The successful docking of the JAXA HTV-2 cargo vehicle this morning is great news for a high school in San Jose, California and Ohio State University. The docking marks the next critical milestone in these two commercial educational payloads, which was made possible by NanoRacks, LLC, the leading company providing commercial opportunities onboard the U.S. National Laboratory on Space Station.
The company is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement for the use of the ISS National Lab on the International Space Station. For the NanoRacks team, these missions are proof-positive of a new can-do era. “For both educational payloads,” explains Managing Director Jeffrey Manber, “the schools went from zero to docking in less than nine months. That’s a great benchmark of what is now possible on the U.S. National Lab.”