HARRIS RECORDS ENDEAVOR SUCCESS

A success, certainly, as last month the Space Shuttle Endeavour successfully delivered an array of specially modified Harris Corporation NEO VR digital video recorders to the International Space Station (ISS) to help astronauts conduct a variety of scientific experiments. The recorders were the first delivered section of Kibo, a space module developed by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The NEO VR systems, which form part of the Image Processing Unit (IPU) developed by Chiyoda Advanced Solution Co., will record and store video images of experiments conducted at the ISS. Video from Kibo will be played back on NEO VR systems, downlinked through the IPU, and monitored in real time at the Space Station Integration and Promotion Center at the Tsukuba Space Center in Japan. Harris made special modifications to the NEO VR systems to allow the crew to carry removable hard disk drives back to Earth to deliver large volumes of high-quality image data from space experiments. The NEO VR systems were taken to the ISS in the Experiment Logistics Module-Pressurized Section (ELM-PS), the first in a series of Kibo modules that will be delivered to the ISS during three different space shuttle flights and assembled on orbit. The NEO VR systems will be transferred to Kibo’s main experiment module (the Pressurized Module) after it is launched during the second assembly missions planned for May 2008—Cincinnati, Ohio