Category Archives: Space Station

You will once again be able to view the International Space Station (ISS) from Greater Manchester in over week or so.

Over the next few days it will be possible to spot the glowing space station as it passes above in the night sky.

The ISS, which appears as a bright glowing object, looks like a fast-moving plane or star moving across the horizon usually from the west.

The ISS is currently crewed by six astronauts and cosmonauts.

It orbits at a height of about 264 miles, traveling around the earth 15 times a day.

The ISS has been in space for around 6,700 days, during which time it has completed around 100,000 orbits of Earth, and has been continuously occupied for more than 13 years.

To see it look south or west at night at the time given below.

It pretty much looks like a bright star or fast-moving plane, usually from the west or south west.

It has no flashing lights and doesn't make a sound so that's how you can tell the difference between it and any aircraft in the sky.

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You can see the International Space Station above Greater Manchester this week - here's how - Manchester Evening News

A retired Marine officer was one of three astronauts aboard a Soyuz space capsule that successfully blasted off for the International Space Station on Friday.

NASAs Randy Bresnik, Russias Sergei Ryazansky and Italys Paolo Nespoli lifted off from the Russia-leased launch pad in Kazakhstan shortly after sunset, around 11:41 a.m. Eastern. They were to travel about six hours before docking at the space station.

The three will join NASAs Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson as well as the veteran Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.

Bresnik, a retired colonel, previously logged 10 days in space when he flew on a mission in 2009, performing two spacewalks. While in the Marine Corps, he served as an F/A-18 test pilot and flew combat missions in support ofOperation Southern Watch and Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to his NASA bio.

Hes flown more than 6,000 hours in more than 80 types of aircraft, per his bio. He was selected for the astronaut program in 2004 and completed training in 2006.

Russias Ryazansky is the crews most experience astronaut with 160 days in space under his belt.

The incoming crew will contribute to more than 250 experiments conducted at the orbiting lab in fields such as biology, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

Flight Engineer Whitson earlier this week was doing research for a cancer study that may help develop more effective treatments for cancer patients, NASA reported.

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Retired Marine colonel one of 3 astronauts en route to space station - NavyTimes.com

After taking usersto Peru's Machu Picchu and Game of Thronesfilming locations, Google Street View has recently introduced a new feature that allows its users to explore inside the International Space Station(ISS) and to see the Earth from on high.

Among the ISS locations on offer in the new featureare the CupolaObservational Module, from where users canlook at activity outside the station, the experimentalBigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), the unmanned SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule thattransports supplies to the ISS astronauts, and the US Lab Module that serves as the primary research laboratory.

Read also: Google lets you virtually explore 'Game of Thrones' filming locations

SpaceXs Dragon cargo craft is seen Feb. 23, 2017, during final approach to the International Space Station. (blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2017/02//File)

The ISS is a very interesting place with lots of high-tech equipment, Thomas Pesquet, theEuropean Space Agency (ESA)astronautwho was in charge of taking photos for the Google Street View, saidin a behind-the-scenesvideo.

[It's a very challenging task] since we dont have gravity in space, said Matthew Potter, who leads the technical photography operations for Google Street View, adding that they could not use a tripod in space, wherecamera stabilization tools were critical to their mission.

Floating 250 miles more than 400kilometers above the Earth, the ISS consists of 15 connected modules that facefour different directions in a cross-like formation. The space station serves as a scientific research hub to explore space, collect data from the atmosphere and Earth's surface,observe cyclones and other weather patterns, and conduct experiments, such as how a human body reacts tomicrogravity. (kes)

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Google Street View launches users to space station - Jakarta Post

Space

Jul.28.2017 / 10:34 AM ET

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Launch day is here for three new crew members of the International Space Station, and you can watch the liftoff live right here at 11:41 a.m. EDT (the live coverage is scheduled to begin at 10:45 a.m. EDT).

Aboard the Soyuz rocket will be NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, along with Russias Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency, NASA said in a statement posted on its website.

The rocket will lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the six-hour trip to the ISS, where the trio will be greeted by three crew members already aboard the ISS: NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fiischer and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.

The six crew members will spend more than four months aboard the ISS conducting experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science, and Earth science.

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Watch Live as New Crew Blasts Off for Space Station - NBCNews.com

Space nerds around the world rejoiced a few days ago, when it was announced that Google Street View had found its way into the International Space Station. You can travel through each of the 15 connected modules that compose the station, carefully examining everything you glide past. Its a great way to kill some time, and while doing our own exploring we (of course) got hung up on a food stash, which is located in Node 3 (Tranquility). You can see it for yourself here, but heres what we were able to make out onboard:

Astronauts: They crave bold flavors, just like us!

Google has also been thoughtful enough to provide descriptions of a lot of the things that you pass along the way; For what its worth, the items are velcroed onto the galley table, which is big enough for six astronauts and was designed by high school students. And what looks like a metal suitcase next to the table is a microwave/forced air convection oven that serves as a food warmer.

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There's a Bottle of Sriracha Onboard the International Space Station - The Daily Meal

Photo: Steve Gonzales, Staff

Webster's NanoRacks expands its role in commercial space

An airlock destined for the International Space Station sat near the bottom of a 40-foot pool as astronauts hoisted bulky suits around its curvatures. NASA was testing the station's first complex fixture - an element that could one day be attached to a commercial space station - that is privately owned.

"If we're going to see an economy develop in low-Earth orbit the commercial sector has got to be able to provide and operate things like this," said Mike Read, manager of the International Space Station's commercial space utilization office.

That's the goal of Webster-based NanoRacks, which has evolved from getting experiments on the space station to developing an airlock that will help deploy satellites. Ultimately, NanoRacks hopes its roughly $12 million airlock will be detached from the government-owned space station and reattached to one that is commercially owned and operated.

"The goal of this is to continue to build the marketplace so there's more commercial users of ISS," said Brock Howe, NanoRacks' project manager for the airlock. "And then, at the point when the government is ready to retire the big space station, there are a lot of people using it that can then justify the price of having a commercial space station."

Read said the test in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in late June was standard for any new element being attached to the space station. NASA astronauts were testing handrail placements to ensure they could maneuver around the airlock during space walks.

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

This is just one of many tests the airlock will undergo before May 2019 when it's scheduled to hitch a ride to the International Space Station on the SpaceX Dragon.

"It's a big step for us to turn over operation of something as critical as an airlock," Read said.

NanoRacks and NASA signed a Space Act Agreement in May 2016 to begin development of the airlock. Nine months later, NanoRacks selected Boeing to develop the critical seal that connects the airlock to the space station. This device, called a Passive Common Berthing Mechanism, is essential for pressurizing the unit.

The airlock is about eight feet in diameter and will be five times larger than the space station's existing airlock. The existing airlock, in the Japanese Experiment Module, has a door for loading satellites and another door for ejecting them into space. NanoRacks' airlock will have only one hatch.

Astronauts will go inside the NanoRacks airlock while it's pressurized and arrange satellites. Once they leave, air is sucked out and the space station's robotic arm disconnects the airlock from the space station. The airlock is positioned away from the space station, and then satellites are deployed.

This design will allow NanoRacks to deploy larger satellites or several smaller satellites simultaneously. NASA will operate the robotic arm, and NanoRacks will deploy the satellites from its office in Webster.

"One of the big savings that NASA likes a lot is it will reduce crew time," Howe said. "Crew time is one of the most precious resources they have on station."

Payloads can also be attached to the airlock's exterior to hold experiments or cameras taking pictures of Earth.

Howe expects the airlock will be used four to six times a year, though that could change depending on demand.

"It's really going to be governed by the commercial marketplace," Howe said. "So if people want to use it, and scientists and experimenters want to use it, I think we will be able to use it more often. Because that's what ISS is trying to do. They're trying to embrace users of the space station."

Marco Caceres, senior analyst and director of space studies for Teal Group, said the company found "novel ways to make money in space, to make use of an incredible asset." Some people believe the space station hasn't been used to its fullest potential, and companies like NanoRacks could help change that.

Yet most commercial space efforts aren't focused on the space station, he said. Companies are more focused on launch vehicles and satellites because those are more obvious money makers. The space station could have an advantage if it provides a cheaper avenue for deploying satellites, Caceres said.

NanoRacks has found it is cheaper from the space station because it costs less to ride on a rocket bringing other cargo to the space station than on a rocket being launched solely for the satellites, Howe said.

NanoRacks must have 90 percent of the airlock's design completed by late October. It has already begun fabricating some parts, but that will pick up after October. NanoRacks is considering two vendors along the East Coast, and then those pieces will be shipped to Webster for assembly in NanoRacks' clean room.

"For NanoRacks to land that deal and to be able to accomplish what they've accomplished to date speaks volumes for this area and speak volumes for the commercial space industry," said Bob Mitchell, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.

Looking ahead, NanoRacks is part of a team studying if rocket upper stages could be converted into space habitats. An upper stage is part of the rocket engine that is discarded in space after all of the fuel has been used.

Using these rocket components could be a more affordable way to create a commercial space station compared with building modules on the ground and launching them into orbit.

Ultimately, Howe said, NanoRacks wants to be involved if a commercial space station comes to fruition.

"Building a commercial space station will not be easy," he said. "There's lots of challenges ahead of the team to get that done. And we will see if the space industry can rise to the occasion and make it happen."

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Webster's NanoRacks expands its role in commercial space - Houston Chronicle

Sonys lineup of full-frame mirrorless cameras is impressive, and have become a staple for videographers and photographers worldwide. But now, the a7S II has gone beyond just our world, capturing amazing 4K footage from outside the International Space Station.

The a7S II was mounted on the ISS on the KIBO Japanese Experiment Module created by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japans space agency, after the organization determined that it was durable and reliable enough to survive outer space conditions, including vacuum, radiation and extreme temperature swings of up to almost 400 degrees Fahrenheit depending on whether the camera is oriented towards the sun or not.

The surprising thing about the a7S IIs environmental resistance is that its basically unmodified JAXA says theres a radiator and a heater built in to its mounting hardware to help with the temperature variance, but that the cameras hardware itself is almost untouched.

JAXAs original plan was to use an a7S on the external mount, but they swapped in the a7S II in their plans in 2016 because of its ability to record 4K video internally. The high sensitivity full-frame sensor, which works great in low light situations, also makes possible excellent night shooting, whereas the system its replacing didnt work at all in nighttime conditions.

The camera will also be used to capture stills, which JAXA says will be better for applications like comparing changes in the color of oceans and forests over time because of its improved tone reproduction vs. video. But the video capture is super interesting for docking operations, or for recording mesmerizing clips like those above.

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Sony's a7S II stuns with 4K footage from outside the International Space Station - TechCrunch

Stargazers are in for a treat as the International Space Station is set to cross Lincolnshire's skies - and you don't need any equipment to see it.

The International Space Station (ISS) will be visible over Lincolnshire at various times between now and August 8 and 9.

And because of its enormous size you don't have to have a telescope to view it in the night sky as it'll be visible to the naked eye.

The ISS is more than 100m wide, over 70m long, and about 20m high. The orbital height (height above Earth) is just over 400km.

Get ready to see shooting stars! Delta Aquarid meteor shower will light up the skies this week

But you'll have to keep your eyes on the prize; the speed of orbit is so high 17,200mph that it will often only be visible for a few minutes at a time.

According to NASAs Spot The Station web site, the ISS looks like an airplane or a very bright star moving across the sky, except it doesnt have flashing lights or change direction. It will also be moving considerably faster than a typical airplane.

The station will be visible from all over Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire, including Lincoln, Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Boston, Sleaford and Grantham, within a minute of the following dates and times:

July 28: 12.18am, 10.49pm

July 29: 12.25am, 9.57pm, 11.33pm

July 30: 1.10am, 10.41pm

July 31: 12.17am, 9.49pm, 11.25pm

August 1: 10.33pm

August 2: 12.09am, 9.40pm, 11.17pm

August 3: 10.24pm

August 4: 12.02am, 9.32pm, 11.09pm

August 5: 10.17pm

August 6: 9.24pm, 11.02pm

August 7: 10.08pm

August 8: 9.16pm

The International Space Station will always start passing from a westerly direction so keep your eyes peeled for it gliding across the sky.

Sometimes a pass can last as long as five minutes, but it looks like a bright, fast-moving star so be careful not to mistake it for a passing aircraft.

It takes 90 minutes to orbit so you may be able to catch it passing more than once if you dont mind spending a couple of hours outside at night.

For more information about the ISS, visit https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/home.cfm .

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Want to see the International Space Station over Lincolnshire? Here's everything you need to know - LincolnshireLive

wbur

July 28, 2017

Sunita Williams, a native of Needham, has traveled far beyond Massachusetts as part of her work as an astronaut at the International Space Station. She served as the commander of the space station in 2012, and has spent a total 322 days in space. She also has spent more than 50 hours on space walks alone. She is featured in the new documentary film The Mars Generation, which looks at a new generation of teenagers who are preparing to go to Marsin this century.

The Mars Generation is playing at the Woods Hole Film Festival on Sunday at 5 pm. Sunita Williams will also be speaking on a panel about science and storytelling on Sunday at 2 pm.

Sunita Williams, American Astronaut and former Commander of the International Space Station. She tweets @Astro_Suni.

On her path to becoming an astronaut It was a little bit of a happenstance, and a lot of good luck, and a lot of perseverance. I wanted to be a veterinarian, and go to school in Boston. It didn't quite work out that way, and I ended up joining the Navy as a suggestion of my big brother. It was really awesome, and I didn't realize it at the time, but provided a lot of leadership and followership teamwork opportunities. And it led me down the path to become a helicopter pilot and a test pilot. It was the shoe in the door to making me understand that, hey things are possible. And I got down to NASA at Johnson Space Center and realized that I could do the things those guys were doing, like anybody can when they have that opportunity and take it.

On her time as a commander on the International Space Station It was awesome. A huge responsibility. But just like in the movie The Martian, you take it one step at a time. You don't look at the big problem all together, because I think it's a little intimidating. So you just take it one day at a time, meet the people who are going to meet with you, for you, and who you're going to work for, and really try to do the best job that you can. That's all teamwork, and that's what space travel is about.

On what it's like to do a spacewalk It's a little scary at times, when it's just your visor between you and the outside, not-so-nice area of space where there's no air to breathe a vacuum that's really hot, and really cold. So that's scary. But you take it one step at a time. You have a lot of things to do when you're out on a space walk, and that sort of overwhelms your mind. You're like, "I've got to get this test done, and this test done." But you can't help every now and then stopping, and looking at where you are, and watching the world whiz by you and just going, "Whoah! But never mind just keep working, just keep working." It is an incredible view, an incredible place to work, and it's the culmination of a huge team of people making it work for the astronauts who are just out there doing their jobs.

On what her time in space has taught her about the challenges facing potential Mars astronauts You are away from home, and you do miss your family and your friends, and of course I missed my dog. But you have the ability to call home, and the ability to video conference on the weekends. We're close to Earth, and we only have about a half-second of delay when we're talking. But when you take that trip and are going to Mars, you're going to have a long delay. You're not going to be able to have those instant conversations. You're going to need to know how to fix things without calling home to ask how to do it. So there's going to be a lot of different challenges for that crew, and that crew needs to know that they'll be gone for a long time. I knew I would be gone for 6 months, and maybe a little bit more. [People going to Mars] need to go into this knowing that you might be gone for a year and a half or so. You're not going to be able to text to your friends and family like people are used to doing here. It's going to take a little while to get that communication back and forth.

On whether the golden age of manned missions to space through NASA has passed, with the advent of space trips through the private sector. This is all a partnership. There's been so much technology that has transpired over the last 20, 30 years, and it's time to move that into the spacecraft. Who can better do that than the technology gurus out there who have been working in some of these companies? We're really excited to see what their innovative ideas bring to the table when they create these spacecraft. They're going to solve the problem for us of low-earth orbit, which means going to the International Space Station and delivering people. And that frees up NASA to work on exploration. The thing that we all want to do is get out of low-earth orbit and go farther, so we can figure out that problem of how to go to Mars. So we have a lot on our plate, but we are working hand-in-hand with these companies, so we can leverage information and technology off each other. And my personal opinion, Suni Williams I think that when we really leave the planet we all go as humans, not as people from one country or another. We are humans, we work together. This is our only planet as human beings that we know of. So we all should have an interest in preserving it.

On the idea of space tourism I think it's great. If these companies can go out there and lower the price for folks to go to space, that's going to enhance space travel and make it safer. We've gone through this kind of evolution with aircraft, and aircraft are pretty darn safe. We joke that one day, we'll have a space station on the moon, and the tourists up there will be going, "Where's my spacecraft to get me home? It's 10 minutes late!" Just like we do when we're standing in the airline line waiting to board our aircraft. I think it's a good thing. It's progress. It's evolution. We're going to make it all happen. And I think this next generation of kids in high school and younger we've got to set the stage for them, and they are going to make it happen.

On the most amazing thing she's ever witnessed in space There's so many things to say, but one things is the aurora. Watching the aurora from above is pretty spectacular. We live up here in the north, and sometimes we go to see our northern neighbors, where we can see the aurora at night, and see it above you and it's cool. But when you see it from above looking down below, and see that energy hitting the earth, it's spectacular. And you got to wonder there is a lot of energy out there in the universe that we have no idea how to capture and use. Our problems here on earth are a little slim compared to the real deal.

This segment aired on July 28, 2017.

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Astronaut Sunita Williams On Her Time In Space and 'The Mars Generation' - WBUR

A Russian Soyuz rocket made a railroad journey Wednesday to its launch pad in Kazakhstan, two days before blastoff with a crew of three spaceflight veterans from the United States, Italy and Russia heading for the International Space Station.

The three-stage rocket departed an assembly building just after sunrise Wednesday on a special rail car for the journey to Launch Pad No. 1, the same mount from which Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched on the first piloted space mission in April 1961.

A hydraulic lift raised the Soyuz vertical before swing arms moved into place around the rocket. The launch structure containing the Soyuz booster then rotated to align with the planned launch azimuth.

Fridays liftoff is scheduled for 1541 GMT (11:41 a.m. EDT; 9:41 p.m. Baikonur time). The three-man crew inside the Soyuz MS-05 capsule will head into orbit on a fast-track pursuit of the space station, with docking set for approximately 2200 GMT (6 p.m. EDT) with the research outposts Rassvet module.

Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy, 42, will occupy the Soyuz spacecrafts center seat during Fridays launch and docking. The Soyuz commander, a biochemist with a career in space medicine before his selection as a cosmonaut in 2003, is making his second trip to the space station after spending 166 days in orbit as a flight engineer on the Expedition 37 and 38 crews.

NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik will be the Soyuz MS-05 spaceships board engineer, assisting Ryazanskiy with cockpit duties during the six-hour voyage from liftoff to docking. The 49-year-old retired Marine Corps fighter pilot hails from Santa Monica, California, and logged nearly 11 days in orbit aboard the space shuttle Atlantis on a 2009 mission to the space station.

Bresnik will take command of the stations Expedition 53 crew in September.

European Space Agency flight engineer Paolo Nespoli has 174 days of space experience on two previous missions, including a flight on the shuttle Discovery in 2007 and a long-duration stay on the space station in 2010 and 2011. Nespoli, 60, is a native of Milan and was a special forces operator in the Italian Army before working on several European space projects as an engineer.

The trio will become part of the space stations Expedition 52 and 53 crews, joining commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer on the orbiting complex. Yurchikhin, Whitson and Fischer are due to depart the station and return to Earth on Sept. 2, and three fresh crew members will launch on the next Soyuz spaceship from Baikonur on Sept. 12.

The space station has been flying with a three-person crew since early June, and Fridays docking will boost the outposts occupancy back to six.

Yurchikhin and Ryazanskiy will conduct a spacewalk Aug. 17 to deploy several small satellites and work outside the Russian segment of the station.

A SpaceX Dragon supply ship launched from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida is expected to arrive at the complex the same week, but its liftoff will have to work around the scheduled Russian spacewalk. Station managers want to ensure the satellites released by the Russian spacewalkers are accurately tracked before committing the Dragon cargo freighter to approach the outpost, minimizing the chance for a collision with one of the small craft.

The Dragon capsule is currently set to launch around Aug. 14, but if it slips more than a day or two, the launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket could be further delayed until officials are sure the small satellites are well away from the space station. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is also expected to launch the same week, potentially complicating bookings on the U.S. Air Forces Eastern Range, which is responsible for flight safety, communications and tracking support for all missions from Cape Canaveral.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Launcher for next space station crew in position for liftoff Friday - Spaceflight Now