September 22, 2016 Light rain this morning in Svalbard, but we soon took off and left the clouds behind for bluer skies. Today’s plan was ambitious since ice cover was present at almost every drop point. Ice conditions ranged from loosely packed sea ice, to thick sheets with just a few cracks, to fast ice with no […]
Group Combustion Module (GCM) Installation: FE-5 continued with the third day of installation and preparation for the GCM experiment and was to perform two pressure decay leak checks. After the first check, a leak was detected in the Air/O2 line, thus aborting the second check until specialist can determine the cause and develop a solution. …
BEAM, the new expandable module attached to the International Space Station, was opened up today for tests and equipment checks. The Expedition 49 crew also explored eating right in space, adapting to new technology and studied a variety of other life science and physics research. Flight Engineer Kate Rubins opened up and entered the Bigelow …
Tropical Storm Julia made headlines in September 2016, but not in the usual way. It wasn’t a particularly strong or destructive storm, although it brought heavy rainfall to coastal areas of the eastern United States from Florida to Virginia. The unusual aspect was where it formed: Julia became a tropical storm while over land, not […]
Marangoni Experiment (Dynamic Surf 3): Overnight another run of the Marangoni experiment occurred in the Fluid Physics Experiment Facility (FPEF). The Dynamic Surf investigation is part of a series of JAXA experiments studying Marangoni convection driven by the presence of surface tension gradients produced by a temperature difference at a liquid/gas interface. By observing and …
The three Expedition 49 crew members measured noise levels on the International Space Station today and continued exploring how physical and organic phenomena are affected by weightlessness. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins surveyed the acoustic environment inside the station today. She analyzed the sound levels of various life support gear and took standard measurements in the …
Group Combustion Module (GCM) Installation: Today, FE-5 with the assistance of FE-6, started the first of two days of installation and preparation for the GCM experiment. The crew began with assembly of the GCM attaching cameras and the Fuel Supply Syringe. Following GCM setup, the crew then began configuration of the Combustion Chamber attaching the …
Two different studies are under way on the International Space Station – one will observe how fuel burns in space while another is researching how medicine dissolves in water. Results from both experiments could benefit humans on Earth and in space. Astronaut Takuya Onishi is setting up the Group Combustion experiment that will explore how …
By Alek Petty My journey up to the ship went smoothly and I even had time to observe the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) in full bloom during our overnight layover in Yellowknife (in the Northwest Territories of Canada). The following day, a Canadian Coast Guard helicopter transferred us from Kugluktuk airport onto the ship, and […]
Multi-Purpose Experiment Platform (MPEP)/Small Fine Arm Attachment Mechanism (SAM) removal: FE-5 retracted the Japanese Experiment Module Airlock (JEMAL) slide table into the module and removed the MPEP and SAM. Tomorrow, the crew will ingress Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 (PMA2) to retrieve the JEM ORU Transfer Interface (JOTI) and install it on the Slide Table to support …
