NASA preparing ISS for commercial spacecraft landing

NASA engineers are set to prepare the International Space Station ( ISS) for the future arrival of US commercial crew and cargo vehicles.

On May 27, robotics flight controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston detached the large Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), used as a supply depot on the orbital laboratory, from the earthfacing port of the Unity module and robotically relocate it to the forward port of the Tranquility module.

This move will clear the Unity port for its conversion into the spare berthing location for US cargo spacecraft. The earthfacing port on Harmony is the primary docking location. NASA is in the process of reconfiguring the stat ion to create primary and back up docking ports for US commercial crew spacecraft currently in development by Boeing and SpaceX.