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International Space Station

Viewing Posts from June 2016

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    Cygnus Spacecraft Gets Ready for Tuesday Release

    Astronauts Jeff Williams, Timothy Kopra and Timothy Peake

    Expedition 47 is preparing the Orbital ATK Cygnus space freighter for its June 14 departure from the International Space Station. The Canadarm2 robotic arm will maneuver towards Cygnus and grapple the cargo craft before unberthing it from the Unity module and releasing it next Tuesday. The crew is reviewing gear that will be installed in …

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    BEAM Closed as Crew Packs Spaceships for Departure

    Astronaut Jeff Williams

    BEAM’s hatches have been closed completing crew operations for the month. Meanwhile, a pair of spaceships is also being packed for departure this month. After three days of operations inside BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module has been outfitted with sensors and other hardware. The next crew entry into the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module is …

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    BEAM Sensors Installed as Station Prepares for Crew Swap

    Astronaut Jeff Williams

    The hatch to BEAM was opened up again today for the second day of outfitting the expandable module to determine its habitability and durability. BEAM, or the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, is set to demonstrate the overall performance and capability of expandable habitats for the next two years. The crew is predicted to enter BEAM …

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    BEAM Opens Up For Checks

    Astronaut Jeff Williams

    The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module’s (BEAM) hatch was opened up for the first time today. Astronaut Jeff Williams entered BEAM and checked sensors, installed air ducts and reported back to Earth that it was in pristine condition. After Williams completed the BEAM checks he exited and closed the hatch for the day. The crew will …

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    BEAM Open for the First Time

    BEAM First Ingress

    NASA astronaut Jeff Williams opened the hatch to the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) at 4:47 a.m. EDT Monday, June 6. Along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, Williams entered BEAM for the first time to collect an air sample and begin downloading data from sensors on the dynamics of BEAM’s expansion. Williams told flight controllers …

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    BEAM Leak Checks While New Crew Preps for Launch

    Expedition 48-49 Crew Members

    The week’s final set of CubeSats were deployed Wednesday night as the new BEAM goes through a series of leak checks before next week’s entry. Back inside the orbital lab, the six-member Expedition 47 crew conducted advanced space research sponsored by private and public institutions. A final pair of CubeSats was deployed outside the Kibo …

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    Earth Monitoring CubeSats Released

    CubeSat Deployed

    More CubeSats are due to be deployed today contributing to humanitarian and environmental research. The crew is also continuing biomedical science to improve the health of astronauts in space and humans on Earth. The final set of CubeSats will be released tonight from a small satellite deployer outside Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. This current fleet …

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