By Lora Koenig As I write this post, on Tuesday, March 26, our team is spread across the globe. I am at Dulles airport near Washington, D.C. waiting to get on a plane that will fly through the night to Iceland, and then onto Kulusuk, Greenland, tomorrow. My gear includes a thick parka, boots, cloths, […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 03/26/13
New Status: Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Last evening Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the MSS and the Crew unbolted and unlatched Dragon from the Node 2 Nadir Common Berthing System (CBM). Ground controllers then uninstalled Dragon using the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and maneuvered it to the release position. After the crew …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 03/25/13
New Status: SpaceX-2 Dragon Cargo Transfers and Departure Preparation: Commander (CDR) Chris Hadfield and Flight Engineer (FE)-6 Tom Marshburn loaded five full coldbags and an active GLACIER with returning science samples into the Dragon vehicle forward rack, and at 8:25 am CDT closed the Dragon hatch. Afterwards they configured the Dragon Pressurized Segment for closeout …
Matters of Scale, and Why They Matter
Recently, we published a data visualization showing tropospheric NO2 over the Indian Ocean. The effort got us to thinking about how we try to present data in a way that’s easy to interpret while staying true to the science. The visualization below of satellite measurements of NO2 in the atmosphere revealed the location of shipping lanes in the […]
East Coast Meteoroid
Last night (March 22) at around 8 p.m. EDT, a meteoroid with a boulder size of ~1 yard in diameter entered the atmosphere above Pennsylvania and moved southeast, passing just south of New York City. It went dark over the Atlantic Ocean, and may have produced meteorites which dropped harmlessly into the water below. This …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 03/22/13
New Status: SpaceX-2 Unberth Delay: The SpaceX Dragon vehicle unberth and departure from ISS was scheduled for Monday March 25th but has been deferred due to rough seas predicted at the splash-down location. The new unberth and departure date is Tuesday March 26, 2013. On-board Training (OBT) for Emergency Response: All 3 crewmembers participated in this training. …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 03/21/13
New Status: Marangoni Inside (MI) Fluid Physics Experiment Facility (FPEF): In preparation for the start of the experiment tonight, Flight Engineer (FE)-6 Tom Marshburn installed the sample cassette in the FPEF. The experiment will run through early July during crew sleep. Marangoni convection is the flow driven by the presence of a surface tension gradient which …
PANSTARRS images
Images were taken by Rob Suggs and Aaron Kingery in twilight through cirrus clouds around 00:36 UT on 17 Mar 2013 with a 14 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at Marshall Space Flight Center’s Automated Lunar and Meteor Observatoryin Huntsville, Ala. The detector was a low-light level B&W video camera with a focal reducer giving a 20 …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 03/20/13
New Status: Amine Swingbed Payload Review: Commander (CDR) Hadfield unstowed Amine from its temporary stowage configuration inside Express Rack 8 and placed it in the payload’s double locker chassis. Then he re-assembled the payload in its normal operating configuration. This task follows Kevin Ford’s troubleshooting activities earlier this month when he replaced the Amine gear box. …
The Packing Begins
By Lora Koenig Hello and welcome (or hopefully, welcome back) to yet another of my field blogs! It’s a chilly day here in Greenbelt, Maryland, and I am packing away my warmest parka and sleeping bags – yes, I said bags, in plural, since I will need two to keep me warm enough during my […]