The Draconids are an “occasional” shower – they are either in outburst, with a fair number of meteors, or are so few the casual observer would not notice them. Rates this year are expected to be about 10 per hour on the night of October 8 into the early morning of the 9th, most of …
Payload controllers are exploring why two Cubesats were unable to deploy this week from the Kibo lab module so they can be released later. Meanwhile, the six-member Expedition 45 crew is finalizing cable work for the next Cygnus cargo mission, unloading cargo from a new Progress 61 (61P) resupply ship and conducting human research. NASA …
NanoRack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) Operations: Yesterday evening two Dove cubesats were launched successfully from Deployer #5. However, an overnight attempt to launch an additional two cubesats from Deployer #6 was not successful. Subsequently, two cubesats from Deployer #7 were launched this morning. Ground teams are investigating the launch failure for Deployer #6 and working the …
NASA will host a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 14, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to announce the outcome of the Venture Class Launch Service competition. The news conference will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. The participants are: Garrett Skrobot, Educational Launch of Nanosatellites …
The deployment of this week’s final two Cubesats from the Kibo lab module is on hold today. Also, the crew is preparing a pair of spacesuits for an Oct. 28 maintenance spacewalk. More Cubesats were released overnight and this morning from a deployer mechanism attached to the Kibo lab module. However, the final pair of …
NanoRack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) #6 Operations: Yesterday, two Danish cubesats and the first 4 Dove cubesats of the “Flock 2” fleet of satellites were launched. This morning an additional 4 Dove cubesats were launched and the final 6 Dove cubesats will be launched tonight. The Dove nanosatellites enable imagery of the entire planet to be …
The astronauts in the U.S. segment of the International Space Station continued more cable work and life support maintenance. The cosmonauts conducted a wide array of Russian science experiments studying human research and physics. More Cubesats were deployed today from a deployer mechanism attached to Japan’s Kibo lab module. Wednesday will be the last day …
NanoRack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) #6 Operations: Today Kelly opened the outer hatch and extended the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Airlock slide table external to ISS. The ground operations team used the JEM Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS) Small Fine Arm (SFA) to grapple the Multi-Purpose Experiment Platform (MPEP), mounted on the slide table, and maneuvered it …
Today’s post is written by Simon Porter, a New Horizons postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Simon’s work focuses on the small satellites of Pluto. This week’s beautiful Charon images remind us that Pluto is not just one body; it’s a whole system of worlds. Pluto and its largest moon Charon …
The crew is working high-end maintenance today, while preparing for an upcoming spacewalk and an early December cargo mission. CubeSats are also being deployed this week from the Kibo laboratory module. Commander Scott Kelly checked on a power supply problem with the humanoid Robonaut. Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui installed cables in the …
