Orbital ATK’s eighth commercial cargo mission is set to launch to the International Space Station at 7:37 a.m. EST Veteran’s Day on Nov. 11. The Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus cargo craft will blast off from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, with over 7,000 pounds of food, supplies and research gear. Two astronauts will be …
MBSU transfer and installation: On Friday, ground controllers attempted to transfer the recently repaired spare Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) through the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Airlock (A/L) and install it on its stowage location on External Stowage Platform 2 (ESP2). The JEM A/L outer door opened as commanded, but the slide table did not …
VEG-03 Science Harvest: The crew cut one to three leaves from each plant for consumption and then preserved them in foil and inserted them into cold stowage for science data. The remainder of the plants will be left to grow and sprout new leaves. The Veg-03 investigation uses the Veggie plant growth facility to cultivate …
When astronauts depart for missions to deep space, they will cross the Crew Access Arm about 300 feet above the ground to board their spacecraft. The access arm was delivered to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 17, 2017, to install on the mobile launcher in preparation for the first flight of the …
NASA is postponing launch of the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) until 2018. The mission was previously planned to launch Dec. 8, 2017, on an Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. NASA and Orbital ATK need additional time to assess a separation component of the rocket. More …
Astronaut’s Energy Requirements for Long-Term Space Flight (Energy): Today the subject performed day 10, which is the last day of the 11-day (Day 0 through Day 10) Energy investigation, by collecting ISS tap water samples form the Potable Water Dispenser, collecting a urine sample, and downlinking the data from the sense wear activity monitor. The …
When you’re on top of the world—or orbiting it—there’s no better place to be. NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) had a late night yesterday, staying up to watch a special uplink from Mission Control: Game 7 of the World Series. The winning outcome was cause for celebration, as the Astros have many …
Life on an oceanographic research vessel is definitely different than daily life ashore.
Routine—and not-so-routine—housekeeping duties continue for Expedition 53 aboard the International Space Station in preparation for an upcoming Orbital ATK 8 (OA-8) commercial launch targeted for Nov. 11. The crewmates prepared the Permanent Multipurpose Module rack fronts to accept cargo by moving smaller items off and staging them for disposal. During OA-8 cargo operations, the items …
Sally Ride Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students (EarthKAM) Node 2 Lens Change: The crew configured the D2X camera for EarthKAM with the 180mm lens. EarthKAM allows thousands of students to photograph and examine Earth from a space crew’s perspective. Using the Internet, the students control a special digital camera mounted on-board the International …
