Paper Session II-C - Space Welding: On the Agenda

In 1997 the United States and the Ukrainian Space Agency are scheduled to cooperate in the International Space Welding Experiment (ISWE), a flight demonstration on the U.S. Space Shuttle of the space welding tool developed at the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute. ISWE will demonstrate the feasibility of repairing a space structure by welding as well as providing more data on space welded joints. It will move welding in space closer to the same dominant position that welding occupies today in the terrestrial fabrication of launch vehicles and their payloads. The development of space welding will be a complex task, as exemplified by the long history of development in the Ukraine. Besides the welding process itself it is necessary to address component assembly, weld joint configuration and fit up, and post weld inspection and verification in any contemplated welding operation. But the reward, a basic and versatile “universal” tool for assembly, construction, and maintenance of hardware in space, is not trivial either. As we move into the twenty-first century America’s Space Program, pushing forward in its “better, faster, cheaper” mode, is embracing new ways of doing business to achieve its goals. The cooperation between the United States and the Ukrainian Space Agency represents such a new way of doing business in the interests of “better, faster, cheaper” progress into space