Daily Archives: February 6, 2021

Imagine if the International Space Station landed on a Malibu, Calif., hilltop overlooking the ocean, and you might get somewhere close to envisioning the onetime home of the late Milton Sidley and his wife Saralyn Sidley.

The property is an eye-popping blend of curved steel and glass that appears at one end to hover over the landscape. From above, it looks more like a factoryor the secret lair of a Bond villainthan a family home.

It is not warmat least by conventional standards.

Everybodys definition of the word warm is very interesting, says Ed Niles, the Los Angeles architect who designed the home. Personally, I think its a state of mind. Yes, theres not a big roaring fireplace and there arent walls wrapped with a million paintings and drawings of your mother. But you can feel warm in that you feel secure. Its like being in a diving bell under the ocean. Youre encapsulated.

Mr. Niles designed and constructed the property for the Sidleys, then a couple of empty-nesters, in the late 1980s. Mr. Sidley died in 2019, so the station is landing on the market for $20 million.

Originally posted here:
To Malibu and Beyond: A Home That Looks Like the International Space Station Asks $20 Million - The Wall Street Journal

Nanoracks' Bishop Airlock was jolted to life Tuesday at 4:37 p.m.

The airlock, launched into space on Dec. 6 and attached to the International Space Station on Dec. 19, had been powerless until then. But on Tuesday afternoon, the space station's robotic arm attached to the airlock and turned it on.

Then came the magical words: operations nominal. That's space speak for everything is looking great.

Launch day: Airlock aloft as NASA uses Nanoracks technology for the Space Station

"'All vehicle operations are nominal' is kind of a phrase we like to use," said Brock Howe, the airlocks project manager at Nanoracks, "and people think, 'Oh, thats kind of boring.' But in reality, what that means is weve got 100 percent, an A+ on the vehicle right now.

The Bishop Airlock, designed, owned and operated by Webster-based Nanoracks, is the space station's first commercial airlock. In fact, it is the stations first permanent, complex element to be owned and operated by a commercial company.

Airlocks tend to conjure up images of science fiction movies. Astronauts step inside a room with two doors, put on a suit and, after waiting a few minutes, exit for the vast vacuum of space. The dome-shaped Bishop Airlock, however, will operate differently. Instead of two doors, it has a circular opening that is attached to the space station.

When attached, the airlock is pressurized and astronauts can fill it with satellites (ranging from the size of a loaf of bread to a refrigerator) to be deployed. They can also secure projects and experiments to the airlock to give them exposure to the vacuum and radiation of space.

Once astronauts leave the Nanoracks device, air is sucked out and the space station's robotic arm will disconnect the airlock from the space station. The robotic arm positions the airlock away from the station to deploy satellites, or the airlock can be attached to a different part of the stations exterior to expose those strapped-in experiments to space for prolonged periods of time.

On Tuesday, within 10 to 15 seconds of turning on the airlock, NASA could see that it was drawing power. It was working.

But telemetry, which is data on voltage, currents, temperature, etc., wasn't coming to the Nanoracks mission control in Webster.

There was five to 10 minutes of anxiety before the team realized that the telemetry was being sent to Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, but there was a ground issue preventing it from reaching the team in Webster.

Its on the ground," Howe said, "thats a much easier problem to fix.

About 30 minutes after the airlock was powered on, the team started receiving data. A cheer erupted across the room, and someone set off a glitter gun.

Preparing the airlock for launch: How do you ship a brand-new airlock destined for the Space Station? Very carefully.

The team toasted with Limoncello, a tradition started when the airlock's domed shell was being manufactured by Thales Alenia Space in Italy. #MiniAirlock, a handheld version of the airlock, and Baby Yoda (known as Grogu, or The Child, on the Disney+ television series "The Mandalorian") were included in the celebrations.

There are a few more steps before the airlock is deemed operational. It must pass a leak check and be connected to the space station's power (rather than the robotic arm's power). Next week, astronauts are expected to float inside and finish the final configurations.

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Nanoracks airlock, attached to ISS, powers on for first time in months - Houston Chronicle

WALLOPS ISLAND, VA - NOVEMBER 16: In this handout image supplied by NASA, the Northrop Grumman ... [+] Antares rocket, with Cygnus resupply spacecraft onboard, is seen on Pad-0A, November 16, 2018 at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Northrop Grumman's 10th contracted cargo resupply mission for NASA to the International Space Station will deliver about 7,400 pounds of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbital laboratory and its crew. Launch is currently scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 17 at 4:01 a.m. (Photo by Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images)

NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson fought to get her name on her own research in the 1960s, but aerospace company Northrop Grumman just put her name on a space ship. The company announced earlier this week that an uncrewed Cygnus cargo ship, which will launch on a resupply mission to the International Space Station on February 20, is named the Katherine Johnson.

The ship will launch from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, about 100 miles from where Johnson calculated trajectories for Americas first crewed spaceflight, first crewed orbital spaceflight, and first Moon landing.

John Glenn famously insisted that Johnson, the human computer, double-check an electronic computers calculations for his Friendship 7 trajectory before he agreed to launch. If she says theyre good, then Im ready to go, he said.

Johnson joined NASA (then called NACA) in 1953, and for the first five years, she and the other Black women of West Area Computing werent allowed to work or eat alongside their white counterparts or use the same restrooms. The agency desegregated in 1958, but Johnson and her colleagues still received little formal recognition for their work until decades later.

Her work at NASA quite literally launched Americans into space, and her legacy continues to inspire young black women every day, said Northrop Grumman in a press release.

Northrop Grumman, along with SpaceX, has a Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA to fly resupply missions to ISS. Cygnus spacecraft are regular visitors to the space station, along with SpaceXs Cargo Dragon, Russias Progress ships, ESAs European Automated Transfer Vehicle, and Japans H-II Transfer Vehicle all uncrewed.

The upcoming mission, NG-15, will be the 14th Northrop Grumman resupply mission since 2013 (a 2014 mission, ORB-3, failed when the rocket exploded shortly after launch). Traditionally, the company names each Cygnus spacecraft after an individual who has played a pivotal role in human spaceflight, according to a press release.

Previous namesakes include astronauts George David Low, Charles Gordon Fullerton, Janice Elaine Voss, Deke Slayton, Rick Husband, Alan Poindexter, John Glenn, Gene Cernan, John Young, Roger Chaffee, Alan Bean, Robert Lawrence, and Kalpana Chawa, along with former NASA deputy director James R. Thompson, Jr.

Of 14 namesakes (two ships were named for Deke Slayton; the first was the failed ORB-3 mission), Johnson is only the second non-astronaut. Shes also the third woman and the second Black person on the list.

NG-15, the Katherine Johnson, will carry food, replacement equipment, and other supplies to astronauts living and working in low Earth orbit aboard ISS. The ship will also deliver new science experiments to the station, including a group of worms for a study on muscle strength, materials to test whether artificial retinas can be manufactured better in microgravity than on Earth, and a computer called SpaceBorne Computer 2, from Hewlett Packard, which astronauts will use to test whether data can be processed on the space station instead of being beamed back down to Earth. Cygnus has a pressurized cargo module for the supplies and science gear.

With the exception of the Cargo Dragon, most of the resupply ships that dock at ISS make only one flight. Astronauts unload their supplies and science experiments, and then use the empty cargo ship as a space dumpster for the next several months. When its full, they send the expendable automated ship back to earth, where it burns up during atmospheric re-entry.

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The Next ISS Resupply Mission Is Named For Katherine Johnson - Forbes

Over the past two decades, the International Space Station has been helping NASA explore farther into space and benefitting life back on Earth. Among the historic scientific breakthroughs achieved, astronauts have practiced stimulating the low-Earth orbit economy, growing food in microgravity, deploying cube satellites from station, and monitoring Earth from a unique perspective.

Stimulating the low-Earth orbit economy: From satellite deployment to in-space research, a vibrant commercial space economy has developed, with a value that now exceeds $345 billion. The space station has been a key part of supporting that growth.

Commercial activities validate business models and expand the numbers of entities with experience in conducting business in space. Commercialization of low-Earth orbit frees up resources NASA needs to continue its exploration of space. By having companies join forces with government agencies, space exploration can continue, while providing access to a platform that helpscreate jobs, build revenues, and create new products and services for people on Earth.

Through the ISS U.S. National Lab, many companies are able to access the space station and conduct research and technology development investigations in microgravity. The multitude of studies has worked to improve products such as shampoo, fabric softener, and the processes used to create retinal implants.

Growing food in microgravity: As humans explore farther from Earth, the ability to grow food is a solution to several challenges of long-duration missions. The packaged diet used by crews in low-Earth orbit works well but relies on frequent resupply missions. During a mission to Mars, the vitamins and quality of packaged food would degrade over time and couldnt easily be restocked.

Fresh produce provides nutritious meals over multiple years and reduces cargo requirements for the trip. New solutions for watering, lighting and growing plants have been explored on station to prepare for these missions. In 2015, astronauts sampled theirfirst space-grown salad. Eight types of leafy greens have been grown in the Veggie facility for astronauts to eat, fine tuning the best techniques.

Deployment of cube satellites from station: Cube satellites one of the smallest types of satellites provide an inexpensive way to perform science and technology demonstrations in space. One way these compact cubes can reach Earth orbit is by hitching a ride to the space station, where they are deployed from an airlock. Sharing the cost of a rocket launch with the other groups launching payloads to the space station can make deploying a CubeSat more affordable.

Putting these satellites into low-Earth orbit gives researchers and companies a unique perspective on Earth. More than 250 CubeSats have been deployed from station, performing numerous technology demonstrations, providing Internet services, and more. NASAsCubeSat Launch initiativeprovides a pathway to conduct research in space for CubeSats developed by educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and NASA centers and programs.

Monitoring Earth from a unique perspective: At about 250 miles above Earth on a 90-minute orbit and an orbital path over 90% of Earths population, the station affords a unique perspective that cannot be obtained on the ground, and it can provide improved spatial resolution and variable lighting conditions compared to the sun-synchronous orbits of typical Earth remote-sensing satellites.

When scientists can better comprehend and monitor water and energy cycles, ecosystem changes, geological hazards, and population migrations, they can offer useful information regarding climate changes, as well as assist with natural disaster response.

The orbiting lab has evolved into a robust platform for researchers studying Earths water, air, land masses, vegetation, and more.ECOSTRESSanalyzes water stress in plants, whileGEDIlooks at the same areas of Earth, analyzing carbon stored in forests. Though the many experiments collect data individually, together they provide a set of measurements that pushes the leading edge of environmental research.

Editors note: This is the third in a five-part series highlighting scientific and technological breakthroughs that have been achieved over the past two decades as a result of International Space Station science. This research helps humanity explore farther into space while also benefiting life on Earth. The Payload Operations Integration Center at Marshall Space Flight Center schedules, assists with, and coordinates all experiments on the station's U.S. Orbital Segment.

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Space Station research marks two decades of breakthroughs - Theredstonerocket

China's Tianwen-1 probe has sent back its first image of Mars, the national space agency said, as the mission prepares to touch down on the Red Planet later this year.

The spacecraft, launched in July around the same time as a rival US mission, is expected to enter Mars orbit around February 10.

The black-and-white photo released late Friday by the China National Space Administration showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

The photo was taken about 2.2 million kilometres (1.4 million miles) from Mars, according to CNSA, which said the spacecraft was now 1.1 million kilometres from the planet.

Graphic on China's first independent probe to Mars that was launched in July. (Photo: AFP)

The robotic craft ignited one of its engines to "make an orbital correction" Friday and was expected to slow down before being "captured by Martian gravity" around February 10, the agency said.The five-tonne Tianwen-1 includes a Mars orbiter, a lander and a rover that will study the planet's soil.

China hopes to ultimately land the rover in May in Utopia, a massive impact basin on Mars.

After watching the United States and the Soviet Union lead the way during the Cold War, China has poured billions of dollars into its military-led space programme.

It has made huge strides in the past decade, sending a human into space in 2003.The Asian powerhouse has laid the groundwork to assemble a space station by 2022 and gain a permanent foothold in Earth orbit.

But Mars has proved a challenging target so far, with most missions sent by the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and India to the planet since 1960 ending in failure. Tianwen-1 is not China's first attempt to reach Mars.

A previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended prematurely as the launch failed.

China has already sent two rovers to the Moon. With the second, China became the first country to make a successful soft landing on the far side.

All systems on the Tianwen-1 probe are in "good condition," CNSA said Friday.

READ | Dream of going to space? SpaceX to launch 1st commercial astronaut mission to orbit Earth

ALSO READ | Will International Space Station survive if a floating Cheetos puff slams into it?

WATCH | NASA's TESS Mission Finds Exoplanet 'Super Earth'

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China's space probe sends back its first image of Mars - India Today

(Space Cargo Unlimited via Courthouse News)

BORDEAUX, France (AFP) Twelve bottles of Bordeaux wine and dozens of vine shoots are back at home in southwest France after spending months on the International Space Station (ISS) for an unusual astrochemistry experiment.

The red wine and 320 mature shoots known as canes arrived Monday after their return to Earth via a Dragon capsule operated by SpaceX, the private launching company created by Elon Musk.

They will be analyzed at the Institute of Vine and Wine Science in Bordeaux to see how the stresses produced by zero gravity affect both grape growth and the finished product, which could spur new agricultural research.

The WISE Mission is the first private applied research program aimed at using spatial conditions to tackle agricultural challenges of tomorrow, on a warmer planet and with less water, said Nicolas Gaume.

Gaume and his partner Emmanuel Etcheparre founded their Space Cargo Unlimited group for carrying out a range of research projects in zero gravity.

The bottles were on the station for 438 days and will be compared with 12 similar Bordeaux bottles stored in similar conditions on Earth, while the vine plants half Cabernet Sauvignon and half Merlot were stored 312 days.

A private expert tasting of the wine is planned for later this month.

The only thing that changes compared with Earth is the near-total absence of gravity, which produces immense stress for life on the ISS, Gaume told AFP.

Plants that can be made resilient to such stress might also be able to better cope with environmental changes produced by climate change.

The things we learn about wine we also plan to develop for other agricultural uses, he said.

The cost of the project, carried out with the University of Erlangen in Germany and Frances CNES space agency, was not disclosed.

It was not the first time wine has been sent into orbit: In 1985, Jean-Michel Caze, owner of the storied Chateau Lynch-Bages, gave French astronaut Patrick Baudry a small bottle of its 1975 vintage for a Space Shuttle launch in Houston.

But no one got to sample the wine in weightlessness it stills sits unopened on a dining-room shelf in Cazes home.

Agence France-Presse

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Out-of-This-World Wine Back in Bordeaux After Space Station Trip - Courthouse News Service

OTTAWA -- It was an out of this world experience for a group of Ottawa students.

As students become used to learning and connecting virtually through technology, on Friday, seventeen students with the Ottawa Carleton District School Board used radio waves to connect live with the International Space Station.

They had an opportunity to ask questions to Mike S. Hopkins, as he was high above the earth.

Connecting through amateur radio, students asked a variety of questions during an approximately 10-minute window. NASA says that as the space station travels at approximately eight kilometres per second, communication is only possible as the station is above our horizon.

"How does it feel to see the sun, earth, moon and stars from space?" asked Sham.

"It doesnt seem real. I have to pinch myself every morning, because its amazing to me that Im actually up in space orbiting the earth 250 miles up or 400 kilometres over," replied Hopkins.

"This is Alex, do you think extraterrestrial beings exist? asked another student.

"Its hard to believe that there are not extraterrestrial beings out there, with the billions and billions of stars that are there; so, I think theres a likelihood, over," replied Hopkins.

NASA selected Michael S. Hopkins as an astronaut in 2009. The Missouri native is currently serving as Commander on the Crew-1 SpaceX Crew Dragon, named Resilience, which launched Nov. 15, 2020, according to the NASA website.

The event took place for online learning students, and during COVID-19, its a topic that was asked by one student..

"Hello, this is Rowan. Is COVID-19 a concern for astronauts?

Hopkins replied, COVID-19 is absolutely a concern for astronauts; fortunately, all of us up here, though, we know that we dont have COVID-19, so were pretty safe up here - but, when we return to earth, we have to be very careful - and, before we launch we have to protect ourselves by going into what we call quarantine."

Six-year-old Samantha told CTV News Ottawa the question and answer session with the astronaut, "was just awesome."

Ottawa Carleton Virtual School and NASA teacher co-ordinator Lori McFarlane says the 10-minute session was a success.

"Ive had so many emailing saying that this was the highlight of the kids week, they just found it so interesting to be able to listen to an astronaut and hear what he has to say about the space station," said McFarlane. "For some of them, it will ignite their interest in science and technology, and perhaps even space exploration or becoming an astronaut."

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'Is COVID-19 a concern for astronauts?': Ottawa students chat with astronaut on space station - CTV News Ottawa

Chances are, you've seen, heard, or felt a lightning bolt erupt in the sky somewhere near you. After all, there are well over a billion lightning flashes on Earth per year. That's about four dozen per second, somewhere over our planet (sometimes in one spot, where an astronomer with a phonecam can get video).

Thunderstorms are a common feature of our planet, and the electrical fields therein are the root source of the power of lightning. But they also generate other phenomena, too, ones that we're just starting to learn about.

One of the most mysterious of these is a blue flash. As the name says, these are intense, short blasts of blue light that occur near the tops of storm clouds, and last for only ten microseconds (one one-hundred-thousandth of a second). They sometimes trigger blue jets: upward-reaching tendrils that last for perhaps a few tenths of a second. These pulsate with energy as they go from being narrow channels to fanning out into wide cones as they propagate into the stratosphere, 1020 kilometers above the ground. But we don't know a huge amount about them.

Because they happen above the clouds, it's hard to see them from the Earth's surface. That's why scientists built a device called the AtmosphereSpace Interactions Monitor (or ASIM), which is mounted on the outside of one of the modules on the International Space Station (ISS). It looks to the Earth below, and can take data at 10 microsecond intervals, allowing these weird phenomena to be studied.

On February 26, 2019, a thunderstorm brewed in the South Pacific Ocean near the equator. The ISS passed almost directly over it, giving ASIM an incomparable view. Happily, the storm didn't disappoint: Five blue flashes were seen, including one that generated a blue jet.

The flashes occurred 16 kilometers above the ocean, near the center of the storm where deep convection was seen this is the rising and falling of air inside the cloud, which is how the strong electric fields inside are generated. These flashes may be from electrons accelerated to high speed inside the cloud slamming into nitrogen molecules in the air, which respond by emitting ultraviolet and blue light.

When this happens, the air becomes ionized electrons are stripped from the molecules creating a channel in the air that can conduct electricity. There's a huge charge difference between the top of a cloud and the air above it, and if conditions are just right, that blue flash can create a blue jet, a tremendous but narrow discharge of electricity upwards into the sky (similar to a lightning leader). The one seen by ASIM stretched about 50 kilometers up.

There was also a very faint red pulse at the start of the flash, which may have been the start of the leader, the first ionized channel carved upward, probably a few hundred meters long. This is also due to electrically excited nitrogen gas emitting light as well (the same reason some aurorae are red).

The blue flashes did more than make a blue jet, too: They made ELVES, which stands for get this Emission of Light and Very low frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic pulse Sources. A blue flash strongly accelerates electrons, which in turn generate powerful pulses of radio waves. These pulses move upwards into the ionosphere (80 kilometers or more above Earth's surface) which themselves accelerate electrons there. This creates rapidly expanding rings of blue and ultraviolet light as the pulse propagates horizontally at the bottom of the ionosphere, like a ripple moving away from a rock dropped into a pond.

I know, this is all quite complicated, but that's part of the point. The theory is partly there, but scientists have lacked observations to back them up. These ASIM observations really help.

Mind you, there are lots of other bizarre phenomena generated in clouds you may not have heard of. Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, for example, are blasts of extremely high-energy photons out of the tops of thunderstorms, generated when electrons in the cloud are accelerated to nearly the speed of light and then interact with molecules of air. Maybe; the details of these flashes also aren't well understood even though they've been studied for decades.

There are also red sprites, which are tendril-like features that flash upwards from the tops of clouds. Pilots had reported seeing them for years but they were never caught in photos, so scientists were perhaps overly skeptical. In the 1990s these faint flashes started turning up in digital images, and now they're understood more or less in general. They're on my bucket list of Things I Want To See For Myself, but it's hard; since they appear over storms you have to be far enough away to see above the storm, and they're faint. We do see enormous storms to our east in the summer, and at some point I'll see about trying for them.

I know I usually write about mysterious objects and phenomena quadrillions of kilometers away, but there's a lot of very cool stuff going on much closer to us. It's not technically astronomy, but hey, it's still over our heads. Unless you're ASIM, looking down on Earth. But that's just a matter of perspective.

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A blue bolt out of the blue: On the edge of space, lightning leaps *upward* - SYFY WIRE

A LOCAL photographer has spoken of the amazement of capturing the moment the International Space Station (ISS) flew over the Dumbarton night sky.

Gerry Doherty took to his back garden in Dumbarton to capture the magnificent sight of the ISS - the largest single structure humans have ever put into space, manned year-round by citizens of different countries -as it barrelled past the area through the stars on the night of Saturday, January 30.

Gerry told the Reporter: I have an app that gives you the time that its flying over, and I used a DLSR camera on a triped with a twenty second exposure with a remote release to capture the photo.

It just amazes me everytime I see it flying overhead at 17,000 miles per hour that there are astronauts and cosmonauts working aboard it.

Even in lockdown you dont have to travel to get interesting shots of the night sky, just look up from your garden.

The giant collaborative project was launched in 1998 and intended as a laboratory, an observatory and factory for space transportation.

Occupying astronauts are given a run at the station for six months at a time as the station orbits the earth 16 times per day.

READ MORE:Click here for all the latest news headlines from around Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven

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ISS Dumbarton: Space station caught on camera over West Dunbartonshire - The Dumbarton and Vale of Leven Reporter