NASA and Northrop Grumman have made the decision to fly the L-1011 Stargazer and Pegasus XL rocket carrying NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, spacecraft back to its integration facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The ferry flight will take place early next week. Returning to the environmentally-controlled integration facility allows the team …
Northrop Grumman 10 (NG-10) Robotics Onboard Training: Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) in support of the crew’s Cygnus Offset Grapple practice. During the Off Set Grapple activity, the crew used the Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM) Flight Releasable Grapple Fixture (FRGF) as the target to practice grapple approaches, maneuvering the SSRMS …
The launch of the Cygnus space freighter from Northrop Grumman has slipped another day due to inclement weather at the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Atlantic coast. Cygnus is now scheduled to launch atop the Antares rocket Saturday at 4:01 a.m. EST with a much improved weather forecast. The U.S. resupply ship will deliver approximately …
Life Sciences Glovebox (LSG) Gas Trap Degassing IFM-return line: A crewmember installed a gas trap into the return line of the LSG in preparation for removing trapped gas from system lines. During the activity, ground teams observed a 93mL accumulator drop, which then leveled off. The LSG was subsequently isolated by closing the Flow Control …
Putting low-cost air quality sensors in the hands of citizen scientists complement satellite observations of air quality during wildfires.
By Susannah Darling NASA Headquarters A few weeks ago, the Voyager 2 spacecraft beamed back the first hints that it might soon be leaving the heliosphere — the giant bubble around the Sun filled with its constant outpouring of particles, the solar wind. In the past few days, we have received even more clues to …
Dismal weather on Virginia’s Atlantic coast has pushed back the launch of a U.S. cargo craft to the International Space Station one day to Friday. Russia’s resupply ship is still on track for its launch to the orbital lab from Kazakhstan less than nine hours later on the same day. Mission managers from NASA and …
MObile companion (Cimon): A crewmember reviewed a summary for this week’s operations and also retrieved and charged the two Cimon batteries. Cimon is a technology demonstration project and an observational study that aims to obtain the first insights into the effects on crew support by an artificial intelligence (AI), in terms of efficiency and acceptance …
by Kate Ramsayer / ANTARCTICA / I knew they were my favorite as soon as I saw them. Sastrugi, the ice dunes of the polar desert, covered the landscape when I first flew low over Antarctica with Operation IceBridge. They were amazing—winds had shaped them into repeating patterns, appearing as diamonds or fish scales or …
A U.S. rocket stands at its launch pad at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia counting down to a Thursday morning launch. On the other side of the world in Kazakhstan, a Russian rocket is being processed for its launch Friday afternoon. Both spaceships are hauling several tons of food, fuel, supplies and new science …