Cat Burglar

Cats are known for not really minding their own business, getting their furry paws on just about anything they can.

And it turns out, this makes them effective vectors for DNA evidence, according to a study published last month in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetic Supplement Series.

Researchers collaborating with the Victoria Police Forensic Services Department in Australia found detectable human DNA in 80 percent of the samples collected from 20 pet cats, with 70 percent of the samples strong enough that they could be linked to a person of interest in a crime scene investigation.

"Collection of human DNA needs to become very important in crime scene investigations, but there is a lack of data on companion animals such as cats and dogs in their relationship to human DNA transfer," said study lead author Heidi Monkman, a forensic scientist at Flinders University, in a statement.

"These companion animals can be highly relevant in assessing the presence and activities of the inhabitants of the household, or any recent visitors to the scene."

Here Kitty

One possible takeaway is that cats — and other companion pets like dogs — could be harboring DNA that could help solve a case.

The bigger issue, though, is that pets could introduce foreign DNA that muddles a crime scene, possibly leading to an innocent person being implicated. A pet could be carrying the DNA of a complete stranger, or it might bring the DNA of its owner into a crime scene that they had nothing to do with.

Monkman's colleague and co-author of the paper, Maria Goray, is an experienced crime scene investigator and an expert in DNA transfer. She believes their findings could help clear up how pets might tamper a crime scene by carrying outside DNA.

"Are these DNA findings a result of a criminal activity or could they have been transferred and deposited at the scene via a pet?" Goray asked.

It's a question worth asking — especially because innocent people have been jailed off botched DNA science far too often.

More on DNA evidence: Cops Upload Image of Suspect Generated From DNA, Then Delete After Mass Criticism

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Cats May Be Tampering With Crime Scenes, Scientists Say

Now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, the billionaire has been frantically shuffling through ambitious plans to turn the ailing social media platform into a revenue-driving business.

Case in point, according to internal email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk is plotting for Twitter to charge users to view videos posted by content creators and take a cut of the proceeds — a highly controversial idea that's already been met with internal skepticism.

The team of Twitter engineers has "identified the risk as high" in the email, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance."

In short, Musk is blazing ahead with his infamously ambitious timelines — a "move fast and break things" approach that could signify a tidal change for Twitter's historically sluggish approach to launching new features.

Musk has already made some big structural changes to Twitter, having fired high-up positions at the company and dissolved its board of directors.

The company will also likely be facing mass layoffs, according to The Washington Post.

The new feature detailed in the new email, which is being referred to as "Paywalled Video," allows creators to "enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet" and chose from a preset list of prices, ranging from $1 to $10.

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, adding that "creators need to make a living!"

But whether Twitter users will be willing to pay for stuff that was previously free remains anything but certain.

Musk has already announced that he is planning to charge $8 a month for Twitter users to stay verified, which has been met with derision.

The billionaire CEO is facing an uphill battle. Now that the company is private, he has to pay around $1 billion in annual interest payments, a result from his $44 buyout, according to the WaPo.

Compounding the trouble, Reuters reported last week that Twitter is bleeding some of its most active users.

Meanwhile, Musk's chaotic moves are likely to alienate advertisers, with the Interpublic Group, a massive inter-agency advertising group, recommending that its clients suspend all paid advertising for at least the week.

That doesn't bode well. It's not out of the question that a paywalled video feature may facilitate the monetization of pornographic content, which may end up scaring off advertisers even further — but Twitter's exact intentions for the feature are still unclear.

According to Reuters, around 13 percent of the site's content is currently marked not safe for work (NSFW).

It's part of Musk's attempt to shift revenue away from advertising on the platform. In a tweet last week, he promised advertisers that Twitter wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape."

But that hasn't stopped advertisers from already leaving in droves.

All in all, a paywalled video feature could mark a significant departure for Twitter, a platform still primarily known for short snippets of text.

For now, all we can do is watch.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk [The Washington Post]

More on Twitter: Elon Musk Pleads With Stephen King to Pay for Blue Checkmark

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Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

Chinese scientists are reportedly planning to send monkeys to its new Tiangong space station for experiments that will involve the animals mating and potentially reproducing, the South China Morning Post reports.

It's a fascinating and potentially controversial experiment that could have major implications for our efforts to colonize space: can mammals, let alone humans, successfully reproduce beyond the Earth?

According to the report, the experiment would take place in the station's largest capsule, called Wentian, inside two biological test cabinets that can be expanded.

After examining the behavior of smaller creatures, "some studies involving mice and macaques will be carried out to see how they grow or even reproduce in space," Zhang Lu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said during a speech posted to social media earlier this week, as quoted by the SCMP.

"These experiments will help improve our understanding of an organism’s adaptation to microgravity and other space environments," he added.

Some simpler organisms, including nematodes and Japanese rice fish, have been observed reproducing in space.

But more complex life forms have struggled. In 2014, a Russian experiment to see whether geckos could produce offspring in space failed when all the critters died.

And the failure rate for mammals, so far, has been total. Soviet Union scientists got mice to mate during a space flight in 1979, but none of them gave birth after being returned to Earth.

In other words, getting monkeys to reproduce on board a space station will be anything but easy. For one, just dealing with living creatures in space can pose immense challenges. The astronauts will "need to feed them and deal with the waste," Kehkooi Kee, a professor with the school of medicine at Tsinghua University, told the SCMP.

Then there's the fact that astronauts will have to keep the macaques happy and comfortable, something that experts say will be challenging since long term confinement in the spartan environments of space habitats could cause immense stress for the simians.

And even if astronauts successfully set the mood for the monkeys, the physics of sex in space are predicted to be challenging.

"Firstly, just staying in close contact with each other under zero gravity is hard," Adam Watkins, an associate professor of reproductive physiology at University of Nottingham, wrote in a 2020 open letter highlighted by the SCMP. "Secondly, as astronauts experience lower blood pressure while in space, maintaining erections and arousal are more problematic than here on Earth."

With its new space station in nearly full operation, China isn't shying away from asking some big questions — but whether these experiments will play out as expected is anything but certain.

READ MORE: Chinese scientists plan monkey reproduction experiment in space station [South China Morning Post]

More on sex in space: Scientists Say We Really Have to Talk About Boning in Space

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China Plans to Send Monkeys to Space Station to Have Sex With Each Other

Rock of Riches

After disappointing setbacks and a delay over the summer, NASA says it's finally reviving its mission to explore a tantalizing and giant space rock lurking deep in the Asteroid Belt.

Known as 16 Psyche, the NASA-targeted asteroid comprises a full one percent of the mass of the Asteroid Bet, and is speculated to be the core of an ancient planet. But Psyche's size isn't what intrigues scientists so much as its metal-rich composition, believed to be harboring a wealth of iron, nickel, and gold worth an estimated $10 quintillion — easily exceeding the worth of the Earth's entire economy. Although, to be clear, they're not interested in the metals' monetary value but rather its possibly planetary origins.

Back On Track

Initially slated to launch in August 2022, NASA's aptly named Psyche spacecraft became plagued with a persistent flight software issue that led the space agency to miss its launch window that closed on October 11.

But after surviving an independent review determining whether the mission should be scrapped or not, NASA has formally announced that its spacecraft's journey to Psyche will be going ahead, planned to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as early as October 10, 2023.

"I'm extremely proud of the Psyche team," said Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return."

Although the new launch date is only a little over a year late, the expected arrival at the asteroid Psyche is set back by over three years — 2029 instead of 2026 — due to having to wait for another opportunity to slingshot off of Mars' gravity.

Peering Into a Planet

Once it arrives, the NASA spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid and probe it with an array of instruments, including a multispectral imager, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, and a magnetometer, according to the agency.

In doing so, scientists hope to determine if the asteroid is indeed the core of a nascent planet known as a planetesimal. If it is, it could prove to be an invaluable opportunity to understand the interior of terrestrial planets like our own.

More on NASA: NASA Announces Plan to Fix Moon Rocket, and Maybe Launch It Eventually

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NASA Sets Launch Date for Mission to $10 Quintillion Asteroid

Astronomers are puzzled by the strange behavior of certain crooked clusters of stars, which appear to be violating our conventional understanding of gravity.

Massive clusters of stars usually are bound together in spirals at the center of galaxies. Some of these clusters fall under a category astrophysicists call open star clusters, which are created in a relatively short period of time as they ignite in a huge cloud of gas.

During this process, loose stars accumulate in a pair of "tidal tails," one of which is being pulled behind, while the other moves ahead.

"According to Newton’s laws of gravity, it’s a matter of chance in which of the tails a lost star ends up," Jan Pflamm-Altenburg of the University of Bonn in Germany, co-author of a new paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement. "So both tails should contain about the same number of stars."

But some of their recent observations seemingly defy conventional physics.

"However, in our work we were able to prove for the first time that this is not true," Pflamm-Altenburg added. "In the clusters we studied, the front tail always contains significantly more stars nearby to the cluster than the rear tail."

In fact, their new findings are far more in line with a different theory called "Modified Newtonian Dynamics" (MOND).

"Put simply, according to MOND, stars can leave a cluster through two different doors," Pavel Kroupa, Pflamm-Altenburg's colleague at the University of Bonn and lead author, explained in the statement. "One leads to the rear tidal tail, the other to the front."

"However, the first is much narrower than the second — so it’s less likely that a star will leave the cluster through it," he added. "Newton’s theory of gravity, on the other hand, predicts that both doors should be the same width."

The researchers' simulations, taking MOND into consideration, could explain a lot. For one, they suggest that open star clusters survive a much shorter period of time than what is expected from Newton's laws of physics.

"This explains a mystery that has been known for a long time," Kroupa explained. "Namely, star clusters in nearby galaxies seem to be disappearing faster than they should."

But not everybody agrees that Newton's laws should be replaced with MOND, something that could shake the foundations of physics.

"It’s somewhat promising, but it does not provide completely definitive evidence for MOND," University of Saint Andrews research fellow Indranil Banik told New Scientist. "This asymmetry does make more sense in MOND, but in any individual cluster there could be other effects that are causing it — it’s a bit unlikely that would happen in all of them, though."

The researchers are now trying to hone in on an even more accurate picture by stepping up the accuracy of their simulations, which could either support their MOND theory — or conclude that Newton was, in fact, correct the first time around.

More on star clusters: Something Is Ripping Apart the Nearest Star Cluster to Earth

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There's Something Strange About How These Stars Are Moving, Scientists Say

Fill 'Er Up

A team of Chinese researchers say they managed to convert actual lunar regolith samples into a source of rocket fuel and oxygen — a potential gamechanger for future space explorers hoping to make use of in-situ resources to fuel up for their return journey.

The researchers found that the lunar soil samples can act as a catalyst to convert carbon dioxide and water from astronauts' bodies and environment into methane and oxygen, as detailed in a paper published in the National Science Review.

"In situ resource utilization of lunar soil to achieve extraterrestrial fuel and oxygen production is vital for the human to carry out Moon exploitation missions," lead author Yujie Xiong said in a new statement about the work. "Considering that there are limited human resources at extraterrestrial sites, we proposed to employ the robotic system to perform the whole electrocatalytic CO2 conversion system setup."

That means we could have a much better shot at carrying out longer duration explorations of the lunar surface in the near future.

Set It, Forget It

According to the paper, which builds on previous research suggesting lunar soil can generate oxygen and fuel, this process can be completed using uncrewed systems, even in the absence of astronauts.

In an experiment, the team used samples from China's Chang'e-5 mission, which landed in Inner Mongolia back in December 2020 — the first lunar soil returned to Earth since 1976.

The Moon soil effectively acted as a catalyst, enabling the electrocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into methane and oxygen.

"No significant difference can be observed between the manned and unmanned systems, which further suggests the high possibility of imitating our proposed system in extraterrestrial sites and proves the feasibility of further optimizing catalyst recipes on the Moon," the researchers conclude in their paper.

Liquified

But there's one big hurdle to still overcome: liquifying carbon dioxide is anything but easy given the Moon's frosty atmosphere, as condensing the gas requires a significant amount of heat, as New Scientist reported earlier this year.

Still, it's a tantalizing prospect: an autonomous machine chugging away, pumping out oxygen and fuel for future visitors. But for now, it's not much more than a proof of concept.

READ MORE: Scientists investigate using lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on the moon [Science China Press]

More on lunar soil: Bad News! The Plants Grown in Moon Soil Turned Out Wretched

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Scientists Use Actual Lunar Soil Sample to Create Rocket Fuel

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin claim to have found a way to control how high mice can get on a given amount of cocaine.

And don't worry — while that may sound like a particularly frivolous plot concocted by a team of evil scientists, the goal of the research is well-meaning.

The team, led by University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Santiago Cuesta, was investigating how the gut microbiome can influence how mice and humans react to ingesting the drug.

The research, detailed in a new paper published this week in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, sheds light on a vicious feedback loop that could explain cases of substance abuse disorders — and possibly lay the groundwork for future therapeutic treatments.

In a number of experiments on mice, the researchers found that cocaine was linked to the growth of common gut bacteria, which feed on glycine, a chemical that facilitates basic brain functions.

The lower the levels of glycine in the brain, the more the mice reacted to the cocaine, exhibiting abnormal behaviors.

To test the theory, the scientists injected the mice with a genetically modified amino acid which cannot break down glycine. As a result, the behavior of mice returned to normal levels.

In other words, the amino acid could curb cocaine addiction-like behaviors — at least in animal models.

"The gut bacteria are consuming all of the glycine and the levels are decreasing systemically and in the brain," said Vanessa Sperandio, senior author, and microbiologist from the University of Wisconsin, in a statement. "It seems changing glycine overall is impacting the glutamatergic synapses that make the animals more prone to develop addiction."

It's an unorthodox approach to treating addiction, but could be intriguing — if it works in people, that is.

"Usually, for neuroscience behaviors, people are not thinking about controlling the microbiota, and microbiota studies usually don't measure behaviors, but here we show they’re connected," Cuesta added. "Our microbiome can actually modulate psychiatric or brain-related behaviors."

In short, their research could lead to new ways of treating various psychiatric disorders such as substance use by adjusting the gut microbiome and not making changes to the brain chemistry.

"I think the bridging of these communities is what's going to move the field forward, advancing beyond correlations towards causations for the different types of psychiatric disorders," Sperandio argued.

READ MORE: How gut bacteria influence the effects of cocaine in mice [Cell Press]

More on addiction: Study: Magic Mushrooms Helped 83% of People Cut Excessive Drinking

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Scientists Found a Way to Control How High Mice Got on Cocaine

Spying @ Home

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic drove a wave of working from home, companies have been relentless in their efforts to digitally police and spy on remote employees by using what's known as "bossware." That's the pejorative name for software that tracks the websites an employee visits, screenshots their computer screens, and even records their faces and voices.

And now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an agency of the federal government, is looking to intervene.

"Close, constant surveillance and management through electronic means threaten employees' basic ability to exercise their rights," said NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a Monday memo. "I plan to urge the Board to apply the Act to protect employees, to the greatest extent possible, from intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management practices."

Undoing Unions

In particular, Abruzzo is worried about how bossware could infringe on workers' rights to unionize. It's not hard to imagine how such invasive surveillance could be used to bust unionization. Even if the technology isn't explicitly deployed to impede organization efforts, the ominous presence of the surveillance on its own can be a looming deterrent, which Abruzzo argues is illegal.

And now is the perfect moment for the NLRB to step in. The use and abuse of worker surveillance tech in general — not just bossware — has been "growing by the minute," Mark Gaston Pearce, executive director of the Workers' Rights Institute at Georgetown Law School, told CBS.

"Employers are embracing technology because technology helps them run a more efficient business," Gaston explained. "… What comes with that is monitoring a lot of things that employers have no business doing."

Overbearing Overlord

In some ways, surveillance tech like bossware can be worse than having a nosy, actual human boss. Generally speaking, in a physical workplace employees have an understanding of how much privacy they have (unless they work at a place like Amazon or Walmart, that is).

But when bossware spies on you, who knows how much information an employer could be gathering — or even when they're looking in. And if it surveils an employee's personal computer, which more often than not contains plenty of personal information that a boss has no business seeing, that's especially invasive.

Which is why Abruzzo is pushing to require employers to disclose exactly how much they're tracking.

It's a stern message from the NLRB, but at the end of the day, it's just a memo. We'll have to wait and see how enforcing it pans out.

More on surveillance: Casinos to Use Facial Recognition to Keep "Problem Gamblers" Away

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US Gov to Crack Down on "Bossware" That Spies On Employees' Computers

Jeff Bezos' former housekeeper is suing the Amazon founder for workplace discrimination that she says forced her to literally climb out out the window of his house to use the bathroom.

In the suit, filed this week in a Washington state court, the former housekeeper claimed that she and Bezos' other household staff were not provided with legally-mandated eating or restroom breaks, and that because there was no "readily accessible bathroom" for them to use, they had to clamber out a laundry room window to get to one.

In the complaint, lawyers for the ex-housekeeper, who is described as having worked for wealthy families for nearly 20 years, wrote that household staff were initially allowed to use a small bathroom in the security room of Bezos' main house, but "this soon stopped... because it was decided that housekeepers using the bathroom was a breach of security protocol."

The suit also alleges that housekeepers in the billionaire's employ "frequently developed Urinary Tract Infections" that they believed was related to not being able to use the bathroom when they needed to at work.

"There was no breakroom for the housekeepers," the complaint adds. "Even though Plaintiff worked 10, 12, and sometimes 14 hours a day, there was no designated area for her to sit down and rest."

The housekeeper — who, like almost all of her coworkers, is Latino — was allegedly not aware that she was entitled to breaks for lunch or rest, and was only able to have a lunch break when Bezos or his family were not on the premises, the lawsuit alleges.

The Washington Post owner has denied his former housekeeper's claims of discrimination through an attorney.

"We have investigated the claims, and they lack merit," Harry Korrell, a Bezos attorney, told Insider of the suit. "[The former employee] made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper."

He added that the former housekeeper "was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff."

"The evidence will show that [the former housekeeper] was terminated for performance reasons," he continued. "She initially demanded over $9M, and when the company refused, she decided to file this suit."

As the suit was just filed and may well end in a settlement, it'll likely be a long time, if ever, before we find out what really happened at Bezos' house — but if we do, it'll be a fascinating peek behind the curtain at the home life of one of the world's most powerful and wealthy men.

More on billionaires: Tesla Morale Low As Workers Still Don't Have Desks, Face Increased Attendance Surveillance

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Jeff Bezos' Housekeeper Says She Had to Climb Out the Window to Use the Bathroom

Droning On

Someone thinks it's a great idea to fly 500 drones over New York City to create a huge ad in the sky on Thursday evening. Because New Yorkers certainly don't have any historical reason to mistrust unknown aircraft over their skyline, right?

As Gothamist reports, the drone swarm is part of a "surreal takeover of New York City’s skyline" on behalf of — we shit you not — the mobile game Candy Crush.

Fernanda Romano, Candy Crush's chief marketing officer, told Gothamist that the stunt will "turn the sky into the largest screen on the planet" using the small, light-up drones.

Though this is not the first time the Manhattan skyline has been used as ad space — that distinction goes to the National Basketball Association and State Farm, which did a similar stunt this summer during the NBA draft — local lawmakers are ticked off about it nonetheless.

"I think it’s outrageous to be spoiling our city’s skyline for private profit," Brad Hoylman, a state senator that represents Manhattan's West Side in the NY Legislature, told the local news site. "It’s offensive to New Yorkers, to our local laws, to public safety, and to wildlife."

Freak Out

Indeed, as the NYC Audubon Society noted in a tweet, the Candy Crush crapshoot "could disrupt the flight patterns of thousands of birds flying through NYC, leading to collisions with buildings" as they migrate.

Beyond the harm this will do to birds and the annoyance it will undoubtedly cause the famously-grumpy people of New York, this stunt is also going down with very little warning, considering that Gothamist is one of the only news outlets even reporting on it ahead of time.

While most viewers will hopefully be able to figure out what's going on pretty quickly, the concept of seeing unknown aircraft above the skyline is a little too reminiscent of 9/11 for comfort — and if Candy Crush took that into consideration, they haven't let on.

So here's hoping this event shocks and awes Thursday night city-goers in a good way, and not in the way that makes them panic.

More drone warfare: Russia Accused of Pelting Ukraine Capital With "Kamikaze" Drones

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Huge Drone Swarm to Form Giant Advertisement Over NYC Skyline

You know that "research" going around saying humans are going to evolve to have hunchbacks and claws because of the way we use our smartphones? Though our posture could certainly use some work, you'll be glad to know that it's just lazy spam intended to juice search engine results.

Let's back up. Today the Daily Mail published a viral story about "how humans may look in the year 3000." Among its predictions: hunched backs, clawed hands, a second eyelid, a thicker skull and a smaller brain.

Sure, that's fascinating! The only problem? The Mail's only source is a post published a year ago by the renowned scientists at... uh... TollFreeForwarding.com, a site that sells, as its name suggests, virtual phone numbers.

If the idea that phone salespeople are purporting to be making predictions about human evolution didn't tip you off, this "research" doesn't seem very scientific at all. Instead, it more closely resembles what it actually is — a blog post written by some poor grunt, intended to get backlinks from sites like the Mail that'll juice TollFreeForwarding's position in search engine results.

To get those delicious backlinks, the top minds at TollFreeForwarding leveraged renders of a "future human" by a 3D model artist. The result of these efforts is "Mindy," a creepy-looking hunchback in black skinny jeans (which is how you can tell she's from a different era).

Grotesque model reveals what humans could look like in the year 3000 due to our reliance on technology

Full story: https://t.co/vQzyMZPNBv pic.twitter.com/vqBuYOBrcg

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 3, 2022

"To fully realize the impact everyday tech has on us, we sourced scientific research and expert opinion on the subject," the TollFreeForwarding post reads, "before working with a 3D designer to create a future human whose body has physically changed due to consistent use of smartphones, laptops, and other tech."

Its sources, though, are dubious. Its authority on spinal development, for instance, is a "health and wellness expert" at a site that sells massage lotion. His highest academic achievement? A business degree.

We could go on and on about TollFreeForwarding's dismal sourcing — some of which looks suspiciously like even more SEO spam for entirely different clients — but you get the idea.

It's probably not surprising that the this gambit for clicks took off among dingbats on Twitter. What is somewhat disappointing is that it ended up on StudyFinds, a generally reliable blog about academic research. This time, though, for inscrutable reasons it treated this egregious SEO spam as a legitimate scientific study.

The site's readers, though, were quick to call it out, leading to a comically enormous editor's note appended to the story.

"Our content is intended to stir debate and conversation, and we always encourage our readers to discuss why or why not they agree with the findings," it reads in part. "If you heavily disagree with a report — please debunk to your delight in the comments below."

You heard them! Get debunking, people.

More conspiracy theories: If You Think Joe Rogan Is Credible, This Bizarre Clip of Him Yelling at a Scientist Will Probably Change Your Mind

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That "Research" About How Smartphones Are Causing Deformed Human Bodies Is SEO Spam, You Idiots

Latest Feud

Another day, another Elon Musk feud on Twitter — except now, he's the owner of the social network, and he's beefing with a sitting member of Congress.

The whole thing started innocently enough earlier this week, when firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY, and better known by her initials, "AOC") subtweeted the website's new owner.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," the New York Democratic Socialist tweeted in a post that, upon Futurism's perusal, appeared to load only half the time.

Sweat Equity

Not one to be shown up, Musk later posted a screenshot of an AOC-branded sweatshirt from the congressperson's website, with its $58 price tag circled and an emoji belying the billionaire's alleged affront at the price.

In response, Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud her sweatshirts were made by union labor, and that the proceeds from their sales were going to fund educational support for needy kids. She later dug in further, noting that her account was "conveniently" not working and joking that Musk couldn't buy his way "out of insecurity."

Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?

This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me pic.twitter.com/e3hcZ7T9up

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 3, 2022

Bricked

To be clear, any suggestion that Musk personally had anything to do with any Twitter glitches on AOC's part would seem ludicrously petty. But then again, this is a guy who once hired a private detective to investigate a random critic.

Occam's razor, though, suggests that it was probably AOC's mega-viral tweet that broke the site's notoriously dodgy infrastructure. Of course, that's not a ringing endorsement of the site that Musk just acquired for the colossal sum of $44 billion.

More on Twitter: Twitter Working on Plan to Charge Users to Watch Videos

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AOC Says Her Twitter Account Broke After She Made Fun of Elon Musk

Spaceplane Buddy

After launching into orbit roughly three months ago, China's top-secret spaceplane has released a mysterious object, which is now circling the Earth behind it, SpaceNews reports.

There's very little we know about China's "reusable experimental spacecraft," except that it launched atop a Long March 2F rocket back in August. We don't know its purpose, what it looks like, or what cargo it was carrying during launch — but it's an intriguing development, nonetheless, for China's reusable launch platform.

Mysterious Object

The object was released between October 24 and October 31, according to tracking data being analyzed by the US Space Force's 18th pace Defense Squadron.

We can only hazard a guess as to what the mysterious object's purpose is. According to Harvard astronomer and space tracker Jonathan McDowell, it "may be a service module, possibly indicating an upcoming deorbit burn."

Based on the size and weight of payloads Long March rockets usually carry, China's mysterious spaceplane is likely similar to the Air Force's X-37B spaceplane, which is similarly shrouded in mystery and currently on its sixth mission.

We also don't know when the Chinese model will make its return back to Earth, but given recent activity at the Lop Nur base in Xinjiang suggests, it may land there in the near future, according to the report.

It's a puzzling new development for China's secretive spacecraft — but it does raise the possibility of a renewed interest in spaceplanes, a potentially affordable and reusable way to launch payloads into orbit.

More on the spaceplane: China Launches Mysterious "Reusable Test" Spacecraft

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Chinese Spaceplane Releases Mystery Object Into Orbit

Observatory Offline

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory in Chile has been hit with a cyberattack that has taken its website offline and forced it to suspend all observations, authorities there said.

Even email services were limited in the aftermath, illustrating the broad impact of the hack.

Nested high up on a plateau in the Chilean Andes at over 16,000 feet above sea level, ALMA is one of the most powerful and advanced radio telescopes in the world. Notably, ALMA helped take the first image of a black hole in 2019, in a collaborative effort that linked radio observatories worldwide into forming the Event Horizon Telescope.

Thankfully, ALMA's impressive arsenal of 66 high-precision antennas, each nearly 40 feet in diameter, was not compromised, the observatory said, nor was any of the scientific data those instruments collected.

In High Places

What makes ALMA so invaluable is its specialty in observing the light of the cooler substances of the cosmos, namely gas and dust. That makes ALMA a prime candidate for documenting the fascinating formations of planets and stars when they first emerge amidst clouds of gas.

Since going fully operational in 2013, it's become the largest ground-based astronomical project in the world, according to the European Southern Observatory, ALMA's primary operators.

So ALMA going offline is a distressing development, especially to the thousands of astronomers worldwide that rely on its observations and the some 300 experts working onsite. Getting it up and running is obviously a top priority, but the observatory said in a followup tweet that "it is not yet possible to estimate a date for a return to regular activities."

As of now, there's no information available on who the hackers were, or exactly how they conducted the attack. Their motivations, too, remain a mystery.

More on ALMA: Astronomers Think They Found the Youngest Planet in the Galaxy

The post Hackers Just Took Down One of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes appeared first on Futurism.

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Hackers Just Took Down One of the World's Most Advanced Telescopes

The International Space Station (ISS) is a multi-nation construction project that is the largest single structure humans ever put into space. Its main construction was completed between 1998 and 2011, although the station continually evolves to include new missions and experiments. It has been continuously occupied since Nov. 2, 2000.

The ISS is not owned by one single nation and is a "co-operative programme" between Europe, the United States, Russia, Canada and Japan, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). The International Space Station costs about $3 billion per year for NASA to operate, roughly a third of the human spaceflight budget, according to (opens in new tab) the agency's office of the inspector general.

Elizabeth Howell (Ph.D.) has been tracking the International Space Station program since the first module was launched. She covers all aspects of spacefight, including ISS launches, missions and spacewalks.

As of May 2022, 258 individuals from 20 countries (opens in new tab) have visited the International Space Station. The top participating countries include the United States (158 people) and Russia (54 people). Astronaut time and research time on the space station are allocated to space agencies according to how much money or resources (such as modules or robotics) they contribute.

The ISS includes contributions from 15 nations. NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia) and the European Space Agency are the major partners of the space station who contribute most of the funding; the other partners are the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Through a private company called Axiom Space, private astronauts are starting to work on the orbiting complex, from time to time; additionally, astronauts from other nations such as the United Arab Emirates do fly occasionally to the ISS.

Related: International Space Station: Live updates

Current plans call for the space station to be operated through at least 2024, with the partners discussing a possible extension. NASA has approved an extension to 2030, although Russia says it will withdraw after 2024 to focus on building its own space station around 2028. How the station will be operated after Russia's departure has not yet been determined. After 2030, plans for the International Space Station are not clearly laid out either. It could be deorbited, or recycled for future commercial space stations in orbit.

Crews aboard the ISS are assisted by mission control centers in Houston and Moscow and a payload control center in Huntsville, Ala. Other international mission control centers support the space station from Japan, Canada and Europe. Elements of the ISS are controlled from mission control centers in Houston or Moscow.

Russia is a major partner in the International Space Station, but that relationship is changing. In February 2022, Russia undertook an internationally condemned invasion of Ukraine. As a result, numerous international space partnerships were dissolved. Russia, the United States and the other ISS partners do continue to operate the space station as normal, for now, NASA has emphasized.

In July 2022, Russia announced it would withdraw from the ISS after 2024. Its goals, Roscosmos said, are to build a new Russian Orbital Space Station around 2028 or so. The withdrawal will be gradual and the international partners are in discussions about the transition.

The ISS cannot be separated into independent Russia and United States sections as the complex is interdependent. NASA has said (opens in new tab)the U.S. supplies power, while the Russians control major propulsion maneuvers. It may be possible to independently raise the orbit of the ISS through U.S. spacecraft, which NASA and its partners are testing.

The ISS does require such maneuvers to avoid falling into the Earth's atmosphere and dodging orbital space debris. Russia conducted an anti-satellite missile test in November 2021 that has seen debris come close to the ISS orbit and require the crews to shelter in place; at the time, NASA and the United States expressed displeasure with the situation.

The International Space Station location is in orbit around the Earth, at an average altitude of 248 miles (400 kilometers). It circles the globe every 90 minutes at a speed of about 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h). In one day, the station travels about the distance it would take to go from Earth to the moon and back.

The International Space Station at night is highly visible from Earth, appearing as a luminous moving point of light and rivaling the brilliant planet Venus in brightness. It can be seen from Earth without the use of a telescope by night sky observers who know when and where to look.

You can also take pictures of the International Space Station with the right equipment; our guide takes you through how to photograph the ISS. For more information on International Space Station trackers to see and track the space station, check out our guide.

Related: This International Space Station VR experience lets you explore the ISS and its as amazing as it sounds

There is typically an international crew of seven people that live and work inside the ISS. However, during the changeover of crew members, this number can vary; for example, in 2009, 13 crew members visited the ISS. This is also the record for the most people in space at one time. Occasionally, private missions such as those from Axiom Space bring non-professional astronauts on board the space station, too.

Typically, astronauts travel to the space station via SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule or, in the case of Russian cosmonauts, a Russian Soyuz capsule. The Soyuz was the primary form of transportation for all astronauts and cosmonauts after NASAs space shuttle program retired in 2011. Crew Dragon began flying people starting with the Demo-2 mission that launched on May 30, 2020. Boeing's Starliner is preparing for launching humans after it's successful uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) in 2022.

Once at the station, astronauts will typically spend a mission period of around six months conducting various science experiments and maintaining and repairing the ISS. Outside of work, astronauts will spend at least two hours on exercise and personal care. They also occasionally perform spacewalks, conduct media/school events for outreach, and post updates to social media. The first astronaut to tweet from space was Mike Massimino, who did it from a space shuttle in May 2009.

Bedrooms in the ISS typically include small bunk beds. The astronauts tether themselves to a wall or allow themselves to freely float in the small space, depending on their preference. Crews temporarily visiting for just a few days may sleep in their spaceship or in a spare spot on the station, which is allowed as long as they tether themselves in space.

The ISS is a platform for long-term research for human health, which NASA bills as a key stepping stone to letting humans explore other solar system destinations such as the moon or Mars.

Related: First 'Guardian' in space: NASA astronaut on ISS enters Space Force

Human bodies change in microgravity, including alterations to muscles, bones, the cardiovascular system and the eyes; many scientific investigations are trying to characterize how severe the changes are and whether they can be reversed. Astronauts also participate in testing out products such as an espresso machine or 3D printers or doing biological experiments, such as on rodents or plants, which the astronauts can grow and sometimes eat in space. As the only microgravity laboratory in existence, the ISS has facilitated more than 3,600 researchers to conduct more than 2,500 experiments to date.

Astronauts only have limited spare time in space, but they use it for activities like looking out the window, talking with friends and family, taking pictures or doing hobbies like playing instruments or sewing. One astronaut, Mark Kelly, once donned a gorilla suit on the ISS in 2016 as a practical joke on ground controllers.

Crews are not only responsible for science, but also for maintaining the station. Sometimes, this requires that they venture on spacewalks to perform repairs. From time to time, these repairs can be urgent such as when a part of the ammonia system fails, which has happened a couple of times. Spacewalk safety procedures were changed after a potentially deadly 2013 incident when astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet filled with water while he was working outside the station.

NASA now responds quickly to "water incursion" incidents. It also has added pads to the spacesuits to soak up the liquid, and a tube to provide an alternate breathing location should the helmet fill with water. In May 2022, NASA suspended spacewalks again following another water incursion incident, which is still being investigated; Russian Orlan spacewalks are still continuing as that is an independently manufactured spacesuit.

NASA has produced several machines to reduce the need for spacewalks, including the humanoid Robonaut 2. The dexterous machine joined the ISS crew back in 2011, however, after discovering a fault in the machine, Robonaut 2 was sent home to Earth in 2018, for repairs. Also, onboard the ISS are several external robotic arms that can tackle maintenance issues remotely, such as the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) also known as Dextre and the Canadarm2 (a 57.7-foot-long robotic arm). A European Robotic Arm on the Russian segment will be the third large operational arm on the space station following the end of its installation and commissioning, which is ongoing in 2022.

Related: How to photograph the ISS

The space station, including its large solar arrays, spans the area of a U.S. football field, including the end zones, and has a mass of 925,335 lbs. (419,725 kilograms), not including visiting vehicles. The complex now has more livable room than a conventional 6-bedroom house and has 2 bathrooms, gym facilities and a 360-degree bay window. Astronauts have also compared the space station's living space to the cabin of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

The International Space Station was taken into space piece-by-piece and gradually built in orbit using spacewalking astronauts and robotics. Most missions used NASA's space shuttle to carry up the heavier pieces, although some individual modules were launched on single-use rockets. The ISS includes modules and connecting nodes that contain living quarters and laboratories, as well as exterior trusses that provide structural support, and solar panels that provide power.

Related: International Space Station at 20: A Photo Tour

The first module, the Russia Zarya, launched on Nov. 20, 1998, on a Proton rocket. Two weeks later, space shuttle flight STS-88 launched the NASA Unity/Node 1 module. Astronauts performed spacewalks during STS-88 to connect the two parts of the station together; later, other pieces of the station were launched on rockets or in the space shuttle cargo bay. Some of the other major modules and components include:

Besides the space shuttle and Soyuz, the space station has been visited by many other kinds of spacecraft. Uncrewed Progress (Russia) vehicles make regular visits to the station. Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle and Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle used to do visits to the ISS as well until their programs were retired.

NASA began developing commercial cargo spacecraft for the space station under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, which lasted from 2006 to 2013. Starting in 2012, the first commercial spacecraft, SpaceX's Dragon, made a visit to the space station. Visits continue today with Dragon and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program. Boeing is developing its Starliner for future human visits, too.

The ISS has had several notable milestones over the years, when it comes to crews:

You can discover more about the ISS with this Haynes manual (opens in new tab) and through the eyes of the astronaut who lived there a year: Scott Kelly. Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery (opens in new tab).

If you want to feel like you are living on the ISS yourself, look out the window of the ISS with this amazing visual guide: Interior Space: A Visual Exploration of the International Space Station: Photographs by Paolo Nespoli & Roland Mille (opens in new tab).

European Space Agency. About the International Space Station. https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/International_Space_Station/About_the_International_Space_Station (opens in new tab)

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Blog. (2020, Oct. 23). The 20 Most Frequently Asked Questions About the International Space Station. https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/blog/the-20-most-frequently-asked-questions-about-the-international-space-station (opens in new tab)

Garcia, Mark. (2021, Dec. 14.) International Space Station: Space Station Assembly. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/space-station-assembly (opens in new tab)

Garcia, Mark. (2022, March 30). NASA Station Astronaut Record Holders. NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-station-astronaut-record-holders (opens in new tab)

Garcia, Mark. (2022, Aug. 9.) International Space Station. NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html (opens in new tab)

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International Space Station: Facts about the orbital lab | Space

ExpeditionPatchCrewArrivalDepartureDuration(days)DateFlightDateFlightExpedition 1 William Shepherd Sergei Krikalev Yuri Gidzenko31 October 2000,07:52 UTCSoyuz TM-3121 March 200107:33 UTCSTS-102141Expedition 2 Yury Usachov James S. Voss Susan Helms8 March 200111:42 UTCSTS-10222 August 200119:24 UTCSTS-105167.28Expedition 3 Frank L. Culbertson Jr. Mikhail Tyurin Vladimir Dezhurov10 August 200121:10 UTCSTS-10517 December 200117:56 UTCSTS-108128.86Expedition 4 Yury Onufriyenko Carl E. Walz Daniel W. Bursch5 December 200122:19 UTCSTS-10819 June 200209:57 UTCSTS-111195.82Expedition 5 Valery Korzun Sergei Treshchov Peggy Whitson5 June 200221:22 UTCSTS-1117 December 200219:37 UTCSTS-113184.93Expedition 6 Ken Bowersox Donald Pettit Nikolai Budarin24 November 200200:49 UTCSTS-1134 May 200302:04 UTCSoyuz TMA-1161.05Expedition 7 Yuri Malenchenko Ed Lu26 April 200303:53 UTCSoyuz TMA-228 October 200302:40 UTCSoyuz TMA-2184.93Expedition 8 Michael Foale Aleksandr Kaleri18 October 200305:38 UTCSoyuz TMA-330 April 200400:11 UTCSoyuz TMA-3194.77Expedition 9 Gennady Padalka Michael Fincke19 April 200403:19 UTCSoyuz TMA-424 October 200400:32 UTCSoyuz TMA-4185.66Expedition 10 Leroy Chiao Salizhan Sharipov24 October 200403:06 UTCSoyuz TMA-524 April 200522:08 UTCSoyuz TMA-5192.79Expedition 11 Sergei Krikalev John L. Phillips15 April 200500:46 UTCSoyuz TMA-611 October 200501:09 UTCSoyuz TMA-6179.02Expedition 12 William S. McArthur Valeri Tokarev1 October 200503:54 UTCSoyuz TMA-78 April 200623:48 UTCSoyuz TMA-7189.01Expedition 13 Pavel Vinogradov Jeffrey Williams30 March 200602:30 UTCSoyuz TMA-828 September 200601:13 UTCSoyuz TMA-8182.65 Thomas Reiter4 July 200618:38 UTCSTS-121Transferred to Expedition 14Expedition 14 Michael Lpez-Alegra Mikhail Tyurin18 September 200604:09 UTCSoyuz TMA-921 April 200712:31 UTCSoyuz TMA-9215.35 Thomas ReiterTransferred from Expedition 1321 December 200622:32 UTCSTS-116171.16 Sunita Williams10 December 200601:47 UTCSTS-116Transferred to Expedition 15Expedition 15 Fyodor Yurchikhin Oleg Kotov7 April 200717:31 UTCSoyuz TMA-1021 October 200710:36 UTCSoyuz TMA-10196.71 Sunita WilliamsTransferred from Expedition 1422 June 200719:49 UTCSTS-117194.75 Clayton Anderson8 June 200723:38 UTCSTS-117Transferred to Expedition 16Expedition 16 Peggy Whitson Yuri Malenchenko10 October 200713:22 UTCSoyuz TMA-1119 April 200808:30 UTCSoyuz TMA-11191.80 Clayton AndersonTransferred from Expedition 157 November 200718:01 UTCSTS-120151.77 Daniel M. Tani23 October 200715:38 UTCSTS-12020 February 200814:07 UTCSTS-122119.94 Lopold Eyharts7 February 200819:45 UTCSTS-12227 March 200806:28 UTCSTS-12348.55 Garrett Reisman11 March 200806:28 UTCSTS-123Transferred to Expedition 17Expedition 17 Sergey Volkov Oleg Kononenko8 April 200811:16 UTCSoyuz TMA-1224 October 200803:37 UTCSoyuz TMA-12198.68 Garrett ReismanTransferred from Expedition 1614 June 200815:16 UTCSTS-12495.37 Gregory Chamitoff31 May 200821:02 UTCSTS-124Transferred to Expedition 18Expedition 18 Michael Fincke Yury Lonchakov12 October 200807:01 UTCSoyuz TMA-138 April 200907:16 UTCSoyuz TMA-13178.01 Gregory ChamitoffTransferred from Expedition 1730 November 200821:25 UTCSTS-126183.02 Sandra Magnus15 November 200800:55 UTCSTS-12628 March 200919:13 UTCSTS-119133.76 Koichi Wakata15 March 200923:43 UTCSTS-119Transferred to Expedition 19Expedition 19 Gennady Padalka Michael Barratt26 March 200911:49 UTCSoyuz TMA-14Transferred to Expedition 20 Koichi WakataTransferred from Expedition 18Expedition 20 Gennady Padalka Michael BarrattTransferred from Expedition 1911 October 200904:32 UTCSoyuz TMA-14198.70 Koichi Wakata31 July 200914:48 UTCSTS-127144.62 Timothy Kopra15 July 200922:03 UTCSTS-12712 September 200900:53 UTCSTS-12858.12 Frank De Winne Roman Romanenko Robert Thirsk27 May 200910:34 UTCSoyuz TMA-15Transferred to Expedition 21 Nicole Stott29 August 200903:59 UTCSTS-128Expedition 21 Frank De Winne Roman Romanenko Robert ThirskTransferred from Expedition 201 December 200907:16 UTCSoyuz TMA-15187.86 Nicole Stott27 November 200914:44 UTCSTS-12990.45 Jeffrey Williams Maksim Surayev30 September 200907:14 UTCSoyuz TMA-16Transferred to Expedition 22Expedition 22 Jeffrey Williams Maksim SurayevTransferred from Expedition 2118 March 201011:24 UTCSoyuz TMA-16169.04 Oleg Kotov Timothy Creamer Soichi Noguchi20 December 200921:52 UTCSoyuz TMA-17Transferred to Expedition 23Expedition 23 Oleg Kotov Timothy Creamer Soichi NoguchiTransferred from Expedition 222 June 201003:25 UTCSoyuz TMA-17163.23 Aleksandr Skvortsov Mikhail Kornienko Tracy Caldwell Dyson2 April 201004:05 UTCSoyuz TMA-18Transferred to Expedition 24Expedition 24 Aleksandr Skvortsov Mikhail Kornienko Tracy Caldwell DysonTransferred from Expedition 2325 September 201005:23 UTCSoyuz TMA-18176.05 Douglas H. Wheelock Shannon Walker Fyodor Yurchikhin15 June 201021:35 UTCSoyuz TMA-19Transferred to Expedition 25Expedition 25 Douglas H. Wheelock Shannon Walker Fyodor YurchikhinTransferred from Expedition 2426 November 201004:46 UTCSoyuz TMA-19163.30 Scott Kelly Aleksandr Kaleri Oleg Skripochka7 October 201023:10 UTCSoyuz TMA-01MTransferred to Expedition 26Expedition 26 Scott Kelly Aleksandr Kaleri Oleg SkripochkaTransferred from Expedition 2516 March 201107:54 UTCSoyuz TMA-01M159.36 Dmitri Kondratyev Catherine Coleman Paolo Nespoli15 December 201019:09 UTCSoyuz TMA-20Transferred to Expedition 27Expedition 27 Dmitri Kondratyev Catherine Coleman Paolo NespoliTransferred from Expedition 2624 May 201102:27 UTCSoyuz TMA-20160.10 Andrei Borisenko Aleksandr Samokutyayev Ronald J. Garan Jr.4 April 201122:18 UTCSoyuz TMA-21Transferred to Expedition 28Expedition 28 Andrei Borisenko Aleksandr Samokutyayev Ronald J. Garan Jr.Transferred from Expedition 2716 September 201100:38 UTCSoyuz TMA-21164.10 Michael E. Fossum Sergey Volkov Satoshi Furukawa7 June 201120:12 UTCSoyuz TMA-02MTransferred to Expedition 29Expedition 29 Michael E. Fossum Sergey Volkov Satoshi FurukawaTransferred from Expedition 2822 November 201102:26 UTCSoyuz TMA-02M167.26 Daniel C. Burbank Anton Shkaplerov Anatoli Ivanishin14 November 201104:14 UTCSoyuz TMA-22Transferred to Expedition 30Expedition 30 Daniel C. Burbank Anton Shkaplerov Anatoli IvanishinTransferred from Expedition 2927 April 201211:45 UTCSoyuz TMA-22165.31 Oleg Kononenko Donald Pettit Andr Kuipers21 December 201113:16 UTCSoyuz TMA-03MTransferred to Expedition 31Expedition 31 Oleg Kononenko Donald Pettit Andr KuipersTransferred from Expedition 301 July 201208:14 UTCSoyuz TMA-03M192.83 Gennady Padalka Sergei Revin Joseph M. Acaba15 May 201203:01 UTCSoyuz TMA-04MTransferred to Expedition 32Expedition 32 Gennady Padalka Sergei Revin Joseph M. AcabaTransferred from Expedition 3117 September 201202:53 UTCSoyuz TMA-04M124.99 Sunita Williams Yuri Malenchenko Akihiko Hoshide15 July 201202:40 UTCSoyuz TMA-05MTransferred to Expedition 33Expedition 33 Sunita Williams Yuri Malenchenko Akihiko HoshideTransferred from Expedition 3219 November 201201:56 UTCSoyuz TMA-05M126.97 Kevin A. Ford Oleg Novitsky Evgeny Tarelkin23 October 201210:51 UTCSoyuz TMA-06MTransferred to Expedition 34Expedition 34 Kevin A. Ford Oleg Novitsky Evgeny TarelkinTransferred from Expedition 3315 March 201303:06 UTCSoyuz TMA-06M143.18 Chris Hadfield Roman Romanenko Thomas Marshburn19 December 201211:12 UTCSoyuz TMA-07MTransferred to Expedition 35Expedition 35 Chris Hadfield Roman Romanenko Thomas MarshburnTransferred from Expedition 3414 May 201303:31 UTCSoyuz TMA-07M145.64 Pavel Vinogradov Alexander Misurkin Christopher Cassidy28 March 201320:43 UTCSoyuz TMA-08MTransferred to Expedition 36Expedition 36 Pavel Vinogradov Alexander Misurkin Christopher CassidyTransferred from Expedition 3511 September 201302:58 UTCSoyuz TMA-08M166.25 Fyodor Yurchikhin Karen Nyberg Luca Parmitano28 May 201320:31 UTCSoyuz TMA-09MTransferred to Expedition 37Expedition 37 Fyodor Yurchikhin Karen Nyberg Luca ParmitanoTransferred from Expedition 3611 November 201302:49 UTCSoyuz TMA-09M166.25 Oleg Kotov Sergey Ryazansky Michael S. Hopkins25 September 201320:58 UTCSoyuz TMA-10MTransferred to Expedition 38Expedition 38 Oleg Kotov Sergey Ryazansky Michael S. HopkinsTransferred from Expedition 3711 March 201403:24 UTCSoyuz TMA-10M166.25 Koichi Wakata Mikhail Tyurin Richard Mastracchio6 November 201304:14 UTCSoyuz TMA-11MTransferred to Expedition 39Expedition 39 Koichi Wakata Mikhail Tyurin Richard MastracchioTransferred from Expedition 3814 May 201401:58 UTCSoyuz TMA-11M187.91 Aleksandr Skvortsov Oleg Artemyev Steven Swanson25 March 201421:17 UTCSoyuz TMA-12MTransferred to Expedition 40Expedition 40 Steven Swanson Aleksandr Skvortsov Oleg ArtemyevTransferred from Expedition 3911 September 201402:23 UTCSoyuz TMA-12M169.20 Gregory R. Wiseman Maksim Surayev Alexander Gerst28 May 201419:57 UTCSoyuz TMA-13MTransferred to Expedition 41Expedition 41 Maksim Surayev Gregory R. Wiseman Alexander GerstTransferred from Expedition 4010 November 201403:58 UTCSoyuz TMA-13M165.33 Aleksandr Samokutyayev Yelena Serova Barry E. Wilmore25 September 201420:25 UTCSoyuz TMA-14MTransferred to Expedition 42Expedition 42 Barry E. Wilmore Aleksandr Samokutyayev Yelena SerovaTransferred from Expedition 4112 March 201502:07 UTCSoyuz TMA-14M167.25 Anton Shkaplerov Samantha Cristoforetti Terry W. Virts23 November 201421:01 UTCSoyuz TMA-15MTransferred to Expedition 43Expedition 43 Terry W. Virts Anton Shkaplerov Samantha CristoforettiTransferred from Expedition 4211 June 201513:44 UTC[2][3]Soyuz TMA-15M199.70 Gennady Padalka27 March 201519:42 UTCSoyuz TMA-16MTransferred to Expedition 44 Mikhail Kornienko Scott KellyTransferred to Expeditions 44, 45 and 46one year mission Expedition 44 Gennady PadalkaTransferred from Expedition 4312 September 201500:51 UTC[4]Soyuz TMA-16M169 Mikhail Kornienko Scott KellyTransferred to Expedition 45 and 46one year mission Oleg Kononenko Kimiya Yui Kjell N. Lindgren22 July 201521:02 UTC[5]Soyuz TMA-17MTransferred to Expedition 45Expedition 45 Scott Kelly Mikhail KornienkoTransferred from Expedition 44Transferred to Expedition 46one year mission Oleg Kononenko Kimiya Yui Kjell N. Lindgren11 December 201513:12 UTCSoyuz TMA-17M141.66 Sergey Volkov2 September 201504:37 UTCSoyuz TMA-18MTransferred to Expedition 46Expedition 46 Scott Kelly Mikhail KornienkoTransferred from Expedition 452 March 201604:25:27 UTCSoyuz TMA-18M340 [note 1][6] Sergey Volkov181 [note 2] Yuri Malenchenko Tim Peake Timothy Kopra15 December 201511:03 UTCSoyuz TMA-19MTransferred to Expedition 47Expedition 47 Timothy Kopra Tim Peake Yuri MalenchenkoTransferred from Expedition 4618 June 201609:15 UTC[7]Soyuz TMA-19M185.91 Aleksey Ovchinin Oleg Skripochka Jeffrey Williams18 March 201621:26:38 UTCSoyuz TMA-20MTransferred to Expedition 48Expedition 48 Jeffrey Williams Oleg Skripochka Aleksey OvchininTransferred from Expedition 477 September 201601:13 UTC[8]Soyuz TMA-20M172[9] Anatoli Ivanishin Takuya Onishi Kathleen Rubins7 July 201601:36 UTC[10]Soyuz MS-01Transferred to Expedition 49Expedition 49 Anatoli Ivanishin Takuya Onishi Kathleen RubinsTransferred from Expedition 4830 October 201603:58 UTC[11]Soyuz MS-01115 Shane Kimbrough Andrei Borisenko Sergey Ryzhikov19 October 201608:05 UTC[12]Soyuz MS-02Transferred to Expedition 50Expedition 50 Shane Kimbrough Andrei Borisenko Sergey RyzhikovTransferred from Expedition 4910 April 201711:20 UTCSoyuz MS-02173 Peggy Whitson Oleg Novitskiy Thomas Pesquet17 November 201620:17 UTCSoyuz MS-03Transferred to Expedition 51Expedition 51 Oleg Novitsky Thomas PesquetTransferred from Expedition 502 June 201714:10 UTCSoyuz MS-03196.72 Peggy WhitsonTransferred to Expedition 52 Fyodor Yurchikhin Jack D. Fischer20 April 201707:13 UTCSoyuz MS-04Expedition 52 Fyodor Yurchikhin Jack D. FischerTransferred from Expedition 513 September 201701:22 UTCSoyuz MS-04[13]135.3 Peggy Whitson289.1 [note 3][14] Randolph Bresnik Paolo Nespoli Sergey Ryazansky28 July 201715:41 UTCSoyuz MS-05Transferred to Expedition 53Expedition 53 Randolph Bresnik Paolo Nespoli Sergey RyazanskyTransferred from Expedition 5214 December 201708:38 UTC[15]Soyuz MS-05139 Alexander Misurkin Mark T. Vande Hei Joseph M. Acaba12 September 201721:17 UTCSoyuz MS-06Transferred to Expedition 54Expedition 54 Alexander Misurkin Mark T. Vande Hei Joseph M. AcabaTransferred from Expedition 5328 February 201802:31 UTCSoyuz MS-06168 Anton Shkaplerov Scott D. Tingle Norishige Kanai17 December 201707:21 UTCSoyuz MS-07Transferred to Expedition 55Expedition 55 Anton Shkaplerov Scott D. Tingle Norishige KanaiTransferred from Expedition 543 June 201812:39 UTCSoyuz MS-07168 Andrew J. Feustel Oleg Artemyev Richard R. Arnold21 March 201817:44 UTC[16]Soyuz MS-08Transferred to Expedition 56Expedition 56 Andrew J. Feustel Oleg Artemyev Richard R. ArnoldTransferred from Expedition 554 October 201811:44:45 UTC[17]Soyuz MS-08196 Alexander Gerst Sergey Prokopyev Serena Aun-Chancellor6 June 201811:12 UTCSoyuz MS-09Transferred to Expedition 57Expedition 57 Alexander Gerst Sergey Prokopyev Serena Aun-ChancellorTransferred from Expedition 5620 December 201805:02 UTCSoyuz MS-09197 Oleg Kononenko David Saint-Jacques Anne McClain3 December 201811:31 UTCSoyuz MS-11Transferred to Expedition 58Expedition 58 Oleg Kononenko David Saint-Jacques Anne McClainTransferred from Expedition 57Transferred to Expedition 59Expedition 59 Oleg Kononenko David Saint-Jacques Anne McClainTransferred from Expedition 5825 June 201902:47:50 UTC[18]Soyuz MS-11203 Aleksey Ovchinin Nick Hague Christina KochMarch 14, 201919:14 UTCSoyuz MS-12Transferred to Expedition 60Expedition 60 Aleksey Ovchinin Nick HagueTransferred from Expedition 593 October 201910:59 UTC[19]Soyuz MS-12202 Christina KochTransferred to Expedition 61 Aleksandr Skvortsov Luca Parmitano Andrew R. Morgan20 July 201916:28:21 UTC[20]Soyuz MS-13Expedition 61 Luca Parmitano Aleksandr SkvortsovTransferred from Expedition 606 February 202005:50 UTCSoyuz MS-13200 Christina Koch328 Andrew R. MorganTransferred to Expedition 62 Oleg Skripochka Jessica Meir25 September 201913:57:43 UTC[21]Soyuz MS-15Expedition 62 Oleg Skripochka Jessica MeirTransferred from Expedition 6117 April 202005:16 UTC[22]Soyuz MS-15205 Andrew R. Morgan272 Christopher Cassidy Anatoli Ivanishin Ivan Vagner9 April 202008:05 UTC[23]Soyuz MS-16Transferred to Expedition 63Expedition 63 Christopher Cassidy Anatoli Ivanishin Ivan VagnerTransferred from Expedition 6221 October 2020,23:32 UTC[24]Soyuz MS-16195 Doug Hurley Bob Behnken[25]30 May 2020,19:22:45 UTC[26]SpaceXCrew Dragon Demo-22 August 2020,18:48:06 UTC[27][28][29]SpaceXCrew Dragon Demo-264[30] Sergey Ryzhikov Sergey Kud-Sverchkov Kathleen Rubins14 October 2020,05:45:04 UTC[31][32]Soyuz MS-17Transferred to Expedition 64Expedition 64 Sergey Ryzhikov Sergey Kud-Sverchkov Kathleen RubinsTransferred from Expedition 63[33][34]17 April 2021,04:55 UTC[35]Soyuz MS-17185 Michael Hopkins Victor Glover Soichi Noguchi Shannon Walker16 November 2020,00:27:17 UTC[36]SpaceX Crew-1Transferred to Expedition 65[37] Oleg Novitsky Pyotr Dubrov Mark Vande Hei9 April 2021,07:42:41 UTC[38]Soyuz MS-18Expedition 65 Shannon Walker Michael Hopkins Victor Glover Soichi NoguchiTransferred from Expedition 64[37]2 May 2021 06:56:33 UTCSpaceX Crew-1167 Oleg Novitsky17 October 202101:14:05 UTCSoyuz MS-18190 Pyotr Dubrov Mark Vande HeiTransferred to Expedition 66 Akihiko Hoshide Shane Kimbrough K. Megan McArthur[note 4] Thomas Pesquet[note 5]23 April 202109:49:02 UTCSpaceX Crew-2 Anton Shkaplerov5 October 202108:55:02 UTCSoyuz MS-19Expedition 66 Thomas Pesquet[note 5] R. Shane Kimbrough K. Megan McArthur Akihiko HoshideTransferred from Expedition 659 November 202103:33 UTCSpaceX Crew-2199 Pyotr Dubrov Mark Vande Hei30 March 2022Soyuz MS-19355 Anton Shkaplerov[40]176 Raja Chari Thomas Marshburn Matthias Maurer Kayla Barron11 November 202102:03:30 UTCSpaceX Crew-3To be transferred to Expedition 67 Oleg Artemyev Denis Matveev Sergey Korsakov18 March 202215:55:18 UTCSoyuz MS-21Expedition 67 Thomas Marshburn Raja Chari Matthias Maurer Kayla BarronTransferred from Expedition 666 May 202204:43 UTCSpaceX Crew-3176 Oleg Artemyev[note 6][41] Denis Matveev Sergey Korsakov29 September 202210:57 UTCSoyuz MS-21194.5 Kjell Lindgren Bob Hines Samantha Cristoforetti[note 7] Jessica Watkins27 April 202207:52:55 UTCSpaceX Crew-4Will transfer to Expedition 68 Sergey Prokopyev Dmitriy Petelin Francisco Rubio21 September 202213:54 UTCSoyuz MS-22

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List of International Space Station expeditions - Wikipedia

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom capsule splashes down Friday in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida in a return trip from the International Space Station. Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP hide caption

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom capsule splashes down Friday in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida in a return trip from the International Space Station.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Four astronauts returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule Friday, ending their nearly six-month space station mission with a splashdown in the Atlantic off Florida.

Wet and windy weather across Florida delayed their homecoming. SpaceX and NASA finally gave the all-clear on Friday, and the three Americans and one Italian departed the International Space Station, their residence since April.

The capsule parachuted into the ocean, just off Jacksonville, Florida, about five hours after it left the space station. It carried NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, the first Black woman to complete a long-term spaceflight, and the European Space Agency's Samantha Cristoforetti. SpaceX delivered their replacements last week.

Before checking out, the astronauts said they couldn't wait to have a cold drink with ice, eat some pizza and ice cream, take a shower, revel in nature and, of course, reunite with their families. NASA planned to hustle them to Houston once they were off SpaceX's recovery ship and back on solid ground.

"Getting the first few hugs when we get back is really going to be awesome," Hines told reporters earlier in the week.

Remaining aboard the space station are three Americans, three Russians and one Japanese.

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Four astronauts return to Earth after nearly 6 months on the Space Station - NPR

Have you ever looked up at the sky, at dawn or dusk, and seen a bright spot moving swiftly across the sky? It's not a new star shifting out of sequence. Chances are you just saw the International Space Station (ISS).

At 357 feet end-to-end, the ISS is a football field-sized orbital microgravity, solar-powered research laboratory, training facility, and observatory. It travels at 17,500mph, 250 miles above our heads, and orbits the Earth every 90 minutes. If its hard to imagine how fast that is, an airplanes top speed is 575mph.

Contrary to popular belief, the ISS is not the first place humans have ever lived outside of planet Earth (that was NASAs Skylab(Opens in a new window), which orbited the Earth from 1973-1979), but it's a crucial stepping stone toward human space exploration, and our species future habitats on other planets.

If you want to know how to track the ISS, weve got you covered. Here's how to check out NASAs interactive map and sign up for email or text alerts to know the best time to look up.

If you want to track the ISS from home, go to Spot The Station(Opens in a new window) and use the interactive map to find sighting opportunities in your area. There is also the Live Space Station Tracking Map(Opens in a new window), which shows the physical location of the satellite over the Earth.

Potential sightings are marked by blue pins on the map. I live in Los Angeles, so the nearest blue pin on the map is to the Northeast of the city, high up in the San Gabriel Mountains, at Mount Baldy.

Sighting Location map(Credit: Spot the Station)

You can select a blue pin and click the View sighting opportunities link to see when the ISS could be seen from that spot. The data is precise, showing the exact day, time, elevation, and duration of ISS sighting in minutes. NASA also provides links to share each potential sighting occasion via Facebook and Twitter.

All sightings will occur within a few hours before or after sunrise or sunset. This is the optimal viewing period as the sun reflects off the space station and contrasts against the darker sky. Before heading out to any single spot, it should be noted that the ISS needs to be at an elevation of above 40 degrees from the horizon in the nights sky or you wont see anything.

You can also sign up for alerts(Opens in a new window). Click the Sign Up button in the Heads Up Alerts section, and enter your general location by selecting a blue pin on the map and clicking Sign up for this location.

Choose if you want email or text notifications, then enter your email address or mobile carrier and number. Choose whether you want AM or PM alert times, check the boxes so you can agree to the terms, and click Submit. NASA requires a double opt-in to their alerts service. Once you provide the information above, you will receive an 8-digit code (so keep an eye out for it).

Once your code arrives, return to the sign up page and look to the Enter your Code section on the right of the screen. Enter your email or number, and add the code you were sent. Click Process Code to complete the registration process.

The site will then confirm your alerts are active. Check that all the data is correct, with your preferred location (i.e. mine is Mount Baldy as thats the closest one to Los Angeles). This page will also give you the current months sighting options, in your local time zone.

NASA will then notify you when the ISS is in your area and within optimal viewing conditions.

If you opted to receive emails, dont forget to add [emailprotected] to your contacts so you can avoid the notifications slipping into your spam folder. Your alerts will continue to ping your phone or inbox for a year. After that, you will need to sign up again.

The seven-member crew of Expedition 68(Credit: NASA)

Whats life like aboard the ISS? We interviewed astronaut Nicole Stott in 2018 during the press tour for NatGeos One Strange Rock(Opens in a new window). She told us about her 27-year career at NASA, spending 104 days in space and performing a six-hour and 39-minute spacewalk, then returning to Earth on Space Shuttle Discoverys final descent.

Whos up there now? At the time of writing, there are seven astronauts onboard(Opens in a new window), including Nicole A. Mann, the first indigenous woman from NASA to go to space.

There are also robots aboard the ISS. These Astrobee robots are designed to track radiation levels, assist in two-way communications with mission control on Earth, and keep well out of the way of astronauts running experiments.As of April 2022, the Astrobee program "has operated over 750 hours on the space station, completing over 100 activities, from tech demonstrations to assisting in experiments," NASA says(Opens in a new window).

The European robotic arm extending from the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module(Credit: NASA)

If youre an optimist, the ISS is welcome evidence that we can all play nicely together when we have common goalslike, say, the future of life itself. According to the ISS National Laboratory(Opens in a new window), 240 people from 19 countries have visited the station, which has hosted more than 3,000 research investigations from researchers in more than 100 countries.

Not a spoiler alert but, in about 5 billion years, our Sun will die(Opens in a new window), so our descendants need to be long-gone by then. In order to explore the known universe, we need to find out how to equip humans for (very) long distance travel, and learn how they can survive in (extremely) hostile environments.The ISS serves as a micro-gravity testbed for technologies that will enable this.

One of those experiments is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS)(Opens in a new window), a 7.5-ton module containing the first precision particle physics detector in space. We previously spoke with Dr. Samuel Ting, the scientist in charge of the AMS, to find out how it's been sifting space," modeling billions of cosmic rays, and looking for evidence of dark matter, all to discover the origins of the universe.

Other experiments(Opens in a new window) being conducted on the ISS range from biology and biotechnology investigations, to space science (such as experimental chrondule formation, or stardust) and evidence-based human research, including identifying genetic predispositions to physical shifts within microgravity environments.

SpaceX Crew-5 Mission Specialist Anna Kikina from Roscosmos(Credit: NASA)

The ISS was constructed in situi.e. above the Earths atmosphere. The first module launched on Nov. 20, 1998, and the first crew went up on Oct. 31, 2000. Since its inception, 16 countries have been involved, under the cooperation of five space agenciesCSA (Canada),ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), Roscosmos (Russia), and NASA (United States).

In a time of heightened conflict between major players on Earth, its remarkable that everyone involved manages to remain beyond such strife and get on with the job at hand, for the most part. That said, Russia is leaving the ISS at some point this decade, and China is currently building a space station of its own.

Blue Origin NS-22(Credit: Blue Origin)

On a sadder note, the ISS itself will be decommissioned in 2030, so its worth making time to spot it in the nights sky at least once before it goes.

Although not a short read, NASAs transition plan details(Opens in a new window) how the station will be developed for commercial use in the future, with steps being taken to develop both the supply and demand side of the low-Earth orbit commercial economy, and the technical steps and budget required for transition.

For those of us who long to be space tourists, and not just spot space stations from the ground, the transition report confirms that NASA has signed agreements with Blue Origin, Nanoracks LLC, and Northrop Grumman to develop commercial destinations in space.

Until then, look up and imagine what life will be like when we can all go into Low Earth Orbitand then where no human has gone before, boldly or otherwise.

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Just Look Up: How to Track the International Space Station - PCMag

The new crew arrived at the International Space Station last week, all smiles and floating hair. There was, as usual, a little welcome ceremony, with heartfelt remarks from the newcomers streamed live for the people they left behind on Earth. A few of the astronauts floated above the others and turned upside down, hanging like bats, so that their beaming faces would fit into the frame.

But this latest trip was different: For the first time, a Russian cosmonaut had traveled to the space station on an American SpaceX capsule launched into orbit from Florida. The ride was the result of a new seat-swapping arrangement between the United States and Russia. Before 2020, when NASA started using SpaceX to reach the ISS, the space agency had relied solely on Russias astronaut-transport system, the Soyuz, paying millions of dollars a seat. Now American astronauts will fly on Soyuz, and Russian cosmonauts on SpaceX, with no money exchanged between the two countries.

The Russian and American space programs have been tangled up since the beginning, and they remain tethered now, even as relations between the two countries deteriorate because of the ongoing war in Ukraine. The two have no choice but to work together: The ISS is a shared space, with the U.S. and Russia its largest partners and Russia responsible for maintaining the stations orbit.

Beyond the ISS, though, Russias space portfolio isnt all that grandiose these days. Although cosmonauts fly into orbit regularly, Russia does not have a rover on the far side of the moon, as China has, or orbiters around Mars, as India and the United Arab Emirates have. It does not have a fleet of space telescopes like the U.S has. The Soviet Union was the first to send a human being to space, decades ago, and its early accomplishments are a distinct point of national pride. But the Russian space program has stalled for years, plagued by sparse budgets. And that was before Vladimir Putins onslaught on Ukraine: Some of the space plans the country still had in the works are falling apart. Now the Russian space effort may be more adrift than ever.

All of the satellites around Earth, thousands and thousands of them, whether the navigation kind or the spying type, can trace their history to Sputnik. When the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into orbit 65 years ago, it ushered in a new era of technologyand set the tone for the space race. Within a couple of years, the Soviet Union had started launching spacecraft to the moon, where they intentionally crashed into the surface, sprinkling hardware across the regolith in a very explosive first. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel to space, beating Americans to the milestone by less than a month. But by the end of the decade, the U.S. had effectively won the race: When American astronauts launched to the moon, the Soviet Union was still trying to figure out how to stop its rocket from exploding.

Read: The Russian invasion touches outer space

In the following years, the Soviets put the first-ever lander on Mars, which transmitted for about 20 seconds before cutting out, and sent a series of missions to Venus. They built their own space shuttle, which flew only once, and built a space station that operated for 15 years before being ditched into the sea. The fall of the Soviet Union led to a decreased influence on the world stage, but Russia remained a key player in space. By 1998, Roscosmos, the post-Soviet space agency, was helping the U.S. assemble the ISS piece by piece. For years, it was the only nation capable of flying people to the ISS.

These space successes have become a meaningful part of Russias national identity. Space exploration is one of the two reference points in recent historythe other being the Soviet Unions victory in World War IIthat enjoys a broad consensus among Russians and defines many features of Russian political culture, Pavel Luzin, a Russian space-policy analyst, has written. In recent years, after Russias takeover of Crimea and the resulting international backlash, the effort has become less innovative and more militarily focused, while lacking a clear future direction, James Clay Moltz, a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, has written. Last year, Russia conducted a missile test to blow up a defunct satellite, producing debris that passed dangerously close to the ISS. The space program is also running on a dwindling budget. Russia is struggling to find a formula for space success in the 21st century, Moltz wrote in 2020.

Russias full-on invasion of Ukraine has only made matters worse. The fallout from the war has narrowed the countrys space portfolio even more; sanctions have included U.S. measures meant to degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program. Russia has long hoped to rekindle its moon efforts, and eventually put people on the surface, but the European Space Agency, its partner in the effort, has withdrawn its participation because of the war in Ukraine. Europe has also kicked Russia out of the effort to send a new rover to Mars to search for signs of ancient life. National space organizations and private space companies alike have dropped Russian launch services on more than a dozen occasions, seeking other providers. Russia risks being left behind completely in the increasingly competitive commercial space-launch market, Jeremy Grunert, an Air Force lawyer who specializes in military and space law, wrote recently.

Read: Maybe dont blow up satellites in space

Roscosmos seeks to strike out on its own in low-Earth orbit and build a new space station, with the first module launching sometime in 2028, and more going up in 2030the year the U.S. wants to start winding down the ISS. But sanctions have hindered development of Russias space-station hardware, which has to be redesigned, as there will be no access to the Western electronics that the designers initially had in mind, Luzin wrote. It is obvious that the Russian orbital station project is both very ambitious and largely unfeasible given the current circumstances. At a press conference held last week after the cosmonaut Anna Kikina launched on SpaceX, Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who serves as the executive director of Roscosmoss human-spaceflight program, told reporters, We know that is not going to happen very quick. Russia, he said, could discuss extending our partnership in ISS.

If Russia were to jump ship early, it would have no spaceflight program to speak of. We must bear in mind that if we discontinue manned flights for several years, it will be very difficult to restore what we have achieved afterwards, Vladimir Solovyov, a former cosmonaut and the flight director for the Russian side of the ISS, said in a Roscosmos interview this summer. So Russia is likely to stay on the ISS for as long as possible, especially as the rest of its space endeavors wither. Not all of Russias space goals have been thrown into doubt. The country is working with China to build a lunar base by the 2030s. Although China has called for Russia to end its war on Ukraine, it has expressed support for their future cooperation in space exploration.

Read: Why the far side of the moon matters so much

After Kikina arrived on the ISS last week, blasting off in an American-built capsule, sleeker and more spacious than the Russian Soyuz, I wondered whether she might say something about whats going on in her home country. We shouldnt assume that any professional spacefarer shares the beliefs of her president, although earlier this year, a trio of cosmonauts had posed for pictures on the ISS with a flag in support of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine (NASA responded by saying that it strongly rebukes the display). But Kikina, the sole woman in Russias cosmonaut corps, just thanked her family and the crews she worked with, and held up a little handmade doll as tribute to her hometown of Novosibirsk. Meanwhile, 250 miles below, the war raged on, weakening Russias standing as a spacefaring nation.

A force that dominated the early days of humanitys drive to reach the stars, that set the pace for the history books, now risks flaming out because of a land war back on Earth. In the coming years, Russia may no longer be considered a space power at all; in fact, some observers are making that assertion now.

Russias space future matters deeply to Russia itself, of course, but it also concerns the rest of the word. The country, uncomfortable in the shadow of other space powers, could double down on its military uses of space, threatening an already precarious arena. And while space exploration is an image-bolstering activity, it has consequences that transcend national bordersilluminating discoveries about the universe and our place in it, and remarkable demonstrations of what human beings can do with a little bit of rocket fuel and some curiosity, in the skies above Earth and well beyond. With Russias potential downfall as a space power, humanitys potential in the cosmos may shrink, and a once-formidable participant that could have propelled exploration of the cosmos further will be left out of the endeavor instead.

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The Russian Space Program Is Falling Back to Earth - The Atlantic

Tiangong is a space station that the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) is building in low Earth orbit. In May 2021, China launched Tianhe, the first of the orbiting space station's three modules, and the country aims to finish building the station by the end of 2022. CMSA hopes to keep Tiangong inhabited continuously by three astronauts for at least a decade. The space station will host many experiments from both China and other countries.

Related: China's space station will be open to science from all UN nations

Tiangong, which means "Heavenly Palace," will consist of Tianhe, the main habitat for astronauts, and two modules dedicated to hosting experiments, Mengtian and Wentian, both of which are due to launch in 2022. Shenzhou spacecraft, launching from Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert, will send crews of three astronauts to the space station, while Tianzhou cargo spacecraft will launch from Wenchang on the Chinese island of Hainan to deliver supplies and fuel to the station.

Tiangong will be much smaller than the International Space Station (ISS), with only three modules compared with 16 modules on the ISS. Tiangong will also be lighter than the ISS, which weighs about 400 tons (450 metric tons) following the recent addition of Russia's Nauka module.

The 54-foot-long (16.6 meter) Tianhe module launched with a docking hub that allows it to receive Shenzhou and Tianzhou spacecraft, as well as welcome the two later experiment modules. A large robotic arm will help position the Mengtian and Wentian modules and assist astronauts during spacewalks.

Tianhe is much larger than the Tiangong 1 and 2 test space labs China launched in the last decade and nearly three times heavier, at 24 tons (22 metric tons). The new Tiangong, visiting spacecraft and cargo spacecraft will expand the usable space for the astronauts; so much that they'll feel as though "they will be living in a villa," compared with how little space was available on previous Chinese space labs, Bai Linhou, deputy chief designer of the space station, told CCTV.

Tianhe features regenerative life support, including a way to recycle urine, to allow astronauts to stay in orbit for long periods. It is the main habitat for the astronauts and also houses the propulsion systems to keep the space station in orbit.

China has said it will take 11 launches to finish Tiangong: three module launches, four crewed missions and four Tianzhou spacecraft to supply cargo and fuel. The first three launches Tianhe, Tianzhou 2 and Shenzhou 12 have gone smoothly.

Once completed, Tiangong will be joined by a huge, Hubble-like space telescope, which will share the space station's orbit and be able to dock for repairs, maintenance and possibly upgrades. Named Xuntian, which translates to "survey the heavens," the telescope will have a 6.6-foot (2 m) diameter mirror like Hubble but will have a field of view 300 times greater. Xuntian will aim to survey 40% of the sky over 10 years using its huge, 2.5-billion-pixel camera.

The space station could potentially be expanded to six modules, if everything goes according to plan. "We can further expand our current three-module space station combination into a four-module, cross-shaped combination in the future," Bai told CCTV. The second Tianhe core module could then allow two more modules to join the orbital outpost.

China embarked on a long journey to reach the point of building its space station. The project was first approved in 1992, after which the country set about developing the Shenzhou crew spacecraft and the Long March 2F rocket to send astronauts into space. Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut in space in October 2003 and made China the third country in the world to independently send humans into orbit.

China expressed interest in joining the International Space Station partners, but the possibility was ended by a 2011 decree passed by U.S. lawmakers effectively banning NASA from coordinating directly with China or any Chinese-owned company. This means direct collaboration between NASA and Chinese space stations is strictly prohibited, making the prospect of sending U.S. astronauts to Tiangong (or Chinese astronauts to the ISS) impossible.

To be able to build and operate a crewed space station, China first needed to test out crucial space station systems, including life support and technologies for rendezvous and docking of spacecraft in orbit while traveling 17,448 mph (28,080 km/h). To accomplish this, China launched the 9-ton (8.2 metric tons) Tiangong-1 space lab in 2011, and subsequently sent the uncrewed Shenzhou 8 and the crewed Shenzhou 9 and 10 to join Tiangong-1 in orbit.

The upgraded but similarly sized Tiangong-2 launched in 2016 and hosted the two-astronaut crew of Shenzhou 11 for just over a month, setting a new national record for human spaceflight mission duration.

As the China Manned Space Agency checked off these initial milestones, the agency was also focused on developing new, larger Long March heavy-lift rockets to make a space station possible. The Long March 5B was designed specifically to launch the huge space station modules into low Earth orbit. The same rocket was the source of one of the largest uncontrolled reentries in recent decades following the launch of Tianhe in late April 2021.

In 2014 China completed its new, coastal spaceport at Wenchang, specifically to launch these larger-diameter rockets, which need to be delivered by sea.

The first crewed missions Shenzhou 12, 13 and 14 will be for space station construction. A series of operational phase missions lasting six months each will begin in 2023. Crews will carry out experiments in areas such as astronomy, space medicine and life sciences, biotechnology, microgravity combustion and fluid physics and space technologies. Tiangong will also temporarily host six astronauts during crew changeovers, Space.com previously reported.

Related: China selects 18 new astronauts in preparation for space station launch

Tiangong is also likely to host international astronauts in the future. European Space Agency astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Matthias Maurer trained with their Chinese counterparts in 2017 in a small step toward a possible future visit to the Chinese space station, the European Space Agency reported. Astronauts from other countries, particularly those involved in China's Belt and Road initiative, may travel to Tiangong as well; Russia is also considering sending its cosmonauts.

China is looking to develop alternatives for keeping Tiangong supplied, SpaceNews reported. In January 2021, the China Manned Space Agency put out a call for proposals for low-cost, reliable cargo missions to Tiangong. The call was open to commercial companies, echoing NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contracts that provided opportunities to SpaceX.

It will be possible to spot Tiangong from Earth, just as it sometimes is with the ISS. Tiangong will orbit at an altitude of between 211 and 280 miles (340 to 450 kilometers) above Earth and between 43 degrees north and south, and the space station should be a fixture in the sky for at least a decade.

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China's Tiangong space station | Space