NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages numerous elements and capabilities on the International Space Station, backdropped against the blackness of space and Earth’s horizon in this 2011 space shuttle crew photo. The ISS Payload Operations Integration Center at Marshall coordinates and maintains around-the-clock communications, 365 days per year, for all space station science operations and commercial experiments. Marshall designed, developed and supports the station’s Environmental Controls and Life Support System, a water and air filtering and recycling system which eliminates the need for water and oxygen resupply from Earth. Marshall also built and manages the Microgravity Science Glovebox, an enclosed experiment facility which allows the space station crew to safely manipulate hardware and experiment samples; the Materials Science Research Rack, a refrigerator-sized unit used to contain and run investigations; and the EXPRESS (Expedite the Processing of Experiments to the Space Station) Rack for transporting, storing and supporting experiments on the station. Marshall also designed the Window Observational Research Facility, an “eye-in-space” window and camera-ready rack infrastructure facing Earth below.
Image credit: NASA