Sea Sweep gently surfs Generating aerosol On the Atlantic While some aboard the Atlantis are fighting bubbles with rigor (see September 1, 2017 post), the atmospheric chemists on the bow of the ship are busy generating them. Not the same ones that the biologists were battling in the earlier post, but new ones that mimic […]
NAAMES-III Expedition: September 5, 2017
A Light Puzzle Today we were able to finish our first official station of NAAMES 3! Our group, the UCSB Optics team, saw a whirlwind of activity as we deployed half a dozen different instruments to begin to characterize all the different ways that light interacts with the ocean. You could call us the most […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 9/08/2017
Lighting Effects: The crew completed a visual assessment test in the Crew Quarters (CQs) by setting the light to the correct mode, turning all other light sources in the CQ off, and performing one Numerical Verification Test and one Color Discrimination Test. The crew will then photograph the completed tests, before transferring the photos for downlink. …
NAAMES-III Expedition: September 4, 2017
Sampling at the bow: measuring ocean-atmosphere exchange One of the main objectives in the NAAMES mission is to understand what gases and particles present in the surface ocean get into the atmosphere and influence clouds and climate. To help answer this question, our group measures gases present in both the ocean and atmosphere, as well […]
NAAMES-III Expedition: September 3, 2017
The Royal Treatment It can be tough saying goodbye to your loved ones as they sail off for a month at sea in the great, wide unknown. And perhaps some of you are concerned about the conditions we might be exposed to – which tropical storms will we collide with, what crazy hours will we […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 9/07/2017
MBSU I-Level Maintenance: In early August, ground teams successfully transferred a degraded Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) from External Stowage Platform 2 (ESP2) site 4 to the JEM Airlock. Today, the crew removed the MBSU from the JEM A/L and performed Intermediate Level (I-Level) maintenance on the unit. This MBSU is one of two failed …
Space Science Work Today as New Crew Waits for Launch
Today’s science tasks included an inspection on an advanced microscope and readying a magnetic field experiment. The crew also worked on a failed electrical device that was robotically transferred to the Kibo laboratory module in early August. Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineer Paolo Nespoli removed a failed Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) from Kibo’s …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 9/06/2017
Venice Film Festival Public Affairs Office (PAO) Event: Paolo Nespoli participated in a 20-minute ESA PAO event for the Venice Film Festival. The documentary ‘Expedition’, which chronicles ESA Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli’s preparation for human space mission, will be presented at the Venice Film Festival on September 6th. This PAO event was a press conference …
New Exercise Tech, DNA Studies on Station as New Crew Preps for Launch
A new set of Expedition 53 crew members arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site today ahead of their Sept. 12 liftoff to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei along with cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin will take a near six-hour ride to their new home in space aboard the Soyuz …
Tracking Changing Soil Temperature, Moisture, and Carbon in the Arctic
To better understand ecological processes in Arctic and boreal regions, researchers traversed Alaska’s mucky tundra and dug holes in permafrost.