International Space Station I 20th Anniversary
Boeing and the International Space Station
A close-up view of Node 1 in its work stand in the Space Station Processing Facility shows two of its six hatches that would serve as docking ports. The module was the first element of the International Space Station to be manufactured in the United States and the first scheduled to be launched on the Space Shuttle.
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ASA selected Boeing as prime contractor for the International Space Station on Aug. 17, 1993; the original cost-plus-award-fee contract began on Jan. 13, 1995. However, the aerospace giant’s involvement with the manned space station effort actually began in 1988, with Work Package 4 on the U.S. Space Station Freedom, which later was merged with the Russian Mir 2 program to become the ISS. Boeing and its heritage companies – McDonnell Douglas, Rockwell, and the original Boeing – all played major roles in the design, construction, and integration of all major U.S. components. “Node 1, the main building block attaching the U.S. lab and the pressurized module, which
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Boeing also designed and built; the U.S. lab, the main element the trusses attach to and a longer module than the Node, outfitted for all the science on the U.S. side; the trusses, from outboard solar array to outboard solar array. I like to say we have more than a million drawings in the building of space station with Boeing or heritage company names on them,” current Boeing ISS Program Manager Mark Mulqueen noted. “We helped in common hardware throughout ISS, which we built and helped them integrate – ducts, racks, etc. We helped the international partners and NASA verify their drawings and that post-test correlations were done correctly and were worthy of certification. Through NASA, we assisted in the successful
development of their modules; those agencies and companies are very credible and know what they’re doing. Anything we could re-use from our modules we built and sent overseas to be integrated before their units went to Florida for launch.” Mulqueen has been part of the effort since 1988 and Freedom, holding a number of ISS management jobs through the last 30 years. Prior to his current role, he was deputy program manager for the Commercial Crew Program that is building Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to launch crews from the United States to the ISS and other low-Earth orbit (LEO) destinations. His previous positions include ISS deputy program manager; ISS Vehicle Program director; ISS Mechanical,
Nasa Photo
BY J.R. WILSON
