OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOW-TEMPERATURE RESEARCH ABOARD THE SPACE STATION

A cryogenic Space Station facility is being developed by the Jet Propu lsion Laboratory and industrial partners to support the microgravity n eeds of the international scientific community. The facility will be a ttached to the Japanese Experiments Module's Exposed Facility and will operate with a 6 month helium cryogen lifetime. Flights of the facili ty are planned at 2 year intervals starting in 2003 with each flight a ccommodating multiple scientific experiments. Capabilities, conceptual designs and development plans for the facility will be discussed alon g with a summary of potential near term flight candidate experiments.