Category Archives: Space Station

From left, Cheyenne, Fort Collins, Greeley, Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs. (Shane Kimbrough/NASA)

Astronaut Shane Kimbrough apparently knows his Front Range geography. He snapped the image above from 249 miles high in orbit, capturing Colorados greater metro area, andtweeted it this morning. (Well, morning for us, who knows what time for him. Space time.)

Scroll on for more.

Astronaut photography has become a very popular thing lately. Often enough, they use consumer SLR cameras with long telephoto lenses. Its wild to me that the power of consumer electronics can deliver these images. (If I could get just get to space, my Canon could do this!)

Its kind of like amusician on stage calling out to people from different cities. I see you, Greeley, but I cant hear you.

Next up is my personal favorite space snapshot of the Denver-Boulder area. This one was taken from the ISS on Jan. 31, 2008 on a Nikon D1, a camera you could buy today for about $140.

I like this one because, like the Blue Dot image, it captures most of our little lives in one image. I also like that its blurred and distorted in some parts, giving the impression that it really was taken by some folks just casually flying by in space.

Of course, unmanned cameras have also captured our fine metro from space, too. Check out the time-lapse images we compiled last year from satellite imagery.

Also, this one doesnt include Denver, but man is it a view:

And for more on space shooting technique, in case you end up there:

Andrew Kenney writes about public spaces, Denver phenomena and whatever else. He previously worked for six years as a reporter at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. His most prized possession is his collection of bizarre voicemail. Leave him one at 303-502-2803, or email akenney@denverite.com. View all posts by Andrew Kenney

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Colorado from space: International Space Station astronaut captures ... - Denverite (blog)

A science experiment and two mission patches designed by Clark County School District students will launch soon with destination to the International Space Station.

The mission patches are scheduled to launch on board the SpaceX-10, while the science experiment will head to space in April on board SpaceX-11. Both projects are part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, Mission 10, which began during the 2015-2016 school year.

The two winning mission patches were selected from more than 3,000 designs created by CCSD students in seven elementary schools. A local panel of judges consisting of educators, artists and program supporters selected Martha P. King Elementary School students Ella Morris and Julia Tregnan as the winners. Both designs display images of space, the Earth and Nevada's desert flora and fauna.

In addition to the patch design competition, the program also challenged students to design an experiment that would test the effects of microgravity. The experiment at John C. Vanderburg Elementary School emerged as the winner, among more than 90 proposals submitted.

Student investigators Shari Abeyakoon, Kendall Allgower and Avery Sanford, evaluated the effects of microgravity on seed germination as a possible source for food in long-term space travel. The experiment will be prepared by the students before loading onto a ferry vehicle that will carry it to the space station.

Astronauts will activate the experiment in space, while students conduct the same experiment on land to compare the gravity levels and results. Once returned to Earth, the patches and the science experiment will be returned to the students.

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CCSD student projects traveling to the International Space Station - KTNV Las Vegas

February 8, 2017 For Jeff Manber, a new era in spaceflight wont be signaled with a high-decibel rocket launch, but by the silent opening of airlock doors.

Mr. Manber serves as chief executive officer of NanoRacks, which on Monday announced plans to install a $15 million commercial airlock model on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2019.

The Texas-based aerospace company has already deployed almost 150 small satellites, known as CubeSats, from the airlock of the stations Kibo module. By working with Boeing Co. to build the new airlock, it aims to triple its deployment capability.

This addition will expand private firms presence in low-Earth orbit, which NASA hopes will allow it to focus on exploring the solar system. But the CubeSats have already encouraged the shift to commercial spaceflight.

Up until recently, we had what I always called a Socialist-designed space program, Mr. Manber tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. We had a group of people sitting in a room, telling you what the purpose of the hardware was for, and they would help design it. Now we have a much more commercial [program].

It is fair to say, he adds, that the [International Space Stations] first commercial success has been meeting the needs of governments and companies and universities to deploy satellites.

CubeSatswere first developed in 1999, a year after the first ISS modules were launched. Since then, 510 of these satellites have taken flight. Todays satellites arent just smaller, but cheaper. According to the Motley Fool, prices for CubeSats and other small satellites have dropped from $3 million to as little as $25,000.

Now, the race is on to reduce the cost of getting into orbit. A rocket currently in development by Vector Space Systems will carry a payload into orbit for $1.5 million to $2.5 million. But NanoRacks will see your 10- x 10- x 10-centimeter CubeSat off from the ISS for just $85,000, the companys marketing and communications manager, Abby Dickes, tells the Monitor in an email.

Few saw the rise of this market. For years and years, Mr. Manber remembers, we all thought, in the space community, that the first big commercial use of an orbiting space station would be breakthroughs in life-saving drugs.... However, in the mysterious way that the commercial marketplace works, the first big commercial hit, the first big legitimate demand for an orbiting space station has turned out to be deploying satellites.

Manber emphasized that NanoRacks also does considerable business for biopharma companies who use the companys products to run zero-gravity experiments within the ISS. Robyn Gatens, deputy director of NASAs International Space Station division, tells the Monitor that there is great interest in both internal experiments and satellite deployments.

But the development of small, inexpensive satellites could prove more significant for commercial spaceflight, because its spurring private companies to develop hardware that can be used on future spacecraft.

When the station was built, Manber says, the Japanese put up a small satellite deployer that could deploy a couple of satellites every so often. We saw that, and we recognized there's a market need to have a bigger deployer to take care of organizations and companies.

The first NanoRacks customers satellite deployed from Japans Kibo module in 2012. As the company builds a dedicated airlock for this purpose, Manber is already thinking about its longer-term significance.

That airlock can be taken off and put on a [different] platform, he says. I see a future very soon, within the decade, where we have a couple of space stations in orbit.

This vision lines up with one laid out by NASA associate administrator William Gerstenmaier in 2015, in which the ISS, following its expected retirement in the late 2020s, will be replaced by several single-purpose, small and entrepreneurial stations.

Private rocket operators like SpaceX will also be a part of this future, as may technology used in the public-private Bigelow Expandable Activity Module added to the ISS last year. But the new airlock, built entirely with private funds, marks a major step toward a privatized orbital sector.

But even if NanoRacks helped usher in this new era, it may need to adapt its business model.

Its not clear whether one of its key operations deploying constellations of small satellites for Earth-imaging or testing the components of larger satellites will always provide a reliable source of income.

Manber says that Earth-imaging companies like the low orbit provided by the ISS. But Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, points out that one of these firms, Planet, recently shifted from space-station deployment to regular rockets, which can bring satellites into higher orbits than the ISSs 400 kilometers, about 249 miles.

Some firms, he explains, would prefer to place their operational satellites at 500 to 600 kilometers, where theyll last longer before re-entering the atmosphere.

They'll still use the space station for when they want to test something out, Dr. McDowell tells the Monitor, but the bulk of their business is going away from the space station. And I wonder if that's going to be true for a lot of other companies in the long run, that the space station orbit is just going to be too low for the operational constellations, where the bulk of the business is going to be in five years.

But on the whole, he sees the new airlock as a logical next step for aerospace firms. All we need to do is get this thing up in the trunk of a Dragon, slap it on the spare port, and then getting the cargos up there, the satellites up there, is a proven path. So I think it's a pretty clear business case for them.

Manber, not surprisingly, agrees. "Every signal is that we're entering a new chapter of extraordinarily robust commercial [activity] in space, and this is what this airlock is all about.

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With new airlock, International Space Station widens door for ... - Christian Science Monitor

Houston-based company NanoRacks is developing a commercial airlock for the International Space Station that NASA says should launch in 2019.

The International Space Station (ISS) will soon feature its first commercially funded airlock, which NASA officials said will allow more small satellites to be deployed from the orbiting lab.

NASA has agreed to let the Houston-based company NanoRacks develop the airlock, which is expected to launch in 2019.

"We want to utilize the space station to expose the commercial sector to new and novel uses of space, ultimately creating a new economy in low-Earth orbit for scientific research, technology development and human and cargo transportation," Sam Scimemi, director of NASA's ISS division, said in a statement. "We hope this new airlock will allow a diverse community to experiment and develop opportunities in space for the commercial sector."

NanoRacks which has already deployed numeroustiny cubesats from the station's Japanese Kibo module signed an independent partnership with aerospace giant Boeing on Monday (Feb. 6) to develop the new airlock.

Artist's illustration of the commercial airlock that will be installed on the International Space Station in 2019, if all goes according to plan.

Payloads deployed into space via the new airlock will be coordinated and vetted through the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), which manages the U.S. national laboratory on the space station.NASA officials said the new airlock will be installed on a port on ISS' Tranquility module. Another Tranquility port currently hosts the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), a prototype designed to test how inflatable habitats perform in space.

Besides its current work with NanoRacks, CASIS and Bigelow Aerospace (which built BEAM), NASA issued a request for information last fall asking private enterprises how they can use resources on the space station, such as docking ports.

"As private sector partners play a greater role in this new economy, NASA is able to focus on its deep-space exploration goals, including sending humans beyond the moon and eventually, to Mars," agency officials said in the same statement.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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International Space Station Will Get a Commercial Airlock in 2019 - Space.com

Weslaco ISD students will have the opportunity on Thursday to speak to a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station.

Arminda Mindy Muoz, public information officer for the district, said on Monday that students will be making the earth-to-space call at around 11 a.m. for a 20-minute conversation scheduled to air live on NASA Television and on the agencys website.

According to a school district press release, Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson will answer students questions from the Weslaco ISD Performing Arts Center at Central Middle School.

More than 800 students in grades 3-5, as well as Weslaco East High Schools Astronomy Club, will be in the audience, the release read. Whitson launched to the space station on Nov. 17 and will live aboard until the spring.

Described as an in-flight education downlink, the talk is considered an integral component of the NASA Office of Educations efforts to improve education in the field of STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the U.S.

Linking students directly to astronauts aboard the space station through the agency Office of Educations STEM on Station activity provides authentic, live experiences in space exploration, space study and the scientific components of space travel, while introducing the possibilities of life in space, the release read.

The NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv. For videos and lesson plans highlighting the International Space Stations research, visit http://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation.

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Weslaco students to speak with NASA astronaut on space station ... - Monitor

Brooke Thornton has devoted eight years to a project that aims to check on the atmospheric health of the Earth. Needless to say, when NASA's Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III on the International Space Station (SAGE III on ISS) launches, she'll be among the many cheering and working for its success in space.

"After seeing SAGE III mature from concept, to development, to assembly and testing, and preparing for mission ops ... I'm excited to see it launch so we get the science we have worked so hard for," she said.

Thornton, of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is the mission operations manager for SAGE III on ISS, which is a key part of NASA's mission to provide crucial, long-term measurements that will help humans understand and care for Earth's atmosphere.

The instrument measures Earth's sunscreen, or ozone, along with other gases and tiny particles in the atmosphere called aerosols. SAGE makes its measurements by looking at the light from the sun or moon as it passes through Earth's atmosphere at the edge, or limb, of the planet.

The result is a thin profile of the atmosphere from the unique vantage point of the space station, which has an orbit ideal for SAGE measurements.

Thornton and her operations team will look after SAGE III once it is attached, via robotic arm, to the station - operating the payload remotely from the ground "to get the best science," she said.

'Humble beginnings' The first SAGE instrument began operations in space on Feb. 18, 1979, following a 1975 proof-of-concept experiment called the Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement (SAM) on the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

SAM, the first experiment of its kind conducted from space, proved the value of a technique called occultation. Through that method, scientists identify components of the air by studying sunlight as it beams through the upper edges of atmosphere and comparing it to light coming straight from the sun, with no atmosphere in between. SAM was followed by SAM II and then the SAGE instruments.

"Since those humble beginnings, scientists and the engineers here at NASA Langley have perfected the technique," said Michael Cisewski, project manager for SAGE III on ISS.

SAGE II was a part of the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) and was deployed by the crew of space shuttle Challenger in 1984. It operated and produced data for more than 21 years.

The first SAGE III was launched in 2001 on a Russian satellite, Meteor-3M while another SAGE III was safely stored away. After several years of storage and preparation for the current mission, the SAGE III payload was shipped from Langley to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in November 2015, ready for launch, currently targeted for February from Kennedy on a SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon Vehicle.

Upon arrival to the space station, the instrument will be robotically installed onto an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier (ELC) platform, ELC-4 to be exact, using the space station's primary robotic arm, Canadarm2.

"The station robot arm removes SAGE III from the Dragon trunk, and then rides along the ISS truss to our mounting location and then installs the payloads," Thornton said. The system is really amazing. The ISS robotics system is completely controlled from the ground, saving precious crew time needed to perform on-board science."

After meticulously checking out all payload systems and initial calibration and validation, SAGE III will begin taking routine science measurements. The data is downloaded daily to the ground for use by the international science community.

While it was led at NASA Langley Research Center, the project has many partners both within NASA and with private companies in the United States and internationally. Three NASA centers - Kennedy, NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama - contributed to the project as well as Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado, the European Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space-Italia.

All about the data The SAGE data-collecting missions helped inform political actions on Earth. On Sept. 16, 1987, an international treaty, known as the Montreal Protocol, was signed by most nations of the world. The agreement called for phasing out production of many of the substances that were responsible for ozone depletion. The treaty has been in force since Jan. 1, 1989.

"The SAGE instruments showed the world that we were losing stratospheric ozone globally," said Joseph Zawodny, project scientist.

"The world did an amazing thing by limiting the chlorofluorocarbons through the Montreal Protocol," Thornton said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific organization under the auspices of the United Nations, announced in 2005 that their observations of the stratosphere showed that the global amount of ozone is stabilizing. The IPCC study indicates that the atmosphere layer is expected to begin to recover in coming decades under the current ban on ozone-depleting substances continues.

Earth-observing instruments like SAGE III that monitor climate and ozone levels are a key part in looking after the health of the Earth and can help spur positive changes. The SAGE flight on ISS now will provide key data letting scientists know if the ozone layer is on track to recover as predicted by current models.

"When you're working on a project with so many moving part like this, it can be difficult to appreciate how important it is or what kind of impact your work will have," Cisewski said. "SAGE III is not just important to Langley or the United States - it's important to the world."

Getting set for space This version of the SAGE instrument is equipped with powerful tools. The instrument uses a telescope, a grating spectrometer and a charge coupled device detector array that, together, act as a sophisticated camera.

"The combination of SAGE instrument capabilities and the solar occultation measurement technique make the instrument essentially self-calibrating," Thornton said. "The SAGE instrument has been called the gold standard for all other instruments that are looking at ozone."

Since the instrument arrived at Kennedy from Langley, engineers have assisted SAGE team members in preparing it for launch.

"We have such an amazing mission ops team that I'll be working with," Thornton said. "It's a very tight group and I think that will improve the quality of the data that we get."

"I am proud of what our team has accomplished," Cisewski said, adding it's like a family. "The team has been really first-class and put in the extra efforts to make SAGE a big success."

Cisewski will be on-site at Kennedy when SAGE launches, and will be watching with pride.

"We're doing our part to go ahead and provide the best data set for people that are trying to make decisions now," he said. "This data is going to be useful 50 years from now."

Those thoughts were echoed by Thornton.

"SAGE instruments have shown the whole story so far of ozone trends," she said. "Now, hopefully this instrument will be able to show the recovery of the ozone."

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NASA Langley Ozone Sensor Set for Launch to Space Station - Space Daily

When you take a glance at the night sky in the coming weeks, think about the "Spud Launchers" the three budding scientists from Buffalo, whose potato experiment will be orbiting up there somewhere inside the International Space Station.

The three Buffalo Public School students Gabriella Melendez, Toriana Cornwell and Shaniylah Welch will travel to Cape Canaveral, Fla., next week to watch the launching of the rocket that finally will carry their science experiment to the space laboratory.

The honor was bestowed upon the girls in 2015, when they were among the winners of a national science competition sponsored by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. The education center partners with NASA and NanoRacks, a leader in the commercial space industry, to inspire the next generation of scientists and space explorers.

The three girls who attended Hamlin Park School 74 together will test whether 20 tiny potatoes squeezed into a small, half-inch tube can survive space travel. Upon return to earth six weeks later, their experiment will be returned to them for planting inside a University at Buffalo greenhouse.

It's an area of interest, particularly with NASA cultivating the ability to grow food in space in preparation for longer space missions and hoping maybe one day to plant the crop in a controlled dome on Mars.

The rocket launch was supposed to happen last spring, but the three girls have been waiting patiently Toriana and Shaniylah are now in high school as a number of delays pushedback the mission to this month, said Andrew Franz, the Hamlin Park teacher who served as an adviser for the project.

Their experiment already has been shipped off in preparation for the launch and thanks to donations, the girls who call themselves the "Spud Launchers" will be there to watch. They'll head to Florida and be thereFeb. 13-16 with Franz, school Principal Patrick Cook and Ina Ferguson, liaison for WNY STEM Hub.

WNY STEM Hub, which coordinated the competition locally, is a nonprofit created to steer students toward the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

"It's a huge relief for the girls," Franz said. "We already put our tube with the potatoes in the mail and we won't see them again until March or April."

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Space Station sendoff finally arrives for Buffalo's young 'Spud ... - Buffalo News

ball was covering about 8,800 yards per second

ABOVE VIDEO: Astronaut Tim Kopra gently tossed a football down the length of the station, the ball was technically covering about 8,800 yards per second (8046 m/s) as measured by someone standing on Earth.

(SPACE) Has a NASA astronaut set a new record for the longest football pass in history? A new video shot in orbit aboard the International Space Station captured the incredible feat.

The space station orbits the Earth at a speed of about 17,500 mph (28,163 km/h). Therefore, when astronaut Tim Kopra gently tossed a football down the length of the station, the ball was technically covering about 8,800 yards per second (8046 m/s) as measured by someone standing on Earth.

In total, the ball traveled 564,664 yards (516,328 meters), according to the video, and NASA posed the question, Is this a new world record?

Were guessing that Guinness World Records will not grant Kopra the record, considering that he too was traveling at an incredible speed when he threw the ball.

Kopra returned home from his latest trip to the orbiting laboratory in June 2016, so it seems NASA has been holding on to this potentially record-setting footage for a while, and chose to release it ahead of the 2017 Super Bowl this Sunday.

NASA made its presence known at this years Super Bowl in Houston, home of the Johnson Space Center.

Leading up to the big game, visitors to Houston were able to check out a free festival taking place at Discovery Green, located in the citys downtown area.

The main attraction there was a virtual reality roller coaster, called Future Flight, which simulates a spacecraft landing on Mars.

The free festival featured displays, booths and activities created by NASA, as well as by private spaceflight companies, including Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK and Raytheon.

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VIDEO: Astronaut Tim Kopra Throws Football 564664 Yards Aboard International Space Station - SpaceCoastDaily.com

Artists concept of the NanoRacks airlock attached to the space stations Tranquility module. Credit: NanoRacks

A commercial airlock built in partnership by NanoRacks and Boeing will be connected to the International Space Station in 2019, the companies announced Monday, after the proposed project won preliminary approval from NASA managers.

NanoRacks plans to deploy small commercial satellites and CubeSats from the airlock, reducing the workload currently occupying time on the smaller equipment airlock inside the Japanese Kibo laboratory module. Only half of the Kibo airlocks capacity is allocated to NASA and commercial clients the rest goes to Japan.

This partnership is an important step in the commercial transition well see on the ISS in coming years, said Mark Mulqueen, Boeings ISS program manager. Utilizing a commercial airlock to keep up with the demand of deployment will significantly streamline our process.

NanoRacks has arranged for the launch of more than 375 payloads to the space station since 2009, including more than 100 CubeSats released from a deployer mounted on the end of the Japanese robotic arm outside Kibo for commercial customers, universities and NASA.

Houston-based NanoRacks also has an external platform outside Kibo, where scientists can test sensors, electronics and other equipment in the harsh environment of space.

The privately-funded commercial airlock will launch inside the unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, then attach to a port on the stations Tranquility module with the Canadian-built robotic arm.

Another commercial module is already to connected to Tranquility.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, launched to the station in April 2016 under a NASA-funded contract. Developed and built by Bigelow Aerospace, the soft-sided module expanded to full size in late May after bolted on to the Tranquility module.

BEAM is on a two-year demonstration to test the performance of an expandable module in space, but Bigelow and NASA are in discussions to extend the modules presence on the station longer.

NASA and NanoRacks signed a Space Act Agreement for the airlock project last year. The space agency announced Monday that it has committed to install the airlock on the station once NanoRacks completes pre-agreed financial and technical milestones outlined in the agreement.

We want to utilize the space station to expose the commercial sector to new and novel uses of space, ultimately creating a new economy in low Earth orbit for scientific research, technology development and human and cargo transportation, said Sam Scimemi, director of the ISS division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. We hope this new airlock will allow a diverse community to experiment and develop opportunities in space for the commercial sector.

The new airlock will triple the number of small satellites that can be deployed in a single cycle, according to Boeing.

Astronauts inside the station will also be able to assemble payloads from components delivered to the complex in bags, then put them through the NanoRacks airlock, which can handle larger packages than the sizes supported by the current Kibo passageway.

Boeing is providing the passive common berthing mechanism, a connecting ring to install the new port on the Tranquility module, plus unspecified engineering services required for developing and manufacturing of the airlock, according to NanoRacks.

We are very pleased to have Boeing joining with us to develop the airlock module, said Jeffrey Manber, CEO of NanoRacks. This is a huge step for NASA and the U.S. space program, to leverage the commercial marketplace for low Earth orbit, on Space Station and beyond, and NanoRacks is proud to be taking the lead in this prestigious venture.

Boeing is also NASAs lead contractor for the entire space station, providing engineering support for all of the labs U.S. modules.

NanoRacks said the airlock could be detached from the ISS and placed on another platform in orbit.

The NanoRacks airlock module is the next logical step in the successful line of NanoRacks commercial payload facilities, said Brock Howe, head of the airlock project at NanoRacks. This airlock module will provide a broad range of capabilities to our payload customers and expand greatly on the commercial utilization of the station and I look forward to leading the team at NanoRacks on this next venture.

The airlock module will be assembled and tested by NanoRacks, which is also responsible for the design, safety, operations, quality assurance, mockups and crew training, the company said in a statement.

ATA Engineering of San Diego will lead structural and thermal analysis and testing services for the airlock project.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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NASA okays commercial airlock for space station - Spaceflight Now

Sacramento Bee

Look up in the sky tonight: See the space station along the Sacramento horizon Sacramento Bee Tonight is likely to afford good viewing to see the International Space Station in the Sacramento sky. A wet weather system is expected to arrive Wednesday night, but Tuesday night is likely to be clear. That will allow sky gazers in Sacramento to see ... The first private space station: Axiom to blast commercial module to the ISS in 2020 - then use it to create its own ...Daily Mail Russian Progress MS-03 departs International Space StationSpaceFlight Insider Axiom Space Wants to Launch a Private Space Station by 2020Inverse ABC10.com -NBCNews.com all 32 news articles »

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Look up in the sky tonight: See the space station along the Sacramento horizon - Sacramento Bee