Category Archives: Space Station

Imagine getting the chance to vacation in space:You pack your bags,launch into the heavens and find yourself floating among a sea of stars.

Now imagine having an unexpected allergic reaction. Suddenly you're hundreds of kilometres above Earth, wheezing, itching with your eyes swollen andno medication in sight.

"Are you going to wait for two months for SpaceX's next rocket to deliver you the Benadryl?" asksSaharnaz Safari.

"No, you need it now. "

That's part of the pitch made by Safari at the opening of what's being billed as Canada's first rocket factory. As part of a husband-wife team, Safari andSohrab Haghighatspoke to CBC News atthe headquarters of their company SpaceRydejust north of Toronto in Vaughan, Ont., alongside the first Canadian astronaut to live aboard the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield.

Their goal: to make history as the first orbital rocket to launch from a balloon meaning lower cost and on-demand access to space. Think a private Uber-like service for cargo "from the Earth to the Moon and anywhere in between," they say.

Safari and Haghighatenvision getting cargo to the edge of space by balloon, then releasing it, lighting a rocket and using the power of miniature computers to controlwhere it goes in space.

At a price-tag of $250,000 per trip,it's a fraction of the cost ofwhat's currently on offerfor a company or entity looking to send satellites into space or get cargo to the moon, Safari says. The competition, Elon Musk's SpaceX, charges over $1.1 millionby comparison, she says.

It's an "elegant idea," says Hadfield, who says getting to space now has been accomplished through the "brute power" of burning massive quantities of fossil fuels.

"It's a physics problem," he said, speaking at Tuesday's news conference. "In order to get into orbit, you have to be going eight kilometres a second. Any slower, you fall into the air;any faster, you go out to a higher orbit."

"But there's too much friction," he said. "So you have to get above the air and then you have get going fast enough to stay up there."

That's where the balloons come in.

But the technology isn't just handy for space travellers who might have forgotten something important back on Earth, says Hadfield. It's also got the potential to make it easier to send satellites into low orbit to help send back valuable information about the health and temperature of oceans and the planet as a whole, he says.

Jason Wood, executive director of space exploration and space industry policy at the Canadian Space Agency, imagines other uses too.

"Think about how that could be helpfulin remote or northern communities here in Canada to provide sustainable food sources or another exampleis health care, in terms of remote medicine."

Wood says SpaceRyde is part of a larger shift towards more and more commercial actors providing access to space. The industry,by some estimates, is expected to grow to a trillion dollars per year by 2040, he says.

As for Safari and Haghighat, the two met in Waterloo, Ont. during graduate school.

"That's where we got to know each other and fell in love and eventually got married," he told CBC News.

The pair, married for almost 14 years, are planning their first launch in 2023.

The year after that, their sights are set on the moon.

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Meet the husband-wife duo competing with SpaceX to send cargo to the moon - CBC.ca

Space, we've been told, is the final frontier.

A vast area of emptiness, waiting to be explored and conquered.

This idea may sound captivating, but social scientist and lawyer Douglas Ligor says it's not only problematic, but wrong.

Space, or at least the part that's relatively close to Earth, is actually a very crowded, messy and increasingly dangerous place.

According to Mr Ligor, who is a member of the enterprise space initiative at the RAND Corporation think tank, this largely lawless area is in dire need ofbetter "space laws."

In a recent piece for the NATO Legal Gazette, he warned thatif humanity doesn't act, "space is in jeopardy of becoming an unusable graveyard," which could have major consequences for humans back on Earth.

In the early days of space exploration, from the late 1950s to the 1960s, the US and the USSR launched around 750 satellites into space.

This number has grown dramatically. Dozens of countries and companies have since sent about 12,500 satellites into orbit. Today, there are about 4,500 functional satellites and about 3,000 derelict satellites, with the rest burning up or far from Earth.

Humans rely on satellites all thetime: For GPS services, some TV signals and telecommunications, and weather forecasting, just to name a few uses.

"Countries and companies intend on sending tens of thousands more satellites into 'low Earth orbit' and 'geostationary orbit' [two main orbits around Earth] within the next couple of decades. So it's about to get very, very crowded," Mr Ligor tells ABC RN's Between the Lines.

Whizzing around these critically important satellites isa hugeamount of "space garbage,"everythingfrom obsolete rocket partsto a wrench and bolts discarded by an astronaut.

Mr Ligor says there's more than 36,000 pieces of space garbage that are about 10 centimetres in diameter and greater, and around one million pieces that are 1-10 centimetres in diameter.

When it comes to the smaller fragments, there may be upwards of 170 million pieces.

And given space garbage can travel up to speeds of 28,000 kilometres per hour, Mr Ligor says the larger pieces can "destroy, disrupt or disable a satellite or space station."

Satellites and space stations cancurrently manage the debris problemwith warning systems and manoeuvring, but thiscould become increasinglydifficult in the future.

Mr Ligor says countries keep creating space debris and can't agree on what to do with it.

The result? "Messy" space is getting messier each day.

Mr Ligor warns of a cascading scenario where debris leads to collisions, which creates more debris and then more collisions (and so on), resulting in a very dangerous environment for space operations.

"The situation is likely to get worse and we could potentially lose parts of low Earth orbit and geostationary orbit if we aren't careful."

What that means is, in a worst-case scenario, humans could lose some satellite capabilities, which may affect all those things like GPS, telecommunications and weather monitoring.

Mr Ligor warned in his recent NATO Legal Gazette piece that losing access to low Earth and geostationary orbitswould mean "the global community at all levels could suffer significant social and economic instability, as well as national and international turmoil and insecurity."

"To be sure, this is a worst-case scenario. However, notwithstanding the undetermined probability of such a scenario, experts agree that the potential for catastrophic consequences is very real."

But the one bit of good news is that humans on Earth are very safe from space debris.

According to material from NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office, "a significant amount of debris does not survive the severe heating that occurs during reentry" andpieces that do survive "are most likely to fall into the oceans or other bodies of water or onto sparsely populated regions."

It states"no serious injury or significant property damage caused by re-entering debris has been confirmed."

Space law, made up of different international treaties, does already exist.

But Mr Ligor says these treaties"articulate general principles that are broad in scope and ambiguous" and no treaty contains a verification or enforcement mechanism.

In 1972, many nations agreed to the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects. But Mr Ligor says it's "woefully inadequate" in many situations.

He says the treaty only made countries liable for their objects when they're inside the Earth's atmosphere or if they fall back to Earth. Up in space itself, there are no rules to assign fault.

So if an errant astronaut glove hits a satellite and causes millions of dollars in damage, there's currently no way to determine who's actually at fault.

In other words, it's "the Wild West" up there.

"[Today] nations and operators can pick and choose which standards they want to apply when I think the reliance on voluntary norms and voluntary behaviours is what's gotten us into this mess," Mr Ligor says.

As a result, he's advocating for a much stronger system of governance in space.

He suggests adding new protocols to previous treaties or a new treaty "that devises a framework or system of rules that everybody can reliably count on ... [and] that's at least relatively enforceable."

Mr Ligor is also worried about how wealthy companies are buying up satellite "real estate" and what this means for countries who are less advanced in space development.

Geostationary orbit is a prime spot for broadcasting and telecommunications satellites so competition to secure a slotis set to become "very, very fierce."

"There's a very limited amount of real estate in the geostationary orbit," he says.

"Companies are essentially trying to get as many of these slots in the orbit as they can If you have money and resources, you can get the best location and you can box other operators out."

It means countries which are yet to start space programs, especially developing countries, may be totally boxed out of some parts of the space real estate market in the future.

Speculating about what lies even further ahead for space development often sounds like the realm of science fiction. But Mr Ligor says now is the time to consider what's possible and what guardrails there should be.

For example, later this year NASA is set to send a probe to an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter which is made up of iron and nickel and may be worth a whopping US$10 quintillion.

"Nobody's actually gone out and mined the moon or an asteroid yet. So we have this opportunity [now] to wargame different sets of rules," he says.

"What outcomes do we really want? And do we want them to be fair? If we do, we certainly don't want to devise rules that are just going to benefit the 'first movers' a [Elon] Musk or a [Jeff] Bezos or a particular country that gets to the moon first and starts mining water or other precious elements."

He says militaries are heavily investing in space, which should be a red flag.

In recent years, the US established a Space Force as a separate branch of its military, the French Air Force became the French Air and Space Force and NATO declared space an "operational domain."

"[Throughout history] whenever you have military build ups, that can be a dangerous thing. It's proven to be dangerous unless there are rules and political checks and balances to mitigate against that."

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Posted20h ago20 hours agoTue 21 Jun 2022 at 7:00pm, updated14h ago14 hours agoWed 22 Jun 2022 at 1:26am

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Space is crowded, messy and dangerous, says this expert, and it needs better road rules - ABC News

Osaka, Japan - Panasonic Industry Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Kadoma-shi, Osaka; Representative Director, President, CEO: Shinji Sakamoto) announced today that it will conduct space exposure experiments[2] of its electronic circuit board materials and Underfill for board level reinforcement . The materials will be launched into outer space within FY2022 (by the end of March 2023) on the Exposed Facility[1] of the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and remain there for about six months.

In recent years, the aerospace industry has accelerated the development of space technologies and solutions with an eye toward solving environmental and social issues on Earth, including endeavors such as the full-scale promotion of manned lunar surface activities and efforts to increase services that utilize low-earth-orbit satellites.Against this backdrop, these experiments will expose Panasonic's products to space to assess the impact on them and utilize the data obtained for future product development. Such products include MEGTRON series multi-layer circuit board materials and LEXCM series semiconductor device materials, which are widely used in the field of communication infrastructure. This project allows experiments in space (an environment where microgravity, high vacuum, cosmic radiation, and wide-ranging temperature changes occur simultaneously), which are difficult to duplicate on Earth.Panasonic will provide electronic materials to contribute to businesses relating to the moon and Mars, which are expected to expand in the future, and technological innovations for high-altitude platform stations (HAPSs)[3], etc., thereby aiming to realize a sustainable society.

Panasonic will participate in the Space Delivery Project -RETURN to EARTH-, which is promoted by Space BD Inc., to launch research products collected from domestic and overseas research institutions, educational facilities, and private companies into space in order to conduct space exposure experiments. The company's experimental samples will be installed on the Exposed Experiment Bracket Attached on i-SEEP (ExBAS) mounted on the IVA-replaceable Small Exposed Experiment Platform (i-SEEP) of the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo on board the International Space Station (ISS). The samples will be launched into space to allow for approximately six months of exposure experiments. Subsequently, the samples will be retrieved by the ISS and returned to Earth via a cargo spacecraft. The company is planning to evaluate changes in their material properties before and after exposure to space.

An experimental area exposed to space and located outside the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo on board the International Space Station, which is in orbit approximately 400 km above the Earth's surface. The facility enables scientific observations, Earth observations, communications, science and engineering experiments, scientific experiments, etc.

Exposure to microgravity, cosmic radiation, high vacuum, and other conditions unique to space environments. It is difficult to reproduce all of these environments simultaneously on Earth.

Abbreviation of High-Altitude Platform Station. General term for systems that provide communication services over a wide area by mounting communication base stations, such as those for LTE and 5G applications, on unmanned aircraft flying in the stratosphere about 20 km above the ground. Since HAPS is resistant to disasters and can provide communication services to 3D spatial areas including those in the sky, it is expected to help eliminate information gaps between different locations by covering a wide range of areas where communication networks are not yet in place, such as mountainous areas and remote islands.

Electronic Materials Business Division, Panasonic Industry Co., Ltd.https://industrial.panasonic.com/cuif/ww/contact-us?field_contact_group=2343

Panasonic Industry Co., Ltd. websitehttps://www.panasonic.com/global/industry/

Space BD Inc. websitehttps://space-bd.com/en/

Public Relations Department, Panasonic Industry Co., Ltd.Email: press-industry@ml.jp.panasonic.com

A global leader in developing innovative technologies and solutions for wide-ranging applications, the Panasonic Group switched to an operating company system on April 1, 2022, with Panasonic Holdings Corporation serving as a holding company that has eight companies under its umbrella.Panasonic Industry, in charge of the Panasonic Group's device business as one of the eight companies in the Group, was established on April 1, 2022 with the mission "We will open the way to a better future and continue to contribute to an affluent society through a variety of device technologies." Against the backdrop of the labor shortage in manufacturing, the explosion of data with the rise of the information-based society, and greater demands for the environment and safety for the mobility society, the company focuses on areas where continuous evolution is required and provides customer value with distinctive features of unique materials and process technologies such as capacitors, compact servomotors, EV relays, and electronic materials. For the year ended March 31, 2022, the company achieved net sales of 1,131.4 billion yen. To learn more about Panasonic Industry, please visit:https://www.panasonic.com/global/industry

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Panasonic : to Conduct Space Exposure Experiments Aiming to Develop Cutting-edge Electronic Materials for Aerospace Applications | MarketScreener -...

Set phasers to stunned: A photographer on the ground spotted a spacecraft 250 miles (400 kilometers) overhead, just about to meet up with the International Space Station (ISS).

Szabolcs Nagy, a space station tracker and photographerin London, captured Boeing's Starliner just 650 feet (200 meters) from the orbiting complex as the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) made a historic docking on May 20.

"I was listening to the conversation between Mission Control and ISS crew whilst taking photos with my telescope in the garden," Nagy, who also created SpaceStationGuys.com (opens in new tab), told Space.com.

In photos: Boeing's Starliner OFT-2 mission in picturesLive updates: Starliner's OFT-2 mission

"It felt like no other ISS imaging session before," added Nagy, who enhanced his camera's view using a 14-inch Dobsonian telescope with manual tracking, along with a 3x Barlow lens to increase the system's focal length.

OFT-2 successfully met all major objectives as Starliner is seeking to ship astronauts to the space station on future flights. While the spacecraft's mission results are still being judged against metrics with NASA officials, indications so far point to a crew going aboard Starliner later in the year.

Nagy described his photography session as "a totally surreal experience, really." In the moment, he wasn't sure if the two vehicles could fit in a single field of view, but everything was bright enough and close enough to capture a few thousand frames of the encounter, he said.

As you can see below, this image wasn't the only one he produced during the mission. And in between photography sessions, he was uploading Starliner mission content on his YouTube channel (opens in new tab).

Geraint Jones, a professor and head of the Planetary Science Group at University College London, photographed the spacecraft and station during docking procedures from his location in Guildford, Surrey. Jones snapped his image (opens in new tab) with a handheld camera only an hour's drive southwest from where Nagy stood.

As for Nagy, he was back at his camera during the reentry of Starliner five days later, as the Boeing spacecraft zoomed through the atmosphere en route to a safe parachute landing atWhite Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

"Check out the full video of the event; it was spectacular," Nagy said on Twitter (opens in new tab) May 25, adding, "As I tweet, Starliner is deploying the heat shield. Sooo cool."

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Wow! International Space Station and Boeing Starliner captured in the same incredible image - Space.com

Visitors to The Infinite walk around an exhibit space at the Tacoma Armory that contains a full-scale VR version of the International Space Station. In the foreground, Lesley Kilp and Kyle Byram are sitting down to watch a VR spacewalk. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

TACOMA, Wash. One tour of the International Space Station is not enough, even if you do the tour in virtual reality.

I found that out when I explored The Infinite, a cleverly conceived VR presentation that draws upon more than 250 hours worth of 3-D video shot aboard (and outside) the space station over the course of nearly three years.

After months-long runs in Montreal and Houston, the show or exhibit or whatever you want to call it landed at the Tacoma Armory late last month and is open to visitors through July 31.

The best way to describe The Infinite is to call it an immersive experience an entertainment genre of relatively recent vintage that would also include the immersive Van Gogh exhibits that are making their way around the world. (One such exhibit recently wrapped up its Tacoma run, and another is still playing in Seattle.)

Even by the standards of immersive experience, The Infinite is in a class by itself.

People dont necessarily realize that this is the largest virtual-reality experience that has ever been created, in terms of size and in terms of capacity of people, Felix Lajeunesse, co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios and chief creative officer for The Infinite, told me after my first encounter with the experience. We can have up to 150 people sharing that collective experience at the same time, walking inside a 7,000-square-foot open space.

So what do they experience?

Imagine putting on a VR headset, walking through outer space with the Northern Lights above you, and floating right through the hull of the ISS to peek in on what the astronauts are doing. You might be gathering with the crew around their makeshift dinner table for a birthday party, or watching them get ready for a spacewalk, or looking over their shoulders as they gaze through the stations giant picture window while the Earth spins below.

Youre not just watching a movie. Its as if youre in the movie.

The VR system tracks your movements as you walk around a full-scale skeletal model of the space station thats peppered with glowing virtual spheres. When you push your hand through one of the spheres, the view morphs into a 3-D video scene. You can hear the dialogue between the astronauts, or off-camera commentary from an astronaut.

Its a bit like walking into a movie set, NASA astronaut Christina Koch says in one of the mini-scenes. She was talking about what its like to arrive at the International Space Station, but she just as well could have been talking about The Infinite.

The experience is organized into four chapters, focusing on adapting to the space environment, doing the work of space exploration, cooperating with international partners and looking ahead to the future. You have only about 35 minutes in all to explore the station, so theres no way you can plow through more than 60 3-D scenes during a single tour.

At the end of Chapter 4, a sparkly path directs you through the VR space to a lounge chair where you can sit down and watch the presentationspice de rsistance: a spacewalk filmed in 3-D last September by a camera mounted on the space stations robotic arm.

Jonathan Woods, executive producer at Time Studios, said the VR spacewalk fulfilled a years-long dream of his.

To watch those astronauts working in front of you, I have to say, was a moment that on at least two or three occasions moved me to tears, he told me. One, because of the magnitude of having played some small part in creating that. But also [because of] the power that this has to transform people and allow them to experience the Overview Effect without the tremendous cost of leaving the planet on a rocket.

The Infinite came about because Time Studios (the multimedia arm of Time magazine) and Felix & Paul Studios (a Montreal-based production company specializing in immersive entertainment) were both exploring the possibilities for doing VR on the space station.

Felix & Paul Studios had already been following astronauts through their on-the-ground training for a documentary series, while Time Studios had produced an Emmy-winning digital video series about NASA astronaut Scott Kellys record-setting year in space. In 2017, the two teams decided to join forces with NASA and PHI Studio to boldly go where no media project had gone before.

The project involved building a specialized kind of 360-degree camera that could withstand the rigors of spaceflight, persuading NASA to set aside a significant chunk of the stations precious crew time, and training the astronauts to serve as cinematographers, producers and actors in orbit.

The thing that makes me the most excited to this day is the fact that the astronauts brought a lot of their own creative contributions to the project, Lajeunesse said. For instance, in many circumstances, while we were filming inside the space station with them, they would let the camera roll after they finished recording what was scheduled to be recorded. A lot of the content that you see there was captured that way, in those completely genuine moments.

In one classic 3-D moment, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques lets his running shoes float in zero-G toward the camera. (Try to catch a shoe and see what happens.) In another scene, NASA astronaut Anne McClain shows Christina Koch around her new quarters and gives a piece of zero-G advice: If you happen to kick something, I would say, turn around and see what you kicked.

The VR environment for The Infinite is structured in such a way that you should be able to avoid kicking something or someone. When strangers come within a range of about 12 feet, they materialize in your virtual space station as sparkly, Star Trek-like avatars with a glowing blue light in their chests. And you can always spot people in your own group as avatars with a golden light, no matter how far away they are.

If youre worried about your kid, you will always see your kid, Lajeunesse said.

Here are some tips to maximize your Infinite experience, based on my tours:

Woods said The Infinite came together at a fortunate moment in time, with the International Space Station at its peak. Its an open question whether a project like The Infinite could get done if its creators had to start from square one today.

With the experiences that Ive had working with the Russian space program, I do not believe that it would be tenable to begin a partnership right now, given the tensions between the two countries, Woods said.

At the same time, NASA is ramping up its Artemis program to send astronauts to the moon. Will that be the next frontier for immersive experiences? Are people already thinking about doing virtual-reality moonshots?

I can neither confirm nor deny, Woods said with a laugh.

Timed-entry reservations for The Infinite at the Tacoma Armory (presented by Tacoma Arts Live) can be made via the Fever online ticketing service. Ticket prices range from $15 to $48. Age requirement: 8 or older. The experience is wheelchair-accessible, and lasts about 60 minutes.

Want to bring the virtual space station into your home? The 3-D VR scenes from the station can be seen not only in The Infinite, but also in Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, an immersive series available for Oculus headsets.

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Immerse yourself in life aboard the International Space Station at 'The Infinite' VR experience - GeekWire

European aerospace company Airbus will send a metal-crafting 3D printer to the International Space Station next year as a first step in its plans to set up an orbital satellite factory.

The printer, called Metal3D, can work with metals that melt at temperatures of up to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius). It will be the first metal 3D printer on the space station, Airbus said in a statement (opens in new tab), and will enable astronauts to print parts such as radiation shields and various tools. (American company Made In Space, now a subsidiary of Redwire, has sent several 3D printers to the space station, but none of them can print metal.)

Future versions of the 3D printer, the company added, will be able to make objects using lunar soil and also recycle parts from old satellites.

Related: 3D printed satellite antennas can be made in space with help of sunlight

The Metal3D printer is only one component in a range of technologies developed by Airbus with the goal of setting up a space factory. In a series of videos, Airbus showed off a robotic manipulator designed to assemble spacecraft.

"Airbus' solution is to launch kit parts that will be assembled in space by the robotic arms from our space factory," the company said in the statement.

The robotic arms will be able to build each other in orbit, Airbus said, but could also be used to repair and refuel spacecraft.

The company said it would like to be able to manufacture entire satellites in space in the "next three to four years."

"Since there is enough space in space, it will be possible to build bigger structures such as huge reflectors, allowing telecom satellites to cover the entire planet," Airbus said in the statement.

Moreover, producing satellites in space will also be kinder to the environment, the company said, as fewer polluting rocket launches will be needed.

"The material for production can be sourced from the space debris floating around," Airbus said. "So with the space factory, Airbus is also helping to clean up space and ensure a sustainable future for the industry."

When it comes to the Metal3D printer, the space station is only its first destination. By the end of this decade, Airbus said, a similar device might be churning out parts of lunar rovers and habitats directly on the surface of the moon.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Airbus sending 3D printer to space station next year to pave way for off-Earth factories - Space.com

A lot of science gear will go up to the International Space Station this week on SpaceX's 25th cargo resupply service mission to the orbital lab.

The uncrewed flight, known as CRS-25, will kick off on Friday (June 10), when a Falcon 9 rocket launches a Dragon capsule from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Dragon is packed with a variety of cargo and supplies, including a trove of science experiments.

Ranging broadly in their focus, the science headed to the International Space Station (ISS) includes investigations into immune system aging and recovery, global dust composition and its effect on the climate, how communities of microorganisms in soil are affected by microgravity, and more.

Related: Building the International Space Station (photos)

In a call with reporters on Thursday (June 2), NASA officials voiced excitement about the number of experiments headed to the orbital laboratory, as well as the increased ability of astronauts to conduct them.

For nearly a decade after the 2011 retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet, the agency was dependent on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to carry its astronauts to and from the ISS. The three-person Soyuz is always commanded by a cosmonaut and therefore can carry a maximum of two spaceflyers to the U.S. section of the station.

But more people NASA, European and Japanese astronauts can get to and from the U.S. section now, thanks to the success of SpaceX's astronaut missions for NASA. The crewed version of Dragon is outfitted to carry four astronauts at a time, and SpaceX has now launched four operational crewed missions to the ISS.

And that boost in crew numbers has allowed greater research opportunities, NASA officials said.

"Since we've had four crew, and not too long ago five crew onboard ISS we've been flush with crew time," Kirt Costello, NASA's chief scientist for the ISS program, said during Thursday's briefing. "We've seen our ISS researcher sponsors respond and utilize all the time that's available."

Here's a rundown of some of the experiments headed to orbit next week. You can learn more about them and other research flying on CRS-25 via NASA here (opens in new tab).

The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, known as EMIT, will spend the next year measuring mineral composition of dust in Earth's driest landscapes. During Thursday's briefing, Robert Green, EMIT's principal investigator, explained what he referred to as the planet's "mineral dust cycle."

Dust blown into Earth's atmosphere by high desert winds travels thousands of miles. The mineral content of this atmospheric dust affects the interconnected global climate system, and the composition of these minerals is key to discovering how. Depending on the minerals present, for example, atmospheric dust will absorb and reflect sunlight in different ways, heating or cooling areas, affecting cloud formation and atmospheric chemistry. This type of dust can also serve as a rich nutrient deposit when it settles in the ocean or on land.

Right now, according to Green, there are only a total of 5,000 mineral samples from Earth's global dust cycle in scientists' hands. EMIT aims to leave that number in the dust. The EMIT module is loaded in Dragon's trunk on CRS-25, and it's the mission's largest payload. Once Dragon reaches the ISS, EMIT will be attached to the station's External Logistics Module 1, where it will spend the next year spectroscopically analyzing over a billion dust samples from across the planet. Scientists hope to use this data to update global systems models for things like weather prediction and climate research.

Climate change: causes and effects

NASA's Artemis program aims to establish a permanent human presence on and around the moon. However, the question of how to best build sustainable habitats from locally sourced resources remains unanswered. Building materials like steel and concrete are heavy and extremely cost-ineffective to launch to orbit, let alone the moon.

Students at Stanford University are investigating how microgravity affects the formation of a concrete alternative that mixes an organic compound with water and "in situ" resources, like lunar regolith or Martian dust, to create a biopolymer soil composite (BPC). Rather than utilizing a chemical reaction, heat or pressure, the compounds used in BPCs allow the mixture to dry with "about half the strength of Portland cement," according to Stanford student Jocelyn Huang Thai, one of the team leads for the Biopolymer Research for In-Situ Capabilities investigation.

This experiment will use a compound called bovine serum albumin (BSA) to create six bricks aboard the space station, each about 0.3 inches (7 millimeters) long. On Earth, BSA forms protein bridges connecting dirt particles during the drying process. Researchers hope to compare bricks mixed in space with counterparts made on Earth to determine the influence of microgravity on the drying process and protein bridge formation, and how that affects the density and strength of the bricks.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the University of Florence in Italy are sending skin samples to the space station on CRS-25. But these aren't just small flakes in a test tube. A set of tissue chips, containers designed to store human cells for study in microgravity, will hold samples of human skin and blood vessels, ethically derived, which have been wounded and then sutured to study the mechanical forces of stitches on the healing process in microgravity.

It stands to reason that, as the pace of human spaceflight increases, someone at some point will be inadvertently injured. Monica Monici of the University of Florence, principal investigator of the Suture in Space study, highlighted the benefits of studying sutures in space during Thursday's call.

"Previous experiments on cell cultures and animal models have shown that wound closure is delayed in microgravity conditions," Monici explained. "Since evacuation time from space to Earth [on future missions] might be very long, the need for implementing trauma care and surgeries increases Wound healing should be regarded as a major problem for investigation since it is critical for crew survival."

Immunosenescence, the aging of immune cells, occurs at a higher rate in microgravity, and that aging can inhibit cells' ability to repair tissues. Like the sutures experiment, the Immunosenescence investigation also uses tissue chips, but this time to study immunocellular aging.

You know the phrase, "You're only as old as you feel?" Well, according to Sonja Schrepfer, principal investigator for the project, you're only as old as your immune system. "An aged immune system is not necessarily correlating with the age of the patient but rather with the status of the immune system," Schrepfer, a professor of surgery at the University of California San Francisco, said during Thursday's call.

Researchers for the project will get to observe these cells in flight and back on the ground, too. A similar experiment flew on a cargo mission in December of 2018, but its mission parameters did not plan for a return. Scientists will get to observe the immune tissue's reaction post-flight, after Immunosenescence samples are returned to Earth in September.

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Moon bricks, space sutures and more: Meet the science SpaceX is flying to the space station this week - Space.com

A Russian scientist has expressed concerns that the country's planned space station could end up being contaminated with germs already on the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia's plans for its Russian Orbital Space Station (ROSS) are ongoing amid the country's continued invasion of Ukraine, which has been internationally condemned. One possible option for the creation of the ROSS station would be to use existing Russian modules attached to the ISS. These modules could be detached and then operated independently.

However, Oleg Orlov, director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), has reportedly said that creating the ROSS station in this way could lead to "potentially pathogenic bacteria" spreading through and destroying parts of the station, according to Russia's state-run TASS news agency.

During a Russian space council meeting, Orlov was cited by the RAS as saying: "The option of creating the ROSS using the ISS modules will lead to the transfer of the microbiota to the new modules [and] will accelerate the process of their biocontamination which will result in potentially pathogenic bacteria and technophiles participating in the process of the biodestruction of materials emerging at the ROSS."

Orlov added that germ contamination had interfered with space tech once before when equipment was damaged by microorganisms during a mission on Russia's former Mir space station.

"Cumulative results show that microorganisms in numbers exceeding normative requirements were detected in 65 [percent] of samples," Orlov added according to TASS, noting that the amount had been increasing. Germs reportedly included those from the staphylococcus and streptococcus groups.

Space agencies have measures in place to prevent microbial contamination in spaceNASA uses clean rooms that thoroughly clean payloads destined for the ISSbut research has shown that space stations can host bacteria and fungi that could harm astronauts and equipment.

It's unclear what Orlov's comments will mean for Russia's ROSS plans. Experts have told Newsweek in the past that they doubt Russia will be able to get its space station operational in the foreseeable future due in part to financial issues, suggesting that microbes could be the least of their concerns.

Still, Russia's space industry chief Dmitry Rogozin has repeatedly threatened that the country could stop participating in the ISS project in which it has been a major partner for decades, working alongside the U.S. and several other countries.

Amid an international backlash against the war in Ukraine, Rogozin said in April that a decision on whether or not to pull out of the ISS had already been made and that partners would be informed of that decision with a year's notice. The Russian government has committed to continue working on the ISS until 2024.

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Russia Warns of Potentially Pathogenic Space Germs on ISS - Newsweek

Back in 2012, researchers exploring the thermal springs of Yellowstone National Park happened upon a hearty new microbe called Fusarium strain flavolapis. Having survived the acidic volcano springs of Yellowstone meant the microbe, a fungus, might just survive in a challenging environment like outer space.

That was the theory, but researchers will soon know how Fusarium flavolapis performs 254 miles above earth as the fungi heads to the International Space Station aboard SpaceXs 25th cargo mission for NASA on Friday, June 10th. The fungi will go to space as part of NASAs EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), under a project where Montana State University, BioServe Space Technologies,and a startup called Natures Fynd will test how it performs and see if it could be used as a source of food for astronauts.

The fungi, now better known by its commercial name of Fy, was initially isolated by Dr. Mark Kozubal under a research program funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. Kozubal would go on to found Natures Fynd as part of an effort to commercialize Fy as a complete protein that could be used in plant-based meat and dairy substitutes. Earlier this year, Fy made its way to market as part of a series of consumer products that includes meatless breakfast sausage and dairy-free cream cheese

As Natures Fynd worked to develop Fy into new consumer-facing products, the company continued to work with NASA under their Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, which had opened a call for microbial biomanufacturing technologies in space. Natures Fynd worked with researchers from Montana State University to build a bioreactor prototype that could grow FY in microgravity environments like the International Space Station (ISS). And earlier this year, Natures Fynd, MSU, and Bioserve Space Technology, a Center within the University of Colorado Bouldertechnologies, received a grant under NASAs EPSCoR to test the bioreactor in space.

One of the reasons Fy is so attractive as a potential food source for astronauts is its a source of complete protein, meaning it has all nine of the necessary amino acids humans need as part of their diet. Its also a source of net new protein, meaning unlike pea or animal protein it isnt simply a protein thats been converted from one source to another. In space, efficiency is the name of the game, and Fys ability to create protein without an intermediary makes it a promising new candidate to feed long-term space travelers. Starting this Friday, researchers will soon know whether Fy will live up to that promise.

This project is one of many being funded by NASA as part of its effort to develop sources of food for long-term space travel. Earlier this year, the space agency announced $1 million in prize money for Phase 2 of its Deep Space Food Challenge, a NASA Centennial challenge that aims to foster innovation around sustainable food production technologies or systems that require minimal resources and produce minimal waste. The space agency has also experimented with baking cookies and printing pizzas in microgravity environments.

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Fungi Protein Heading to Space Station Aboard SpaceX to Test Viability as Astronaut Food - The Spoon

Jessica Meir had dreamed for decades about what it would be like to sail among the stars. And when she got her chance in 2019, the experience surpassed all of her expectations. This weekend, the UC San Diego alumna will return to the university to share the wonders of her journey to space as a NASA astronaut and offer words of wisdom to the Class of 2022 at All Campus Commencement on June 11.

Portrait of NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir in an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (spacesuit). Photo by Josh Valcarcel/NASA, September 2018.

In advance of her visit, we spoke with Meir about the potential for scientific breakthroughs without the influence of gravity; how her love for our planet exponentially grew after seeing the magnificent landscapes from above; her belief in the power of getting out of your comfort zone to achieve great heightsliterally; and how even astronaut training could not prepare her for the pandemic when she returned home in 2020.

Q. You believe in taking risks to achieve great things, even if it means facing failure along the way. Have there been moments of disappointment on your journey to becoming an astronaut?

A.I absolutely believe that it is necessary to take risks and push yourself slightly outside your comfort zonethat's when the great things happen. Perhaps my biggest failure was in trying to become an astronaut. I had first applied in 2009 when I was completing my doctoral studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I made it all the way to the final round of about 40-50 people, but when I arrived for the interview, I saw I was surrounded by incredible people with remarkable resumes and extraordinary accomplishments. I thought, okay, I'm never going to get selected. When the calls went out that year, I was not among them. Knowing that I had come that close and it hadnt worked out really hurt.

It would have been quite easy at that point to just give up because I had my other career as a scientist that I loved. When the chance came four years later to apply again, I thought, maybe I shouldnt take that risk and put myself through the mental anguish. But if I hadn't put myself out there again and applied, I wouldn't be here today. I hope that I can show that you have to take risks and fail on the way to making your dreams come true.

Q. You embrace challenges with zeal. Is there anything that you fear?

A.As astronauts, we train for years in advance of space missions, so we are incredibly prepared for everything that comes our way. Even though I haven't had to respond to a real emergency scenario in the space environment, I have been through simulations so many times that it's almost like I have muscle memory. We also have thousands of people working in mission control who have designed all of these systems and help maintain them to keep us safe. That's the top priority of everything that we do here at NASA:safety.

The only thing that I've ever feared as an astronautand I've heard this from many other astronauts as wellis the fear of making a mistake. You are so fortunate to be the one in space, and there are so many people that are depending on you and have been involved in this whole process. You feel this huge responsibility because you don't want to let anyone down.

Meir observes a floating sphere of water formed by microgravity inside the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module. Photo by NASA, February 9, 2020.

Q. What is something you learned about yourself while working at the International Space Station that you didnt expect?

A.Ive wanted to go to space since I was 5 years old. I thought I was prepared for what that might be like because I had contemplated it so much. What surprised me was that it was even more incredible than I ever imagined. When you're anticipating something, you often build it up and sometimes it becomes a disappointment later. Yet being in space surpassed all of my expectations. Just being up there, weightless and floating 24 hours a day, having the privilege of looking down at the earth below, it changes you as a person.

Q. Youve conducted thousands of experiments throughout your career. What is the most exciting part about conducting science in space?

A.If you think about it, we have one variable here on Earth that is always with us in any scientific system: gravity. It affects us all and everything around us. You can only imagine what might happen to those systems if you remove this omnipresent variable. That's what makes the science we do on the space station so exciting. From physiology and medical experiments to combustion experiments and cell biologyyou name it and we're doing it up there. With this variable removed, who knows what's going to happen? There are so many areas of potential for extraordinary findings that we can unravel when we're doing experiments in space.

Q. We are experiencing an echo pandemic right now with many impacted by mental health struggles. How do you maintain wellness when you face challenges?

A.Psychological wellbeing is a very important part of our job as astronauts and plays a big role in our selection as well. We have a number of teams working to support our mental health, especially when were on long-duration missions in an isolated environment that contains a lot of stressors. During space missions we receive care packages and have the chance to do regular video chats with family members once a week.

There are many parallels to what we go through as astronauts and what the whole world has experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic. I launched to the International Space Station in September2019 before the pandemic began, and I landed April2020. Coming back to a completely different planet was much more difficult for me to deal with than the isolation and confinement on the space station. We tried to share some of the lessons we learned while living in space, such as maintaining a consistent schedule, exercising regularly and making time to communicate with family members.

Meir conducts an experiment inside the Life Science Glovebox that compares the microgravity-exposed samples to magnetically levitated samples on Earth for insights into bone ailments such as osteoporosis. Photo by NASA, March 3, 2020.

Q. Youve explored the deep ocean and the edges of the universe. What are the connections, and what draws you to these environments?

A.There are absolutely connections between ocean sciences and space sciences. A key similarity is the need for a life support system. In the ocean, this may mean scuba diving or using a robotic submersible to carry us into the water. In space, we may do a space walk or use a robotic spacecraft to complete our explorations.

What draws me toward both pursuits is the spirit of explorationgoing a little bit further, taking a look around the corner to see what places we haven't gone before. I've always been drawn toward extreme physiology; my expertise is the physiology of animals living in extreme environments. That's easily connected to what we're doing here in space, except now I am the animal in the most extreme of environments.

Q. Did your worldview change after returning to Earth?

A.Ive always been an environmentalist, but I can say it now resonates even more loudly. Seeing Earth from above, you realize how special it is and how we need to protect it. I remember watching the gradient blues of the thin, tenuous band of the atmosphere. You can see it change from a darker blue at the surface, then it gets thinner and thinner with altitude. In no time at all, it has disappeared into the void and blackness of space. When you see that with your own eyes, this extraordinary palette of beauty and how connected all the landforms are, it is so utterly gorgeous and breathtaking.

Being in space also made me realize just how interconnected everything is. Looking down at the earth from the space station, you see contiguous land masses with no borders. And you realize that we're all in this together, from addressing the COVID-19 pandemic to taking care of our planet. Its a view that I really hope I can share with more people.

I also noticed it's really an innate characteristic of humans to focus on small, trivial matters right in front of us. Sometimes, we need to be reminded to take a step back and not focus so much attention on those little things. Space does that for you. I feel so incredibly fortunate to have gained that kind of perspective.

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Take the leap: A conversation with UC alumna and NASA astronaut Jessica Meir - University of California