NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said during a press conference on Wednesday they feel 'confident' Boeing's Starliner can bring them home.
Hey that’s pretty interesting. I didn’t realize there was such a variety of crafts that can dock with it. I wonder if there’s standard for space station docks.
Sort of. Spacecraft production is very low-volume; a lot of them are produced to meet certain needs, so features like docking hardware compatibility tend to fall lower in the priority list compared to the core mission features.
But for things like the ISS, the docking specs are very well known, so even if one craft doesn’t have a compatible dock, they’ll often make adapters.
There’s a nice list: https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/space-station-visiting-vehicles/
Hey that’s pretty interesting. I didn’t realize there was such a variety of crafts that can dock with it. I wonder if there’s standard for space station docks.
Sort of. Spacecraft production is very low-volume; a lot of them are produced to meet certain needs, so features like docking hardware compatibility tend to fall lower in the priority list compared to the core mission features.
But for things like the ISS, the docking specs are very well known, so even if one craft doesn’t have a compatible dock, they’ll often make adapters.
Indeed there is!
International Docking System Standard (IDSS)