Nanoracks (Bishop) Airlock
Short Name:The short name or acronym of the facility. NRAL
Facility Description
The Nanoracks Bishop Airlock (Nanoracks Airlock) is the first-ever commercially owned and operated airlock on the International Space Station. It provides a variety of capabilities including jettisoning of payloads such as CubeSats, deployment of external payloads, support for small exterior payloads and locker-sized internal payloads, recovery of external on-orbit replaceable units (ORUs), and the ability to move hardware outside in support of extravehicular activities (EVAs). It is approximately five times larger than the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Airlock so it can accommodate more and larger payloads. The Airlock’s capabilities support many different types of scientific investigations.
Availability:The general availability status of the facility. Please contact the facility manager
ISS Environment:The facility location (internal or external to the ISS.) External
Owner:The entity that owns the facility. Nanoracks
Operator/Implementation Partner:The entity or ISS National Lab Implementation Partner that operates the facility.
Nanoracks
Developer(s):The entity, or entities, that developed the facility.
Nanoracks; Thales Alenia Space; Boeing
Facility Manager:The name of the facility manager and their organization.
Brock Howe,
Nanoracks
Manager Email:The facility manager's email address.
bhowe@nanoracks.com
Parent Facility:Any facility that is necessary to operate the facility described on this webpage. i.e., a parent facility is one level higher in the operational hierarachy.
Child Facility:Facilities that can be operated within the facility described on this webpage.
Sponsoring Space Agency:The government space agency that sponsors investigations that use the facility. NASA
Equipment Category:"The facility's ISS National Lab equipment designation type. Designations include:
1. ISS National Lab Commercial Service Provider (CSP) Facility
2. Support Hardware
3. Capability ISS National Lab CSP Facility
Additional Information:Additional resources to learn more about the facility.
Past NRAL investigations on NASA’s SSRE
Gambit – Nanoracks Airlock External Payload Environment Monitor
Nanoracks-GITAI Robotic Arm
Nanoracks-GITAI S2
iss064e013203 (Dec. 20, 2020) --- The NanoRacks Bishop airlock is pictured after its was installed to the port side of the Tranquility module and still attached to the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Adjacent to Bishop on the aft side of Tranquility is BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module. Bishop increases the station’s capacity for private and public research and also enables the release of larger satellites and the transfer of cargo inside and outside the station.