Category Archives: Space Station

Leaving crewmate Peggy Whitson behind in orbit for an extended mission, a Russian cosmonaut and his French co-pilot undocked from the International Space Station early Friday, setting the stage for a fiery plunge to Earth and a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 196-day mission.

Soyuz MS-03 commander Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared a final round of hugs and handshakes with Whitson, Expedition 52 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and astronaut Jack Fischer, boarded their ferry ship and closed the hatch at 3:35 a.m. EDT (GMT-4).

"You guys take care," Fischer called out a few moments earlier.

Two hours later, at 6:47 a.m., powerful springs gently pushed the Soyuz away from the station's Earth-facing Rassvet module.

After moving a safe distance away, Novitskiy planned to oversee an automated four-minute 36-second de-orbit rocket firing starting at 9:17 a.m. to slow the spacecraft by about 286 mph, just enough to drop the far side of the orbit into the atmosphere.

If all goes well, the Soyuz MS-03 crew compartment will drop to a parachute-and-rocket-assisted touchdown 89 miles southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 10:10 a.m. (8:10 p.m. local time), the first landing by a two-person Soyuz crew since March 18, 2010, when astronaut Jeff Williams and cosmonaut Maxim Suraev came home.

As usual, Russian and European Space Agency recovery crews and flight surgeons were standing by to assist the returning station fliers as they begin re-adjusting to gravity. Novitskiy's total time in space over two missions will stand at 340 days while Pesquet will have logged 196 days aloft on his first flight.

During their six-and-a-half months in space, the Soyuz MS-03 crew completed 3,136 orbits covering 82.9 million miles. They helped welcome five visiting vehicles -- four cargo ships and a crew ferry flight -- and Pesquet participated in two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 32 minutes.

"We are, of course, going to miss Oleg and Thomas," Whitson said Thursday, choking back tears. "They are exceptional astronauts in every sense of the word. But mostly, we're going to miss their sense of humor and camaraderie."

Space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, left, makes final preparations for undocking while Soyuz MS-03 commander Oleg Novitskiy and Thomas Pesquet look on from inside the hatch of their ferry craft.

NASA TV

Said Pesquet: "It was a great adventure. Just want to say for me and Oleg, we were really proud to be part of such a team and fly with Peggy. Peggy's a legend, but she's also absolutely unbelievable to work with or just hang around with, live with in space."

Whitson flew into space with Novitskiy and Pesquet last Nov. 17. She originally expected to come home with them, but in April, her mission was extended to Sept. 3.

"We're a little bit sad to leave her behind, but we're not staying!" Pesquet laughed during a change-of-command ceremony Thursday. "We know she's in good hands. ... Now is the time for us to go back home to our friends and family, and we're happy. But it's also a bittersweet feeling because we know this is such a unique place that you sometimes get to experience only once. It was fantastic, thanks to everybody."

After initial medical checks and satellite phone calls to family and friends, Novitskiy and Pesquet will be flown by helicopter to the town of Karaganda for an official Kazakh welcome ceremony. Novitskiy then will board a Russian jet for the flight back to Star City near Moscow while Pesquet boards and ESA aircraft and returns to Cologne, Germany, for debriefing.

On Thursday, Whitson turned over command of the station to Yurchikhin.

"Today, I hand over (command) to Fyodor Yurchikhin, the only guy I've flown three times with," she said. "So welcome to your command."

"It's an honor for me working with you, Peggy," said Yurchikhin, speaking in English. "We use your experience in space, your soul, your smarts. The greatest person, an amazing person. Sometimes, everybody says Peggy is 'iron woman,' 'steel woman.' She's amazing woman, an amazing person in space. Thank you very much. So welcome on board to Expedition 52."

Yurchikhin and Fischer took off aboard the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft on April 20. In a move to save money in the near term, the Russian federal space agency opted not to include a third crew member. After negotiations with Russian space managers, NASA decided to extend Whitson's mission to Sept. 3 when she will take the available seat on the MS-04 spacecraft and return to Earth with Yurchikhin and Fischer.

Keeping Whitson in space will enable additional research between the departure of Novitskiy and Pesquet and the arrival of Soyuz MS-05 commander Sergey Ryazanskiy, Randy Bresnik and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli on July 28. It also preserves the option for a two-person NASA spacewalk in an emergency.

Whitson is America's most experienced astronaut with 573 days in space over three missions as of Friday. When she returns to Earth Sept. 3, her cumulative time in space will stand at 666 days, moving her up to eighth in the world. Whitson is also No. 3 in the world in total spacewalk time with more than 60 hours of EVA time over 10 excursions.

Read more here:
Two space station fliers wrapping up 196-day flight - CBS News

The sound of radio static had never been so suspenseful.

After five attempts via ham radio to reach the International Space Station, a mans voice suddenly filled the room at a Ronkonkoma school.

Great to hear you and answer your questions, declared astronaut Jack Fischer.

With that, a group of parents, students and staff at St. Joseph School collectively sighed in relief.

The school could complete its sweeping, yearlong space project, involving students from pre-K through eighth grade. The ultimate goal: interview a NASA astronaut aboard the orbiting space station, with help from a network of amateur radio broadcasters.

After that agonizing delay, the call went through. For 15 minutes or so that morning on May 22, students peppered Fischer with questions as he drifted miles above Santa Rosa, California.

You wonder, Oh my gosh, is this going to work? Principal Richard Kuntzler said afterward. There was [an adrenaline] rush that was worth the whole years project.

Shane Bellino, a sixth-grader, asked Fischer what he would tell his pre-astronaut self.

Great question, Shane. I would just say keep working really hard because its worth it in the end. All of that hard work finally paid off, said Fischer, 43, an Air Force pilot who became an astronaut in 2011. He arrived at the space station in April.

For Bellino of Selden the experience was life-changing. He had heard stories about his grandmother helping to build the outer shell of Apollo 11, which took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon on July 20, 1969.

Im never going to forget it, said Bellino, 12, who now aspires to be an astronaut.

That kind of reaction is even better than what Jennifer Medordi, St. Josephs technical director and a ham radio operator, envisioned when she pitched the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program to school administrators more than a year ago.

This was something that I wasnt sure would have that kind of impact, but it did, she said.

ARISS is an international network of amateur radio societies that use their technology and expertise to connect schools with the space station. Most people use amateur radio frequencies and transmitters to communicate with each other locally or around the world via satellites and antennas. But the technology can also be used to reach space with some coordination.

ARISS set the contact date and time with NASA. Then, the school called into an ARISS member station in California, where a ham operator was able to link to the space station overhead via radio, White said.

To prepare, Medordi said the school organized Space Days every few weeks with age-appropriate activities for every grade, like making astronaut food. They had no groundwork here so we had to lay it for them, she said.

Lauren Avilla, 14, of Medford, called her chance to ask Fischer a question a big honor.

How many people can say theyve spoken to an astronaut?

See the article here:
Long Island students contact space station, quiz astronaut | Newsday - Newsday

Take two!

SpaceX will launch a rocket and capsule filled with 6,000 pounds of supplies into low-Earth orbit on Saturday to make a delivery to the International Space Station. The launch is set for 5:07 pm ET from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

It was initially scheduled for Thursday, but the flight was postponed due to weather.

The trip will mark the second time that SpaceX has sent this spacecraft, called Dragon, to the ISS it also made a similar supply run in 2014. Its also the companys 11th supply trip to the ISS as part of a contract with NASA.

As my colleague April Glaser wrote earlier this week, the fact that SpaceX is able to re-use is rockets and spacecraft is a pretty big deal. As she explained:

Reusing rockets and spacecraft is core to SpaceXs mission of bringing down the cost of space travel. Rockets are typically too damaged after launching to be used again, and building a new rocket can cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

SpaceX plans to return the actual rocket, called Falcon 9, back to Cape Canaveral after it detaches from the capsule (Dragon). SpaceX has successfully returned numerous rockets over the past few years, including when it successfully launched and then landed a used rocket for the first time in March.

Dragon will stay at the ISS for about a month before returning to earth, and a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

You can watch the launch live right here:

Original post:
Watch Live: SpaceX is making another delivery to the International Space Station - Recode

Stormy afternoon weather and a nearby lightning strike grounded a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Thursday, forcing a two-day delay for launch of a space station-bound Dragon cargo ship loaded with 6,000 pounds of supplies and equipment.

The scrub was a disappointment to researchers awaiting the Dragon's arrival at the station to kick off a wide variety of experiments, including one to study fast-spinning neutron stars, or pulsars, to find out if they can be used as ultra-precise navigation beacons for future deep space missions.

Stormy weather over the Kennedy Space Center forced mission managers to call off an attempt launch a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a space station-bound Dragon cargo ship. The company will make another try Saturday.

NASA

"The fact that we have these pulsars apparently flashing away in the sky (hundreds of times per second) makes them interesting as tools," said Zaven Arzoumanian, science lead for Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, instrument mounted in the Dragon's unpressurized trunk section.

"You can imagine having a system of clocks, very accurate clocks, distributed all over the sky. ... So in the same way that we use atomic clocks on GPS satellites to navigate our cars on the surface of the Earth, we can use these clock signals from the sky, from pulsars, to navigate spacecraft anywhere in the solar system."

Launch Thursday from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center was targeted for 5:55 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carried the Falcon 9 rocket into the plane of the space station's orbit.

But clouds built up over the launch site late in the day and a lightning strike within 12 miles forced mission managers to order a scrub. Friday was not available for a second launch try due to the space station's orbit, so engineers recycled for another attempt Saturday at 5:07 p.m. Forecasters predicted more uncertain afternoon weather.

This will be the 100th launch from pad 39A which sent the Apollo 11 moonship on its way to the first lunar landing in 1969 and hosted the first and last space shuttle missions in 1981 and 2011 respectively. SpaceX now operates the launch complex under a 20-year lease with NASA.

As usual with flights to low-Earth orbit, the Falcon 9's first stage will have enough left-over propellant to attempt a return to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, touching down at Landing Zone 1 about eight minutes after liftoff.

SpaceX's record for first stage recoveries stands at 10 successes in 15 attempts, with six stages landing on off-shore droneships and four at the Air Force station. Recovering, refurbishing and re-launching booster stages is a key element in SpaceX founder Elon Musk's ongoing drive to dramatically lower launch costs.

A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, seen here attached to the space station in 2014, is set for launch on its second mission Saturday to deliver 6,000 pounds of supplies and equipment to the lab complex. The lower solar wing-equipped "trunk" section was discarded during re-entry three years ago but the upper capsule was recovered and refurbished for a second flight.

SpaceX

In that same vein, the pressurized capsule section of the Dragon cargo ship being launched by the Falcon 9 is making its second flight to the station, the first time an orbital spacecraft has returned to space since the shuttle program ended in 2011. The cargo ship previously flew to the station in September 2014 in SpaceX's fourth resupply mission.

Of all the spacecraft that deliver cargo to the station -- the Russian Progress, Orbital ATK's Cygnus, Japan's HTV and SpaceX's Dragon -- only the Dragon is designed to return to Earth, bringing cargo and science samples back to engineers and researchers and preserving flight hardware for reuse.

Assuming an on-time launch Saturday, the Dragon will catch up with the space station early Monday, pulling up to within about 30 feet of the lab complex around 10 a.m. and then standing by while astronaut Jack Fischer, operating the lab's robot arm, lock onto a grapple fixture.

From there, flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will take over, operating the arm by remote control to pull the capsule in for berthing at the Earth-facing port of the station's forward Harmony module.

The Dragon's pressurized cabin, accessible by the station crew, is packed with some 3,700 pounds of equipment and supplies, most of it devoted to research including one experiment that will use fruit flies to learn more about how heart cells are affected by prolonged exposure to weightlessness and another that will use 40 mice to study bone loss therapies.

"Men and women past the age of 50, on the average, lose about a half percent of bone mass per year," said Chia Soo, principal investigator for osteoporosis study. "But in microgravity conditions, the astronauts, on average, lose anywhere from 1 to 2 percent of bone mass per month. So that ... has tremendous implications for humans with respect to long-term space travel."

Soo said the mice will be treated with a chemical known as NELL-1 that shows promise for slowing bone loss and aiding regeneration.

"We are hoping this study will give us some insights on how NELL-1 can work under these extreme conditions," she said. "And if it can work for treating microgravity related bone loss, which is a very accelerated, severe form of bone loss, then perhaps it can (be used) for patients one day on Earth who have bone loss due to trauma or due to aging or disease."

Three payloads are mounted in the Dragon's unpressurized trunk section: a commercial mounting platform known as MUSES that can support multiple Earth-sensing payloads; an experimental, rolled-up solar panel known as ROSA that could lead to lighter, more powerful arrays; and the NICER neutron star telescope package.

NICER and MUSES will be extracted by the station's robot arm and mounted on the lab's power truss.

An experimental roll-up solar array will be delivered to the space station by the Dragon cargo ship. Held by the lab's robot arm, the array will unfold to a length of 15 feet for a series of tests.

NASA

ROSA will be held by the robot arm and subjected to a series of engineering tests to determine its power generation capabilities, its structural rigidity and how it behaves when subjected to temperature extremes as the station moves into and out of sunlight.

"ROSA is important to the space industry," said principal investigator Jeremy Banik. "All spacecraft need power, and traditional solar panels are made with square, flat plates that accordion fold with mechanical hinges.

"The problem is, these panels tend to be heavy and bulky, and we just can't make them any bigger than what we do today. ROSA solves this problem by shrinking mass by 20 percent and stowed volume by a factor of four over these rigid panels."

The ROSA -- Roll-Out Solar Array -- launches stowed like a roll of paper towels. Once attached to the robot arm, the array will be unrolled to test the deployment technology and power generation. The panel measures 15 feet by 5.5 feet when fully extended.

Banik said engineers are looking at "scaling ROSA up to very high power levels, in the range of 30, 100 even 500 kilowatts for applications like solar electric propulsion. So we're pretty excited for ROSA."

The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer instrument will be mounted on the upper right side of the station's power truss. It will study X-rays from neutron stars to learn more about their inner workings.

"Neutron stars are fantastical stars that are extraordinary in many ways," Arzoumanian said. "They are the densest objects in the universe, they are the fastest spinning objects known, they are the most strongly magnetic objects known."

Neutron stars form when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. When fusion in the core stops, there is nothing to counteract the inward pull of gravity and the core collapses as the outer layers of the star are explosively blown away.

The core's collapse stops due to quantum mechanical effects that counteract the inward pull of gravity, which crushes electrons into protons and leaves "a giant ball of neutrons" a few dozen miles across, Arzoumanian said. The mass of these city-size objects ranges from one to several times the mass of Earth's sun.

"We have very high density, very rapid rotation," Arzoumanian said. "The fastest known neutron stars -- pulsars -- spin at hundreds of times every second. They're spinning faster than the blades of a household blender."

An instrument to study neutron stars, carried aloft by the Dragon cargo ship, will be mounted on the station's power truss. Along with studying the bizarre physics of collapsed stars, the instrument will test technology that on day could use them as GPS-like navigation beacons for deep space missions.

NASA

Pulsars emit beams of radiation from their magnetic poles and as they spin, the beams can pass across the solar system depending on their orientation.

"They're giant flywheels. With the mass and the spinning speed that they have, there's nothing capable of disturbing their rapid rotation, and that makes them extremely stable," said Arzoumanian. "So if we can time the flashes, we have very accurate clocks. Over months and years, the accuracy of pulsars as clocks rivals or beats the atomic clocks we can make here on Earth."

The NICER instrument will measure those flashes with extreme precision, shedding light on the basic physics of neutron stars and helping engineers test technology that could one day lead to deep space navigation systems.

The NICER instrument is "significantly oversized for the navigation demonstration," Arzoumanian said. "NICER is very modular, we have 56 parallel telescopes packed into this box. Our simulations and calculations suggest the navigation needs of an interplanetary cruise mission could be met with just one or two of the 56 telescopes. So it could be made much more compact."

While pulsar-based navigation systems will not eliminate the need for Earth-based tracking, he said it would greatly reduce reliance on NASA's Deep Space Network.

Read more:
Storms delay launch of "used" SpaceX cargo ship - CBS News

Russia's Oleg Novitskiy and Thomas Pesquet, with the European Space Agency, strapped themselves inside the spacecraft and left the station at 6:47 a.m. EDT as the complex sailed 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

They made a parachute landing southwest of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 10:10 a.m. EDT.

One seat aboard the capsule was empty as U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, who flew to the station with Novitskiy and Pesquet in November, will remain in orbit until September. She is filling a vacancy left after Russia scaled down its station crew size to two members from three.

"We of course are going to miss Oleg and Thomas. They are exceptional astronauts," an emotional Whitson said during a ceremony on Thursday, where she turned over command of the $100 billion station to Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.

"Peggy is a legend," Pesquet said. "We're a little bit sad to leave her behind, but we know she's in very, very capable hands."

Whitson, Yurchikhin and astronaut Jack Fischer, also with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, will manage the station until a new crew launches in late July.

"That will be a little challenging," Whitson said during an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. "I was up here on my previous two expeditions and it was only a three-person crew, but it was a much smaller station at that point in time."

"Still, I think it's quite doable," she said.

Whitson, who is serving on the station for a third time, broke the U.S. record in April for cumulative time in space. By the time she returns to Earth in September, she will have accumulated more than 660 days in orbit.

Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, with 878 days in orbit, is the world's most experienced space flier.

See original here:
Capsule lands carrying International Space Station crew - Brainerd Dispatch

SpaceX scrubbed its attempt to launch a previously-used Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station due to weather.

The launch, originally scheduled for Thursday at 2:55 p.m. Pacific time from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is now aimed at Saturday at 2:07 p.m. Pacific time.

Space X hopes to add another item to its list of reusable launch system components by launching supplies to the International Space Station on the Dragon spacecraft.

The Dragon capsule for this mission was previously used in 2014 to carry supplies to the space station. For this launch, it will be filled with almost 6,000 pounds of crew supplies, hardware and science research, including equipment to study neutron stars.

In preparation for the flight, the Hawthorne space company replaced some parts on the Dragon, such as the heat shield. But the majority of the components, including the hull and thrusters, were able to be reused, said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of mission assurance at SpaceX.

The majority of this Dragon has been in space before, he said during a prelaunch press conference Wednesday afternoon.

SpaceX will also attempt to land the first-stage booster in its Landing Zone 1 at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Dragon spacecraft is expected to deploy about 10 minutes after launch and should arrive at the space station about three days later. The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth in July, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

Reusing a Dragon capsule is one more piece of the puzzle in creating a fully reusable launch system, said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at the Teal Group.

In March, SpaceX achieved one of its longtime goals by using a previously-flown first-stage booster to launch a commercial communications satellite and then re-landing that booster on a floating platform at sea.

During that same mission, the company successfully recovered the rockets fairing, a clamshell-like covering that protects satellites and other payloads. Koenigsmann said SpaceX will not attempt to recover the fairing on this mission; the company later clarified, saying thats because there is no fairing this time.

Successful reuse of the Dragon capsule would be significant for SpaceXs materials technology, but in general, the spacecraft reuse is less significant than that of the booster, which required more cutting-edge technology to be able to land upright, Caceres said.

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk has said the first-stage booster is the most expensive part of the rocket. Company President Gwynne Shotwell has said launch costs could eventually decrease by 30% by reusing rockets.

Thursdays mission will be SpaceXs seventh launch of the year as the company has increased its launch cadence. Last year, SpaceX launched a total of eight missions before a launch-pad explosion that destroyed a rocket and commercial satellite, grounding the company for several months.

samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

Twitter: @smasunaga

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UPDATES:

3:15 p.m.: This article was updated with SpaceXs announcement of a launch delay.

6:50 a.m.: This article was updated with a clarification about why there will be no fairing recovery.

This article was originally published at 6 a.m.

Continue reading here:
SpaceX delays launch that will send supplies to the space station in a reused Dragon - Los Angeles Times

Pictured from left to right: Hope Hesterly, Piper Fain, Alexis Bryant & Lexi Betts, ninth grade students at Camden-Fairview High School whose student experiment is headed into orbit in 2017. (Photo: KATV)

A science experiment made by ninth graders at the Camden Fairview School District is taking a trip to space.

The Camden Fairview "Student Spaceflights Experiments Program" Team traveled to the Kennedy Space Center to see their experiment lift off on the SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-11 as it heads to the International Space Station on Saturday. The rocket, which was first scheduled to launch Thursday, will also carry the ISS resupply and science investigations.

The experiment entitled, "Testing the Formation of a Polymer in Microgravity," will be tested by astronauts on the International Space Station and then sent back to students for analysis.

The Student Spaceflights Experiments Program had students compete to create research proposals and have those proposals vetted by a review board. Students worked in groups to develop their experiments and presented their proposals to a panel at the local level, dwindling the experiments to a select few to be chosen by the review board in Maryland.

The chosen experiment was designed by Lexi Betts, Alexis Bryant, Piper Fain, Hope Hesterly and Trey Jeffus. The students' teacher was Hannah O'Dell.

The program says a control experiment will be conducted on the Camden Fairview campus while astronauts perform their experiment in space according to the proposal's instructions.

This is the first time a student experiment from Arkansas is going up with the Student Spaceflights Experiments Program.

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Camden Fairview students' science experiment going to International Space Station - KATV

June 01, 2017 14:44 ET | Source: Taconic Biosciences

HUDSON, N.Y., June 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- When the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launches today bound for the International Space Station, they will be joined by 40 special mice, bred specifically for this mission by Taconic Biosciences, a global leader in genetically engineered mouse models and associated services.

The project is a collaboration between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), BioServe, and NASA. For this mission, named Rodent Research-5, the Taconic mice support research lead by Dr. Chia Soo, professor of surgery at UCLA Schools of Dentistry, Engineering and Medicine. The study leverages the molecule NELL-1, a protein produced by the human body that is critical for normal bone growth and development.

OnJune 1, 40 mice treated with NELL-1 will be launched to the International Space Station to test whether the presence of the molecule impedes the typical bone loss associated with microgravity. Reduced gravity in space accelerates the natural process of bone loss. The live mice will return to earth to undergo further evaluation by Dr. Soos team after their time in microgravity. The team hopes to use findings to develop therapies that prevent bone loss, and further grow and strengthen bone in humans.

Taconic Biosciences history with the space program dates back to 1985, when the first Taconic mice went into space. More recently, we have supported rodent research missions with CASIS where rodents spent extended periods of time on the International Space Station. This helped scientists develop the initial understanding of the effects of microgravity on bone loss and muscle wasting, shared Dr. Gretchen Kusek, scientific program manager with Taconic.

As managers of the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory, we are constantly working with researchers to break down barriers and unlock discoveries not possible through earth-based experimentation, said CASIS director of operations Ken Shields. Rodent research on the space station has the capacity to assist in novel understanding of bone density loss and muscle wasting, which could lead to enhanced drug development for us here on our planet. Taconic Biosciences has proven to be an invaluable collaborator in this important research and we look forward to working together on many future ISS National Laboratory missions.

Taconic is a fully-licensed provider of rodent model generation services and has twenty years of model design experience. Taconics unique capability of providing a seamless transition from model design to breeding and colony management, offers customers a complete solution. These scientific services include acquiring or generating, importing, licensing, breeding, testing, preparing, and distributing genetically engineered models to any location worldwide as well as into space.

To learn more about Taconic's custom model generation, please call 1-888-TACONIC (888-822-6642) in the US, or +45 70 23 04 05 in Europe, or email info@taconic.com.

About Taconic Biosciences, Inc.

Taconic Biosciences is a fully-licensed, global leader in genetically engineered rodent models and services. Founded in 1952, Taconic helps biotechnology companies and institutions acquire, custom generate, breed, precondition, test, and distribute valuable research models worldwide. Specialists in genetically engineered mouse and rat models, precision research mouse models, and integrated model design and breeding services, Taconic operates three service laboratories and six breeding facilities in the U.S. and Europe, maintains distributor relationships in Asia and has global shipping capabilities to provide animal models almost anywhere in the world.

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Link:
Mice in Space: Taconic Mice Included on Launch to International ... - GlobeNewswire (press release)

Click here for the full story from UPR.

For a short time on May 19th, Utah students had the opportunity to speak with astronauts orbiting 250 miles above earths surface on the International Space Station.

"Well connectivity is everything, right? I mean, these students today are studying science and math and wondering where it leads. And they get to see and hear from those that are using it every day to great productive advantage. And it gives them the inspiration to think maybe this isnt as boring as it appears in the book, and maybe there is something to this. The biggest gift in life is discovering a talent that comes from your passion and being able to be productive with it. So thats what this is about, is making sure that students have an opportunity to see where things can go. I never dreamed I could be an astronaut -- I loved the idea -- but it actually happened. And they can see that they could have that happen to them too."

-- Former astronaut Charlie Precourt

Read this article:
Students Video Chat With Astronauts Aboard Space Station - Utah Public Radio

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French astronaut Thomas Pesquet flies Montreal's flag aboard the International Space Station. June 1, 2017.

After spending almost 200 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), French astronaut Thomas Pesquet wanted to share his enthusiasm for Montreals 375th anniversary.

In a video uploaded to YouTube, Pesquet unfolded Montreals flag and proudly let it float in the micro-gravity environment.

I wish you a happy 375th birthday from the International Space Station, he declared in the video.

READ MORE:Astronauts to make emergency space walk outside International Space Station

Pesquet returns to Earth June 2 and said he is excited to return to the city he has called home for the last 10 years.

He also took the opportunity to announce aunique public concert to be held at the foot of Mount Royal on August 19.

READ MORE:Satellite created by University of Alberta team to take next step in out-of-this-world endeavour

It will feature free performances from the Orchestre Symphonique de Montral, the Orchestre Mtropolitain, and the McGill Symphony Orchestra.

Over 300 musicians, pop artists and choral singers will share the stage to celebrate the citys 375th anniversary.

2017Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Montreal flag floats aboard International Space Station for city's 375th anniversary - Globalnews.ca