European Drawer Rack

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The European Drawer Rack (EDR) is a multi-user facility planned for the International Space Station that accommodates a variety of science experiments. It will be located in the Columbus Laboratory module and was developed for the European Space Agency by Alenia Spazio, a subsidiary of Alcatel Alenia Space. Like other payload racks in the station, the physical characteristics of EDR conform to the International Standard Payload Rack specification.

EDR provides accommodation for up to 3 ISIS Drawers, and 4 ISS Lockers. These standardized ECMs (Experiment Container Modules) can contain scientific experiments. EDR provides the following services to the ECMs:

European Drawer Rack (NASA)
European Drawer Rack (NASA)
  • Stowage space
  • Power supply (28 V DC, 120 V DC)
  • Low Rate telecommand/telemetry (19.2 kbit/s RS-422)
  • Medium Rate telecommand/telemetry (10 Mbit/s Ethernet)
  • High Rate telemetry (32 Mbit/s SpaceWire)
  • Analogue video acquisition (NTSC)
  • Discrete commanding, monitoring and temperature monitoring services
  • Air cooling
  • Water cooling
  • Gaseous Nitrogen supply
  • Vacuum service
  • Waste gas service
  • Timeline service
  • Ancillary data and time services
  • Laptop crew interface

The following ESA payloads are designed for use in EDR:

  • PCDF (Protein Crystallisation and Diagnostics Facility);
  • FASTER.

EDR will be operated according to ESA's decentralised payload operation concept. The FRC (Facility Responsible Centre) for EDR is Erasmus USOC, located at ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

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