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    NASA Cost-Saving Technology Demo is Ready for Launch

    A NASA small satellite is set to launch on a commercial rideshare mission to test rapid, low-cost deployment of multiple technology prototypes in low Earth orbit, along with three other NASA funded small-scale satellites.   The R5-S7 (Realizing Rapid, Reduced-cost high-Risk Research project Spacecraft 7) CubeSat, developed by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, is […]

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    New Station Crew Counts Down to Thanksgiving Day Launch

    Soyuz MS-28 crew members (from left) Chris Williams from NASA and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, both from Roscosmos.

    One NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts are at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan counting down to a lift off on Thanksgiving Day to the International Space Station to begin an eight-month microgravity research mission. The seven-member Expedition 73 crew will expand to ten when the new trio arrives just over three hours after launch.

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    Crew Works Wide Variety of Research and Awaits New Arrivals

    A yellow-green airglow blankets Earth’s horizon beneath a star-filled sky in this long-exposure photograph taken from the International Space Station as it orbited 265 miles above the cloudy Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile. In the right foreground, the Soyuz MS-27 crew spacecraft is docked to the Prichal module, which is itself attached to the Nauka science module.

    High intensity exercising and droplets teeming with particles were the main research topics aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday. The Expedition 73 crew is also preparing to welcome three new crewmates this week while another trio gets ready to return to Earth next month.

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    NASA’s TROPICS Completes Storm-Studying Mission

    NASA's TROPICs pathfinder satellite is shown in flight configuration. Rocket Lab is preparing to launch four TROPICS CubeSats from Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand for the agency.

    A NASA mission that studied the interior of hurricanes collected its final data on Nov. 12, as the last two CubeSats in its fleet were powered down prior to re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.  The TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) mission originally consisted of four identical, milk carton-sized satellites that […]

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    NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX Spacecraft Slingshots Past Earth

    At 1:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 23, NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer) spacecraft flew within 2,136 miles (3,438 kilometers) of Earth. During approach and as OSIRIS-APEX passed Earth, it looked home, capturing images and data of our home planet to help calibrate its science instruments. During the […]

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    NASA’s Mars-bound ESCAPADE Mission Captures First ‘Selfies’

    About a week after its launch, NASA’s ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission has already captured its first images: a pair of self-portraits showing part of the spacecraft as the twin explorers speed away from Earth. On Nov. 21, one of the two ESCAPADE spacecraft used its Visible and Infrared Observation System […]

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    NASA, Boeing Modify Commercial Crew Contract

    NASA Insignia

    In 2014, NASA awarded a Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract to Boeing to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station with its Starliner spacecraft. As part of its contract, Boeing was awarded up to six crewed flights to the orbital complex. After a thorough evaluation, NASA and Boeing have mutually agreed to modify […]

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    Week Wraps with Fluid Physics, Stem Cell Research as New Crew Preps Begin

    The Canadarm2 robotic arm releases Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo craft after it was installed on the Earth-facing port of the Unity module. The International Space Station was soaring into an orbital sunrise 269 miles above the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Cape Town, South Africa, at the time of this photgraph.

    Expedition 73 wrapped up the work week continuing to study fluid physics and stem cells, preparing for next week’s new crew arrival, and unpacking a U.S. cargo spacecraft. The International Space Station residents also serviced exercise gear, performed life support system troubleshooting, and analyzed the orbital outpost’s microbial environment.

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