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Category Archives: Space Station

Earth Day 2014 Space Station Live: Earth Observation From Space #GlobalSelfie #EarthRightNow – Video

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Earth Day 2014 Space Station Live: Earth Observation From Space #GlobalSelfie #EarthRightNow
Space Station Live commentator Kyle Herring interviews Dr. William Stefanov from the Earth Science Remote Sensing Unit at Johnson Space Center about Earth Observations from space and methods...

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Earth Day 2014 Space Station Live: Earth Observation From Space #GlobalSelfie #EarthRightNow - Video

Space station astronauts pop outside to replace crippled computer

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SANS - Survey on application security programs

Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station have taken a wander over the outside of the station to replace a critical backup computer that conked out.

NASA doesn't do beige boxes, it prefers grey

Flight engineers Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson swapped out the multiplexer/demultiplexer (MDM) control box in a 90 minute space walk along the side of the ISS. The computer is the backup controller for the station's robotic arm, solar panel controls, and railway system* and failed on April 11 during testing.

The microwave oven-sized grey control box is designed to be switched out easily, given a working environment that makes most Earthbound data centers look pleasant. The MDM has seven four-pin connectors on its base and is fixed with three retaining bolts, so the team simply slid the old one out and replaced it with a spare unit.

After completing the switchover, the unit was tested by crew inside the ISS to make sure all functions were normal. Meanwhile,Mastracchio trimmed a sheet of thermal shielding to protect the unit against heat stress as it moves in and out of sunlight.

"Nice and clean. Great job," Mission control's Jeremy Hansen told the crew after they completed the job in less than half the time allotted.

Although the main external MDM is still working fine, NASA believes in having backup systems ready at all times. The ISS has nearly 50 of the boxes spotted around the station, each handling critical systems, with primary control boxes having between two and four backup MDMs ready to take over.

The spacewalk was made possible thanks to equipment delivered to the ISS by SpaceX's Dragon capsule on Easter Sunday. The 5,000 pounds of cargo delivered included a replacement top half of one of the space suits needed to survive outside of the space station, and replacement parts for the rest, including new cooling units.

Last year, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano nearly drowned on a spacewalk after his suit's cooling system started venting coolant into his helmet. Just to be on the safe side, both Mastracchio and Swanson both wore helmets padded with absorbent material and with snorkels built in to allow for extra breathing time if problems should reoccur, Reuters reports.

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Space station astronauts pop outside to replace crippled computer

Astronauts replace computer outside space station

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Flight engineers Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson left the station's Quest airlock just after 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) for what was expected to be a 2-1/2-hour spacewalk. They carried with them a spare computer to be installed in the central section of the station's exterior power truss.

"It looks like a great day to take a walk in space," Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed to the crew from NASA's Mission Control in Houston.

NASA scheduled the abbreviated outing - most U.S. spacewalks last more than six hours - after the computer failed on April 11.

Replacing the computer is "pretty straightforward," astronaut and former space station crewmember Chris Cassidy said in an interview last week on NASA Television.

"We anticipate it to go quickly, but as with anything in space operations ... you never know what's going to be thrown at you," Cassidy said.

Except for emergency repairs, such as the computer replacement, NASA spacewalks remain suspended while engineers continue to assess the spacesuit failure last year that caused the helmet worn by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano to fill with water, nearly drowning him.

The leak was later traced to a blocked filter. NASA flew new parts to the station for astronauts to make spacesuit repairs. Before two emergency spacewalks in December to fix the station's cooling system, astronauts also outfitted their helmets with absorbent pads and snorkels for breathing if the leak reoccurred.

Those spacewalks were completed with no problems. Mastracchio, who is making his ninth spacewalk, and Swanson, on his fifth, also included the snorkels and pads in their helmets for Wednesday's outing.

A new spacesuit was among the cargo aboard the Space Exploration Technologies' Dragon capsule that reached the station on Sunday.

NASA expects to resume routine spacewalks for maintenance and less-pressing repairs in July.

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Astronauts replace computer outside space station

Spacewalking Repairmen Star in Juggling Act at Space Station

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Two astronauts quickly replaced a bad backup computer box and took on an extra task at the International Space Station on Wednesday during one of NASA's shortest spacewalks.

Within an hour, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Steve Swanson removed the old box, which failed to respond to commands on April 11, and installed a spare. Ground controllers reported that the new box, known as a multiplexer-demultiplexer or MDM, was working fine.

Mastracchio tucked the old box into an equipment bag and told Mission Control that he had "one MDM, slightly used."

"Nice and clean," Mission Control communicator Jeremy Hansen told the spacewalkers. "Good job."

Most spacewalks run for five or six hours, but this one lasted only an hour and 36 minutes arguably making it NASA's shortest glitch-free operation outside the space station.

An astronaut performs a repair job on the International Space Station during Wednesday's spacewalk.

Routine but critical task

The backup box is part of a redundant system that plays a part in controlling critical equipment on the station, including the solar arrays, a robotic rail car and the external cooling system. The primary computer box is working just fine, but NASA didn't want to go without a working backup any longer than necessary.

Replacing the box is considered one of the space station's "Big 12" routine maintenance tasks. Mastracchio and Swanson have been trained in advance for such jobs.

While Mastracchio switched the boxes, Swanson cut some dangling lanyards that had been blocking the way for the space station's Dextre robotic hand. In the future, Dextre might be able to perform maintenance tasks like the computer replacement without the need for a spacewalk.

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Spacewalking Repairmen Star in Juggling Act at Space Station

International Space Station Crew To Assist With APEX Investigations

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April 23, 2014

Imaeg Caption: Project manager John Carver prepares the Advanced Plant Experiment (APEX) at the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The study will launch with the SpaceX-3 mission to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA

Growing knowledge in a given field takes time, attention, andwater? It does when youre talking about plant studies aboard the International Space Station (ISS). All of these things and some scientific know-how come into play as astronauts find out just how green their thumbs are while assisting researchers on the ground.

The crew will assist with the Advanced Plant Experiments (APEX) investigation, a series of studies on the effects of the spaceflight environment on biological systems. Next in the APEX series is the APEX-02-2 study that launched to the space station aboard the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule on the SpaceX-3 resupply mission.

SpaceX-3 is the third station resupply flight under NASAs Commercial Resupply Services contract.

Using Petri plates of common brewers yeast, or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, scientists hope APEX-02-2 will help them pinpoint specific changes in the yeasts genetic expression when exposed to microgravity conditions.

Given that yeast is an eukaryotic organism, as are humans, the results will be applicable to organisms higher in the evolutionary chain than bacteria, which are prokaryotic cells. Researchers anticipate that their observations of yeast as a model for how cells adapt to microgravity will help them to better understand how more complex organisms evolve.

Ground testing and processing of the payload took place inside the Space Station Processing Facility at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Overseeing the project is payload manager Jose Camacho, who previously managed the Biological Research in Canisters-17 (BRIC-17) space station study, which launched on SpaceX-2 in 2013.

Camacho started his career with NASA as an electrical engineer working in the ISS Electrical Power Systems group and then migrated to integration engineer, or systems engineer. I would say my experience as a systems engineer along with an engineering management degree was what qualified me for this position, Camacho explained.

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International Space Station Crew To Assist With APEX Investigations


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