaut Activates Commercial Add-on to U.S. National Laboratory onboard International Space Station. Astronaut Shannon Walker has successfully activated a new turnkey research system on the U.S. National Lab aboard International Space Station.
Developed by the entrepreneurial company NanoRacks LLC, the research platforms are designed for use by commercial customers and students within the pressurized space station environment. Each platform allows up to 16 customer payloads to effortlessly plug into a standard USB connector, thus providing power and data connectivity in one simple operation. It is the ultimate plug and play.
“Everything went great this morning,” explained NanoRacks Managing Director Jeffrey Manber. “It’s amazing that we are up and running within ten months of signing the agreement with NASA. Our thanks to the whole NASA team.”
The company is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement for the use of the ISS National Lab on the International Space Station. To date the funds have come exclusively from the commercial partners. The NanoRacks platform is located in US ExPRESS Rack in the Japanese Experiment Module on the International Space Station.
Each Nanoracks Facility is approximately 17.34 x 9.97 x 20.3 inches and weighs approximately 12 lbs. To read more, download NanoRacks Release 05 Astronaut Activates Commercial Add on (16.1K pdf).