Blogs

A Russian spacewalk is planned before three Expedition 57 crew members return to Earth aboard a Soyuz spacecraft just before Christmas. Meanwhile, in the middle of the spacewalk and departure preparations, the International Space Station residents today also explored how living in space impacts the human muscle system. Flight Engineer Sergey Prokopyev will work outside …

JEM Airlock (JEMAL) Depressurization: The JEM Airlock was depressurized in preparation for the transfer of the NanoRacks External Platform Inserts (NREP) back to the Exposed Facility Unit (EFU) 4 location. The NREP was brought inside ISS earlier this week so the crew could exchange the sortie 3 payload for the sortie 4 payload. Each NREP …

December is shaping up to be a heavy traffic period at the International Space Station. Two crews will swap places before Christmas and a U.S. spaceship will deliver new supplies and science. A Russian spacewalk is also planned for a crew vehicle inspection. The Expedition 57 crew onboard the station today continued preparing for the …

Cemsica Sample Exchange:  Today the crew removed the calibration cartridge from the SUBSA facility and inserted the first Cemsica science cartridge for processing. Cemsica tests a novel approach of using particles of calcium-silicate (C-S) to synthesize nanoporous membranes (those with pores 100 nanometers or smaller) that can separate carbon dioxide molecules from air or other …

On Monday, Nov. 19, Northrop Grumman flew the L-1011 Stargazer and Pegasus XL rocket carrying NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, spacecraft back to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. On Nov. 20, Northrop Grumman completed the de-mate of Pegasus from the L-1011 and transported the rocket safely into the integration facility. The Northrop Grumman/NASA …

In a replay similar to the weekend before Thanksgiving, two rockets on the opposite sides of the world are poised to launch one day after another to replenish the International Space Station with a new crew and cargo. Three new Expedition 58 crew members are preparing to blast off to the space station on a …

CASIS PCG-16 card fill: The crew continued the PCG Card Micro-G card fill that was not fully completed the previous day. This was performed using some of today’s microscope observation time due to the relatively short lifetime of the protein precipitant solution. Crystallization of LRRK2 Under Microgravity Conditions-2 (CASIS PCG 16) evaluates growth of Leucine-rich …

The New Horizons spacecraft is healthy and is now beginning its final approach to explore Ultima Thule — our first Kuiper Belt object (KBO) flyby target — about a billion miles beyond Pluto. And on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, New Horizons will swoop three times closer to “Ultima” than we flew past …

MarCO-B, one of the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took this image of Mars from about 4,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away during its flyby of the Red Planet on Nov. 26, 2018. MarCO-B was flying by Mars with its twin, MarCO-A, to attempt to serve as communications relays for NASA’s InSight spacecraft as it …

At Home in Space (AHIS):  The crew completed an AHIS questionnaire this morning.  This Canadian Space Agency investigation assesses culture, values, and psychosocial adaptation of astronauts to a space environment shared by multinational crews on long-duration missions. It is hypothesized that astronauts develop a shared space culture that is an adaptive strategy for handling cultural …