Blogs

NanoRack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) #11 Deploy:  Five Cubesats were deployed today from the ISS:  Phoenix, Xcubesat, Qbee, Altair and SHARC.  ALTAIR is a technology demonstration / risk reduction mission for critical subsystems for the ALTAIR product line of spacecraft.  SHARC (Spacecraft for High Accuracy Radar Calibration) hosts a series of experimental payloads including a C-band …

What is a LLAMA? It’s a Line Load Attenuation Mechanism Assembly, designed by Jeremy Parr, a mechanical design engineer in the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He designed the LLAMA to help U.S. Navy line handlers retrieve the Orion crew module after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean. Parr is …

The International Space Station is an orbiting platform to continuously explore a wide variety of space science both inside and outside the orbital lab to benefit humans and industry. For example, the five Expedition 51 crew members continued helping scientists understand what happens to the body when living in outer space. Also, more CubeSats were …

NanoRack Cubesat Deployer (NRCSD) #11 Deploy:  Six cubesats were deployed today from the ISS: SGSat, CXBN-2 and IceCube, SOMP2, HAVELSAT, and COLUMBIA. SGSat demonstrates the attitude determination and control system reliant on utilization of pictures of star fields to orient the satellite and validate new software used to predict the satellite’s path as it experiences …

New CubeSats were deployed into outer space from the International Space Station today to study Earth and space phenomena. Meanwhile, back inside the station the Expedition 51 crew continued exploring how the human body adapts to living in space. Ground controllers commanded a small satellite deployer to eject six Cubesats from outside the Japanese Kibo …

SkinSuit:  Over the weekend a crewmember performed two days of Skinsuit activities. With assistance from an operator, measurements of the subject were taken after donning the suit in the morning and before doffing it in the afternoon. The Skinsuit is a tailor-made overall with a bi-directional weave specially designed to counteract the lack of gravity …

The Expedition 51 crew members are back at work today on human research after a historic 200th spacewalk at the International Space Station on Friday. More Cubesats also are being prepared for deployment outside the Japanese Kibo lab module this week. Commander Peggy Whitson continued studying bone cells using the Microgravity Science Glovebox research facility. …

Scientists have made marked developments on the space-vegetable front this spring.

It wasn’t the storm’s strength that was worth noting; it was its timing.

EXPRESS Pallet Controller Assembly (ExPCA) Extravehicular Activity (EVA) #42: EV1 Peggy Whitson and EV2 Jack Fischer performed the ExPCA EVA today. At the start of In-Suit Light Exercise (ISLE) Prebreathe, a water leak was discovered at the Service Cooling Umbilical (SCU) for Fischer’s suit.  The leaking SCU was subsequently disconnected and the functioning SCU was …