Payloads: Grip Seated Science 2 Experiment Session: From an upright seated posture, the crew performed experiment tasks looking at friction, discrete movement (with eyes open/closed), and collisions. The Grip experiment studies the long-duration spaceflight effects on the abilities of human subjects to regulate grip force and upper limbs trajectories when manipulating objects during different kind …
Next Milestone Complete on DART Spacecraft as Launch Date Nears
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft was attached to its payload adapter on Nov. 11 inside the SpaceX Payload Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. An integrated team of workers with NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP), SpaceX, and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) completed the work in preparation for …
Webb’s FGS and NIRISS Instrument Are Ready for Launch
We continue to explore Webb’s instrumentation this week, highlighting the Canadian contributions to the mission. As you’ll see, the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument is ideally suited for studying two of Webb’s scientific themes. Scientists will use NIRISS to take advantage of the natural phenomenon of the atmospheric transmission of transiting exoplanets and …
Crew Packs Cargo Ship for Departure and Preps for Spacewalk
The Expedition 66 crew is turning its attention to the U.S. Cygnus space freighter as it nears departure this weekend after 100 days berthed to the station’s Unity module. The astronauts are also preparing for a spacewalk to replace a faulty antenna system on the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari and …
Lucy Instruments Checkout A-OK
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft continues to operate in cruise mode – the standard mode for its orbit away from Earth. Checkouts for the Lucy instruments were successfully completed Nov. 8, and all instruments are working normally. Following checkout completion, the instruments were powered off, and the remaining spacecraft subsystem commissioning activities are continuing as scheduled. Lucy’s …
Crew Operations Aboard Space Station Return to Normal
NASA and U.S. Space Command continue to monitor the debris cloud created by a recent Russian anti-satellite test. The International Space Station and crew members are safe and have resumed normal operations. The largest risk from the debris was in the first 24 hours and telemetry from the space station indicates no issues during that …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 11/17/2021
Radial Hatch Opening: This morning, FE-12 opened all radial hatches in the USOS. This allowed the crew to opportunity to perform several activities, notably EVA preparation activities in the US Airlock. The ISS team continues to monitor the effects of a Russian satellite breakup that created sufficient debris and posed a conjunction threat to the …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 11/16/2021
Orbital Debris Continued Influence: The ISS team continues to monitor the effects of a Russian satellite breakup that created sufficient debris and posed a conjunction threat to the ISS. As part of the nominal procedure for ISS conjunctions, yesterday the crew closed all hatches and both Dragon and Soyuz crews sheltered in their respective vehicles. …
November Puzzler
Your challenge is to tell us what we are looking at, where it is, and why it is interesting.
ISS Daily Summary Report – 11/15/2021
Orbital Debris Shelter-In-Place: The ISS team has been notified of a satellite breakup that may create sufficient debris to pose a conjunction threat to the ISS. As part of the nominal procedure for ISS conjunctions, this morning the crew closed all hatches and both Dragon and Soyuz crews sheltered in their respective vehicles. Out of …