Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center

episode 179 Commercial Airlock. I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today. On this

podcast we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts

all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight. A new

commercial airlock has been delivered and installed on the International

Space Station.

Now, this is not the airlock that you think of for space walks,

the one where astronauts get into spacesuits

and go out the hatch to work on the outside

of the International Space Station.

This airlock is commercial, which means it's a

facility owned and operated by a company and that facility has customers.

It's called the Nanorracks Bishop Airlock.

This airlock can deploy free-flying payloads

such as CubSats, and it can install externally mounted payloads.

It can house small payloads for research

and in-space manufacturing, it can jettison trash and recover,

external orbital replacement units, ORUs, or spare parts for the station such as pumps and

other hardware.

This commercial activity is enabled through some of NASA's recent efforts

to commercialize low-Earth orbit.

So on this episode, we're bringing in Brock Howe, Bishop Airlock Program Manager at

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