Category Archives: Space Station

A helium leak has grounded SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which had been scheduled to lift off Monday for a resupply mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX called off the planned launch of a commercial cargo ship bound for the International Space Station for NASA Monday (April 14) due to a helium leak on the company's Falcon 9 rocket that will keep the mission stuck on Earth until at least Friday (April 18).

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

The private spaceflight company's unmannedDragon spacecraftwas counting down toward a liftoff at 4:58 p.m. EDT (2058 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But the attempt was scrubbed about an hour before launch due to the helium leak.

"Todays launch has been scrubbed due to a helium leak on Falcon 9's first stage," SpaceX officials announced in an update today. "A fix will be implemented by the next launch opportunity on Friday April 18, though weather on that date isn't ideal." [See photos of SpaceX's 3rd Dragon mission to the space station]

Today's scrub follows two earlier delays that have already pushed the next Dragon launch by more than a month.

SpaceX initially hoped to launch the mission on March 13, but the company delayed it by about two weeks to tie up a few loose ends. The launch was pushed back again, to mid-April, when a fire damaged a ground-based radar system used to track liftoffs from Cape Canaveral.

The upcoming mission will be thethird of 12 Dragon delivery missionsto the space station by California-based SpaceX under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. SpaceX launched its first cargo run to the station in 2012. Another company, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., has a $1.9 billion contract for eight cargo missions the first of which launched in January using its own Antares rockets and Cygnus spacecraft.

The weather forecast on Friday predicts only a 40 percent chance of good launch conditions, but SpaceX officials plan to complete helium leak repairs in time to make a second launch attempt this week.

See original here:
Helium leak scrubs SpaceX launch to space station

May 22, 2012: The Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket lifts off from space launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla. This launch marks the first time, a private company sends its own rocket to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.AP Photo/John Raoux

A space station cargo ship will remain Earthbound for a while longer.

With just over an hour remaining, the Space X company called off Monday's planned launch because of a rocket leak. A new launch date was not set; the next opportunity would be Friday.

Officials said a helium leak in the first-stage of the unmanned Falcon rocket forced the postponement. The launch already had been delayed a full month for various reasons.

Over the weekend, NASA almost postponed the launch because of a computer outage at the International Space Station. But it decided Sunday that everything would be safe for the arrival of the Dragon capsule and its 2 1/2 tons of supplies.

The computer, a critical backup, failed outside the space station Friday as flight controllers were trying to activate it for a routine software load.

It's the first breakdown ever of one of these so-called space station MDMs, or multiplexer-demultiplexers, used to route computer commands for a wide variety of systems. Forty-five MDMs are scattered around the orbiting lab. The failed one is located outside and therefore will require spacewalking repairs.

The Dragon capsule holds a gasket-like material for next week's computer replacement. This new material was rushed to the launch site over the weekend and loaded into the Dragon.

NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Steven Swanson will perform the spacewalk next Tuesday -- regardless of whether the Dragon flies by then. It will take several days to get the replacement computer ready for installing, thus the one-week wait before the job, NASA's Kenny Todd, a station operations manager, said Monday.

SpaceX -- Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of California -- is one of two American companies hired by NASA to fill the cargo gap left when the space shuttles retired in 2011. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia is the other.

Read more from the original source:
SpaceX delays delivery launch to ISS

Ay yrynn 40. yl, Astronotlarla rportaj, 18.07.2009
en. International Space Station (ISS) passing over a spiral cloud formation (a type of some hurricane i guess). Video captured o. 18.7.2009 Ay #39;daki ilk adm ...

By: abdullah sass

Read the rest here:
Ay yrynn 40. yl, Astronotlarla rportaj, 18.07.2009 - Video

VVVVVV | #39;Space Station One #39; time trial - 00:43
Optimal.

By: Ctrlaltdelicious HD

Follow this link:
VVVVVV | 'Space Station One' time trial - 00:43 - Video

Space Station - Why did you become an astronaut?

By: VESNEWS1

Read the original post:
Space Station - Why did you become an astronaut? - Video

Inside the ISS - Mailbag - Riddle Me This, The Grass is Greener, Flipping Out
NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Mike Massimino answer more questions submitted via Twitter. To find out more about Mike and Don go to http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/...

By: insideISS

More:
Inside the ISS - Mailbag - Riddle Me This, The Grass is Greener, Flipping Out - Video

ISS Space Station pass over Hull
ISS space station passing over Hull on 10th April 2014 21:51 filmed on an iPhone.

By: Ashley Moon

Read this article:
ISS Space Station pass over Hull - Video

International Space Station Flyover- Minneapolis, MN 4/9/2014
Here is a poor-quality video of the ISS passing over my backyard on 4/9/14.

By: Nick Stenstrup

Read more from the original source:
International Space Station Flyover- Minneapolis, MN 4/9/2014 - Video

International space station Tour inside the space station ISS

By: Basan Hasan

Read the original post:
International space station Tour inside the space station ISS - Video

Aliens Space Station
Being the embodiment of technology, Space Station-1 has its work cut out for itself in pleasing tech lovers. Located just next to the city IT hub, Financial ...

By: Indiaproperty dotcom

Continued here:
Aliens Space Station - Video