NanoRacks Bishop Airlock

Bishop airlock was installed onto the port side of the Tranquility node on 19 December. Image Credit: NASA

Bishop airlock

Description:

• Nanoracks Bishop Airlock, formerly known as Bishop Airlock Module, is a small commercial airlock module attached to the Tranquility module of the ISS. The Nanoracks Bishop Airlock will offer five times the satellite deployment volume than current opportunities (Japanese Kibo module airlock) available today. Nanoracks is the prime contractor, with Thales Alenia Space manufacturing the pressurized shell and Boeing providing the berthing mechanism. It will be the second commercial module of the ISS after the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), which was attached to the ISS in April 2016 and is expected to stay at the ISS until at least 2028. It will add another airlock to the ISS′s plethora of airlocks. It was under construction beginning in 2015, and is delivered with the Dragon CRS-21 to ISS.
• The self-funded Bishop Airlock offers five times the current payload volume than is currently available on the government-operated JEM Airlock on the space station and is the first-ever commercial airlock. Bishop′s capabilities include the deployment of free-flying payloads such as CubeSats and externally-mounted payloads, housing of small payloads for research and in-space manufacture, jettisoning trash, and recovering external Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs). ORUs are modular components of the station that can be replaced when needed, such as pumps and other hardware.

Mission details:

The Bishop Airlock descriptions.

The Bishop Airlock, nested inside the SpaceX CRS-21 Dragon Trunk, being released from the Dragon upper stage.

External links:

• Nanorack.com: Module Information