Client Highlight: Bishop Airlock Installed on the International Space Station
BISHOP AIRLOCK LAUNCH WITH SPACEX
Milestone for Nanoracks, Space Industry Leader & Garrison Construction Group Client
A milestone for the commercial space industry and particularly for Garrison Construction Group client Nanoracks, the privately funded Bishop Airlock, a $20M project that was in development for the last five years and was designed to operate within the International Space Station, launched into orbit for the first time last week (Dec 6, 2020), housed in the trunk of a SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule.
The now installed Nanoracks Bishop Airlock adds to the capacity for scientific experiments on the International Space Station, and according to Bishop Airlock Project Manager Brock Howe, it is the “first commercial module for the International Space Station designed and built {at NanoRacks}.”
LEARN MORE
Reference article & video
Learn more about the Bishop Airlock, the SpaceX launch, and other related commercial and government backed projects housed on the International Space Station, in this article written by Stephen Clark and published by Space Flight Now.
The Nanoracks animation video below featured in the Space Flight Now article shows how the company plans to use the Bishop airlock, with the space station’s robotic arm moving the module on and off its home on the International Space Station Tranquility node.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The animation was created in 2018 and illustrates the Bishop module arriving on an older, now-retired version of SpaceX’s Dragon cargo vehicle.
GARRISON CONSTRUCTION GROUP: NANORACKS BUILD-OUT
Bishop Airlock Clean Room, Avionics Lab, Offices & More
Garrison Construction Group recently served as General Contractor, working with with Colliers International, Inc. and CDI Douglass Pye, Inc., to construct new offices for Nanoracks from Phase I to Completion.
The 22,000 square-foot Nanoracks facility located in Webster, Texas included construction of the “Cleanroom” to house the Bishop Airlock, “the first complex commercially developed and privately owned element on the International Space Station.”
The project also included an avionics lab for electronic systems, a wet lab for biological experiments, offices, meeting and lobby spaces, break room/ kitchen, restrooms and more.
When the Bishop Airlock arrived for installation at the Clean Room. Photo source: NanoRacks Instagram
MORE INFORMATION & SOURCES
For source articles and more information, please see links below.
Primary Image Credit: Nanoracks technicians work on the Bishop airlock module inside NASA’s Space Station Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in October, by NASA/Kim Shiflett.
The opinions expressed by Garrison Construction Group, LLC do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Nanoracks, Colliers International, CDI Douglass Pye, SpaceX, Space Flight Now, or any other source cited within this post.