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HOUSTON, March 9, 2017 When retired Army Col. Mark Vande Hei blasts off into space later this year for a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station, he'll be proud to play a part in helping advance the human race.

But what he really can't wait for, he said, is the stellar view from 200 miles above Earth, where the space station orbits the planet every 90 minutes.

In 2010, a cupola was installed on the station. It's a multi-windowed observatory module that offers 360-degree views of the blue planet. Inside, astronauts use various levers and controls to perform tasks like using the station's robotic arm to pull in routine supply loads launched into space.

They can also take time to reflect on the Earth's beauty.

"I'm actually looking forward to seeing what it's like to see the planet from a different perspective," said Vande Hei, 50, who retired last year from the Army where he served as a Ranger-tabbed combat engineer.

Orbiting the Earth

The sight of Earth is so breathtaking, it brought tears to the eyes of a fellow astronaut the first time he peered out of the cupola, Vande Hei said. Once he gets that chance, the former colonel believes, he will finally see Earth as it really is -- an island in the huge ocean of space.

"Hopefully, [I'll be] getting a better understanding of what it means to be a human being on planet Earth," he said.

But Vande Hei will be doing more than just sightseeing. With Russia choosing to send just one cosmonaut on the upcoming mission after deciding to reduce its footprint at the space station due to financial reasons, Vande Hei has taken on more duties. They include serving as the co-pilot of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that now ferries American astronauts into space since NASA's space shuttle program ended in 2011.

"Once we lost that other Russian, I had to jump into that co-pilot seat," Vande Hei said, adding that another NASA astronaut has also joined the mission. "Instead of being kind of a passenger, I'm really helping that commander fly that spacecraft. That is a huge change in responsibilities."

Vande Hei's mission was originally locked in for this March, but it had to be postponed to mid-September so he could train for a few months in Russia. That extra time also allowed him to learn more Russian, which will help him communicate with the spacecraft's Russian commander.

Tough Training

Like other astronauts preparing to go to space, Vande Hei must undergo an extensive training regimen. Last week, he spent a six-hour session submerged underwater at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The lab boasts one of the world's largest pools. At more than 200 feet long and 40 feet deep, it's big enough to hold a replica of the space station. Using a specialized spacesuit that simulates microgravity, Vande Hei floated around the mock station, practicing replacing large nickel hydrogen batteries with lithium-ion ones, a task he may have to perform as part of a spacewalk.

The next day, he trained on an advanced resistive exercise device, which astronauts use to prevent muscle loss while they're weightless in space. Astronauts can simulate free-weight exercises in normal gravity using the device's adjustable resistance piston-driven vacuum cylinders that provide a lift load of up to 600 pounds.

"It's vitally important. It's one of our biggest countermeasures on orbit to mitigate bone loss and muscle atrophy," said Staci Latham, an astronaut strength, conditioning and rehabilitation specialist who is helping train Vande Hei.

According to a NASA fact sheet, astronauts can lose up to 15 percent of their muscle volume if they don't exercise in space.

"They would start to degrade," Latham said, adding that muscle lost in space could be impossible to regain once back on Earth.

Before heading into space, astronauts will train with Latham 16 times in personal one-hour sessions to ensure they know how to use the machine. While in space, astronauts will typically spend 2.5 hours each day exercising for six days a week, she said.

Teamwork

Vande Hei plans to use his Army teamwork skills while he works as part of the six-person team tasked with maintaining the space station and conducting science experiments. After all, being stuck for months inside the station -- about the size of a six-bedroom home -- can present difficulties if people can't get along.

"You can drive each other crazy really easily," he said. "So it's really important that people who do this job are people who can have fun while isolated from the rest of humanity for an extended period of time."

That level of teamwork must also be reflected among the many employees at NASA and other agencies who work together to make space travel possible, Vande Hei said.

"No astronaut could have gotten to the moon without thousands of people working to make that spacecraft work properly," he said. "I feel honored to be in that position, but I also feel very humbled that I'm in a situation where I really could not be in without a lot of other people helping me out."

Upon his return to Earth, which is currently slated for late February 2018, Vande Hei said he hopes to work as a capsule communicator in mission control. It's a job he has done before, but this time he will be able to draw on his own experience to guide the astronauts who follow in his footsteps.

(Follow Sean Kimmons on Twitter: @KimmonsARNEWS)

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Retired Army Colonel Prepares for Space Station Mission - Department of Defense

What happens when an astronaut gets sick in space? Do the astronauts get on each other's nerves? What would happen if the International Space Station were struck by debris?

These were a few of the questions students from Blair Pointe Elementary School asked Thursday when they spoke to ISS Commander Shane Kimbrough.

Blair Pointe Elementary is one of only 12 organizations around the world to speak with the ISS in a 6-month period as part of a grant through Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, otherwise known as ARISS.

Blair Pointe applied for the grant last year after Maconaquah Elementary was awarded it in 2015. Bill McAlpin, president of the Miami County Amateur Radio Club, assisted in the grant application and helped the school connect with the ISS Thursday morning.

The students were given approximately 11 minutes to speak with Kimbrough. The ISS moves so quickly that they had to connect as soon as it was within range of their radio set-up, and they lost contact as it passed over the Atlantic Ocean. Within those 11 minutes, the ISS traveled about 3,000 miles.

It was a tense few minutes when McAlpin began trying to contact Kimbrough.

November Alpha One Sierra Sierra, this is Whiskey Delta Nine Golf India Uniform, he said several times, followed only by static.

Finally, Kimbrough responded.

Fifteen students lined up to ask Kimbrough questions. One student asked how many people live on the ISS at one time. Kimbrough said only six, because the shuttle used to get to it can hold only three people.

Another student asked what happens when astronauts get sick in space. Kimbrough said they have a well-stocked supply of medicine and equipment.

But fortunately for us, nobodys gotten sick on our mission, he said.

Kimbrough provided several answers during the 11-minute contact with the school. He said he and the astronauts perform several kinds of experiments every day, and they have to exercise regularly to keep their bones from deteriorating in zero gravity.

He said the astronauts go through extensive training before going into space, but nothing prepared him for his first space walk, which he said is the hardest physical thing about his job.

You just cant train for that experience, he said.

Hannah Baker asked whether bones break differently in space than they do on Earth. Kimbrough said he wouldnt know for sure because none of his crew have broken bones while on the ISS. He speculated that bones would probably break in a similar way, though the healing process might be different.

It was amazing to get to talk to an astronaut, Baker said after the event.

A few other students asked questions that Kimbrough could only answer theoretically because they havent happened, such as what would happen if an astronaut became unhooked from the ISS or if the ISS were struck by debris. One student asked if he worried about the ISS traveling beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. Kimbrough said thankfully those situations have not happened, though they are trained for most emergency scenarios.

One student asked if the other astronauts ever get on Kimbrough's nerves. He answered by saying that it's always a possibility with six people in a small space disconnected from the rest of the world, but the astronauts are trained to be able to work well together.

Kimbrough will return to earth next month after having been in space for six months. He said hes looking forward to seeing his family, adding that if he could bring his family on the ISS with him, it would be a perfect set-up.

Terri McCain, a fifth-grade teacher at Blair Pointe, said she was grateful for the opportunity to speak with the ISS.

I thought the kids had wonderful questions, she said. I thought it was amazing.

The ISS's next contact is with a junior high school in Komotini, Greece.

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Phone call to space: Blair Pointe Elementary contacts the International Space Station - Kokomo Tribune

NASA will be working off a slightly larger budget this year, and it seems the space agency might soon pave the way for a few way stations around the moon.

Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace knows a thing or two about getting stuff in space. His company created the inflatable habitat module currently being tested on the International Space Station. Bigelow said he believes we could have private space stations orbiting the moon as early as 2020 ... if the government makes it a priority and continues to push for innovation in that sector. But, if everything fell into place, Bigelow told Space he believes it could happen.

To that end, Bigelow Aerospace is already developing its own potential lunar space station in the form of a larger inflatable habitat that could be used by space explorers for future moon or Mars missions. The design is three times the size of the modules on the ISS. Bigelow has also teamed up with Boeing and Lockheed Martin to potentially launch the habitat into orbit in 2020. The goal would be to get the habitat, dubbed the BA-330, into lunar orbit to serve as a "gateway" for lunar missions.

As for getting people there, SpaceX is already planning to send a team of private astronauts to orbit the moon in 2018, so if that mission succeeds, the company will have proven the capabilities of actually getting a crew that far from Earth.

(via Space)

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Private space stations could orbit the moon as soon as 2020 - Blastr

In less than two weeks, California State University, Northridge and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will be waiting for a Morse code signal from the universitys first stellar explorer CSUNSat1, a cube-shaped satellite about the size of a backpack, signaling its successful venture out in space.

CSUN electrical and computer engineering professor Sharlene Katz said the satellite project is the first of its kind for the university.

Weve never done anything like this before, she said. The satellite hardware and software were designed and built from scratch. The ground station was done from scratch. We want to run the mission. Its time. We feel confident in it.

The satellite will launch into space on March 19 from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., propelled by an Atlas V rocket. It will head to the International Space Station, where it will be deployed into space in April next year. CSUNs ground station command and mission control, located in Jacaranda Hall, will communicate with it after its launch via radio.

One of the most challenging aspects of the mission will be switching the power source from a general standard battery to JPLs prototype, according to CSUN electrical and computer engineering professor James Flynn.

One of the key tests is that the experimental battery has to power the satellite itself, he said. Its like changing your brain without losing your mind. You are doing a transplant. The batteries are not equal; the characteristics are not the same. So, not only do we change the battery, but also how the battery is taken care of . . . all in 50 milliseconds.

JPL collaborator and CSUN computer engineering alumnus Carl Chesko agrees the most delicate task for the satellite will be the power source switchover. He has faith in it running smoothly.

This is something that is never done, like, ever. Part of the reason it is not done is because you never need to, he said. Why would you? You dont need to take the battery out of your phone. If you do, it dies. For this project, we need to continuously run without batteries for .05 of a second. But, at the core, this has been running for more than two years. The core of this works.

Flynn said one of the rewarding aspects of the mission for the students was learning the importance and value of the work they can do at CSUN.

CSUN computer engineering undergraduate Armen Arslanian was charged with creating the deployment code for the satellites four antennas. For him, the most challenging yet rewarding aspect of the project was learning to create a computer code that would communicate with the satellites code between the main satellite computer and the antennas computer.

The antenna has its own brain, he said. The satellites brain is talking to the antennas brain. The issues start there and you have to take care of everything. In this part of the mission, you cant do anything if something goes wrong. What you can do has to be taken care of now because nothing can be done from the ground if [the antennas do not deploy].

Katz lauded the students for their hard work on CSUNSat1.

This is a university; its about the experience, she said. We continue to find little things [to fix] on our list, but its really shrinking down. Weve invested so much in learning about [small satellites]. We didnt think anybody could do it as well as we could, honestly. Wed like to try it again.

Flynn added that while everyone is excited for the three-year project to come to a close, there will be some sad feelings when the satellite is dropped off at NASA.

I know whats going to happen, he said. Were going to take it to Houston. They are going to give us the pin [from inside the satellite that is pulled to arm the satellite] that is what you are left with. Then well have empty cradle syndrome. Well sit there and wonder what will we do now?

For now, the CSUNSat1 team will get to sit tight at the ground station and wait for that Morse code signal hailing it from space, informing it of a successful first mission.

For more information about CSUNSat1, please visit http://www.csun.edu/cubesat.

CSUNSat1, cubesat, Featured, International Space Station, JPL, NASA, satellite

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CSUNSat1 Slated to Launch to International Space Station in Less Than 2 Weeks - CSUN Today

March 9, 2017 by Tom Fleischman Steven Powell, research engineer in the department of electrical and computer engineering, is pictured with the Cornell GPS antenna array in a clean room at the NASA/Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The array is currently mounted on the truss structure of the International Space Station. Credit: Zach Tejral, NASA Johnson Spaceflight Center/Provided

The weather here on Earth has been a little strange this winter 60-degree days, followed by blinding snow, only to be followed by 50s and rain but for Steven Powell, the weather he's interested in can't be felt by humans or measured by barometric pressure.

Powell, research support specialist in electrical and computer engineering, is concerned with "space weather" charged particles in the plasma of space, on the edge of the Earth's atmosphere. These particles affect the performance of communications and navigation satellites.

To study conditions in the ionosphere, a band between 50 and 600 miles above the Earth, Powell and others in the College of Engineering have developed the FOTON (Fast Orbital TEC for Orbit and Navigation) GPS receiver, which was built in a Rhodes Hall lab. Last month, the FOTON hitched a ride aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to begin a long-term project at the International Space Station.

The project, which could last two years, is called GROUP-C (GPS Radio Occultation and Ultraviolet Photometry-Colocated), and is headed by Scott Budzien of the Naval Research Laboratory. Powell is the Cornell principal investigator for the project; other Cornell contributors include Mark L. Psiaki, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering (retired); David Hysell, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences; Todd Humphreys, Ph.D. '08; and Brady O'Hanlon, Ph.D. '16.

Also contributing was the late electrical and computer engineering professor Paul Kintner, who died in November 2010. Kintner was responsible for the original ionospheric research that formed the scientific basis for GROUP-C, Powell said.

The FOTON is a highly sensitive GPS receiver, designed to withstand the rigors of spaceflight while detecting subtle fluctuations in the signals from GPS satellites.

"These fluctuations help us learn about the ionosphere in which the signals travel," said Powell, who returned to Ithaca in early March after spending six weeks in Alaska on a project to send two sounding rockets into the aurora borealis, also to study the ionosphere.

"These fluctuations are typically filtered out by standard GPS receivers," he said, "but they are the scientific 'gold nuggets' in the data analysis process."

Powell's experiment is one of a number of projects studying the Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere. It shares a mounting palette on the outside of the ISS, receives power from large solar arrays, and uses the data communications system onboard the station to quickly distribute data back to Earth.

Powell and Hysell will collect data from the GROUP-C experiment.

GROUP-C's position onboard the ISS will allow it to study the ionosphere "at an edge-on perspective," Powell said, to measure variations in electron density. The Cornell team's GPS receiver and antenna actually a suite of three antennas, configured to maximize GPS signals and minimize unwanted reflections from the large metal portions of the ISS will focus on GPS satellites as they move across the sky and set behind the Earth.

As they set, Powell said, the radio signals travel through the ionosphere and are subtly delayed by the denser regions of the ionosphere. "From that, we obtain a vertical profile of the electron density," he said.

This experiment builds on a short-duration NASA sounding-rocket mission Powell led in 2012, which was sent into the aurora to study the ionosphere at high latitudes, near the North Pole.

"This experiment will allow us to study different, but equally interesting, effects in the ionosphere closer to the equator, where most of the world's population lives," Powell said.

The Feb. 19 liftoff of the SpaceX rocket, and docking with the ISS four days later, was the culmination of a nearly four-year effort to get GROUP-C built.

"It was extremely exciting and satisfying to see the GROUP-C experiment [launch]," Powell said. "I've been involved in more than 50 space-based research efforts over a 30-year period, but most have been using suborbital NASA sounding rockets, with mission durations of just 10 to 30 minutes.

"The GROUP-C experiment duration will last up to two years," he said, "so the quantity of data and the potential for meaningful scientific discovery is huge."

Explore further: Sounding rockets study how winds in space drive currents in the upper atmosphere

Some 50 miles up in the sky begins a dynamic region of the atmosphere known as the ionosphere. The region is filled with charged particles created by extreme ultraviolet radiation from the sun. At the base of the ionosphere, ...

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On Saturday, Feb. 18 at 8:41 p.m. Alaska time, scientists launched a NASA sounding rocket from Poker Flat Research Range into a brilliant aurora display. The rocket mission, designed to gather information on space weather ...

Following the successful launch today, June 20, of a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket, launch teams are now preparing for a two-rocket salvo June 24 from the Wallops Flight Facility, Va.

Swirling through Earth's upper atmosphere is a layer of charged particles called the ionosphere. Constantly on the move, currents through the ionosphere can be much more complicated than winds at lower altitudes, because ...

Ball lightning? Spectral orbs? Swamp gas? Early this morning, May 7, these eerie glowing trails were seen in the sky above the Marshall Islands and were captured on camera by NASA photographer John Grant. Of course, if NASA's ...

For the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, it's been a long time between dinners. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found that the black hole ate its last big meal about 6 million years ago, when ...

In two recently published scientific papers, an international team of astronomers has presented the detection of two new tidal disruption events (TDEs). Using the Palomar Observatory located near San Diego, California, the ...

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence has looked for many different signs of alien life, from radio broadcasts to laser flashes, without success. However, newly published research suggests that mysterious phenomena ...

On Feb. 22, astronomers announced that the ultra-cool dwarf star, TRAPPIST-1, hosts a total of seven Earth-size planets that are likely rocky, a discovery made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in combination with ground-based ...

SpaceX, the upstart company, and NASA, the government agency, both have plans to venture to Mars and orbit the moon. But that doesn't mean they've launched a new space race.

A huge mass of glowing stardust in a galaxy seen shortly after the Universe's formation has been detected by a UCL-led team of astronomers, providing new insights into the birth and explosive deaths of the very first stars.

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Experiment aboard space station studies 'space weather' - Phys.org - Phys.Org