Traveling with us were four journalism students from the Stony Brook University School of Journalism; their professor, Elizabeth Bass, the founding director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University; and teaching assistant Kevin Lizarazo. This group joined us in the field to see firsthand how research gets done. They hiked […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/29/2018
USOS ExtraVehicular Activity (EVA) 48 status: Over the weekend, ground teams were able to identify a root cause and a fix for the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) Latching End Effector (LEE) anomaly seen after USOS EVA 47. Because of this, the EVA to return the LEE to the configuration prior to EVA 47 …
Centaur Upper Stage Arrives at Delta Operations Center
The Centaur upper stage, part of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that will help launch NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S, is in place for prelaunch processing. The Centaur arrived at the Delta Operations Center at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Jan. 24, two days after its delivery by ship to nearby Port …
Crew Looking Ahead to Friday Russian Spacewalk
Expedition 54 is now focusing on Friday’s spacewalk to install and remove gear on the Russian side of the International Space Station. This comes after today’s spacewalk to work on the Canadarm2 robotic arm was postponed to mid-February. Cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov will put on their Orlan spacesuits Friday and exit the Pirs …
NASA Recovery Team Completes Orion Underway Recovery Test 6 in Pacific Ocean
NASA’s Recovery Team from Kennedy Space Center just finished a week at sea, testing and improving their processes and ground support hardware to recover astronauts in the Orion capsule once they splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Aboard the USS Anchorage, NASA and the U.S. Navy worked together to run through different sea conditions, time …
Station Officials Postpone Monday’s Spacewalk to Mid-February
International Space Station officials have postponed Monday’s spacewalk to swap latching end effectors (LEEs) on the Canadarm2 robotic arm. The decision was made after the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and its robotics specialist team developed a diagnostics software patch confirming an anomaly noted in a primary communications string on the spare end effector installed during …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/26/2018
European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) Preparation for Plant Gravity Perception Operations: To prepare the EMCS for the Plant Gravity Perception investigation, the crew replaced the empty EMCS Air Mix Supply Module located on the lower left side of the EMCS holding structure with a full Air Mix Module and then opened the EMCS Gas Valves …
Spacewalkers Preparing for Monday’s Spacewalk With Updated Plan
During a spacewalk on Jan. 23, 2018, Expedition 54 flight engineers Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle replaced a Latching End Effector (LEE-B) on the Canadarm2 robotic arm. An issue preventing the LEE from transitioning to an operational state on one of two redundant sets of communications strings was detected. The spacewalking crew demated and …
Atlas V Booster, Centaur Arrive for GOES-S
The United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster and Centaur stage for NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S (GOES-S) arrived this week at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Mariner transport ship delivered the components to the Army Wharf at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Atlas V booster was moved to the …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 1/25/2018
FemtoSat Assembly and Deployment: Using onboard components printed from the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF)-Manufacturing Device, today the crew demonstrated FemtoSat deployment trajectories. This experiment consists of a 3D printed deployer, four FemtoSats and a 0.050” L-wrench. The four FemtoSats will be loaded in the deployer and locked in place with the L-wrench. When the L-wrench …