A pair of astronauts is exploring breathing risks during long term space missions today while a trio of crew members is packing a Soyuz spacecraft for the return home. NASA astronaut and two-time space station resident Tim Kopra joined first-time British astronaut for the Airway Monitoring experiment. That study explores the risk of breathing in …
Two pathfinders, or test versions, of solid rocket booster segments for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The booster segments were transported from Promontory, Utah, for pathfinder operations at the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF) to prepare for Exploration Mission-1. The boosters, which are inert, …
Water Process Assembly (WPA) Status: Following yesterday’s WPA Catalytic Reactor replacement, the WPA successfully completed a process cycle and is working nominally. In addition, the crew returned Treadmill 2 (T2) and Water Recovery System (WRS)-1 Racks back to their nominal configuration. Airway Monitoring: Peake completed setup of a camera and hardware for Airway Monitoring …
Three International Space Station crew members, two of whom have been in orbit nearly a year, will complete their stay in space March 1. As they prepare for landing, the Expedition 46 crew is moving right along with human research, advanced space science and ongoing lab maintenance. One-Year crew mates Commander Scott Kelly and Flight …
Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The February 2016 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part of the world we are looking at, when the image was acquired, what the image shows, and why the scene is interesting. How to answer. Your answer can be […]
Space Automated Bioproduct Laboratory (SABL): Today, for the NASA SABL facility, Peake set up two SABL units in in the US Laboratory module and configured power, data, and thermal connections to the rack. SABL is an upgrade to the long standing ISS incubator, Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA). SABL supports a wide variety of experiments in …
The crew of Expedition 46 was engaged in a variety of repair tasks today across the orbiting laboratory. ESA astronaut Tim Peake replaced cables in the station’s Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, the primary tool for astronaut resistive exercise vital for maintaining bone and muscle mass while in microgravity. NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra …
Cygnus Destructive Re-Entry: On Saturday, Cygnus completed its De-Orbit Delta-V (DDV)-1 burn at 4:32 am CST. The spacecraft then crossed the Entry Interface and destructively re-entered the atmosphere at approximately 9:53 am CST. Urine Processing Assembly UPA Status: On Sunday, UPA faulted out due to belt slippage between the distillation assembly and its motor. …
Over the weekend, Expedition 46 commander Scott Kelly worked with ground controllers to successfully checkout the Sidekick device and internet connectivity. The project, which makes use of Microsoft’s HoloLens device, aims to enable station crews with assistance when and where they need it. This new capability could reduce crew training requirements and increase the efficiency …
Cygnus Departure: Today, Robotics Ground Controllers used the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) to unberth Cygnus from the Node 1 nadir berthing port and maneuvered the spacecraft to its release position. Kopra and Kelly subsequently released Cygnus at 6:26 am CST and monitored its nominal departure. Cygnus is scheduled for a destructive re-entry tomorrow, …
