The story of ERA begins in 1985, when Europe still has plans for a small space shuttle, the Hermes. That mini shuttle will not come, but the arm, then called HERA, is already so far in development that a new destination is being sought.
The planned successor to the Russian space station Mir comes into the picture, but it is also cancelled. Instead, the Russians will supply a large part of the ISS and the arm will be assigned to a platform with solar panels. But that platform doesn’t make it either. Only in 2005 will the redemption come: ERA will fly on a new Russian module, the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, later renamed ‘Nauka’, Russian for ‘science’.
In 2007 Nauka is to go into space. But then the greatest trial begins. Nauka was a spare module, which had been ready since 1998. “The Russians thought that only minor changes were necessary, but that turned out to be more work than expected,” says Schoonejans.
In addition, there are problems with the engine. The module has to fly the last part to the space station under its own power, and the pipes turn out to be polluted. “When they flushed it, all kinds of sludge came out, and that went to the fuel tanks. So they also got dirty and there were no spare tanks, because this was already the reserve.”
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