Category Archives: Space Station

CLEVELAND Calling all sky watchers!

Northeast Ohio is in for a treat with one of the best International Space Station passes of the year. This ISS crossing will be nearly directly above our area Saturday evening.

WEWS

WHERE AND WHEN TO LOOK:The International Space Station will appear in the northwestern part of the sky at 10 degrees. It will move toward the southeast and will set below the horizon in the southeast part of the sky at 19 degrees above the horizon. The ISS will be visible tonight at 9:51 p.m. for six minutes. The max height will be 88 degrees above the horizon.

This is the highest passing of the year!

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HOW TO FIND IT:The horizon is at zero degrees, and directly overhead is ninety degrees. If you hold your fist at arms length and place your fist resting on the horizon, the top will be about 10 degrees. The space station looks like an airplane or a very bright star moving across the sky, except it doesnt have flashing lights or change direction. It will also be moving considerably faster than a typical airplane. It travels at about 17,500 mph!

WEWS

CONDITIONS FOR VIEWING:The weather will be great for spotting the ISS. The sun will set around 8:45 p.m., so this passing will occur about an hour after the sun goes down. It will be mostly clear to partly cloudy across the area and temperatures will be in the low 70s to upper 60s.

WEWS

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When and where to look to spot the International Space Station on Saturday - News 5 Cleveland

The International Space Station unexpectedly shifted in orbit on Thursday when thrusters on a newly docked Russian module began firing uncontrollably. The thrusters reoriented the football-field-sized laboratorys position by as much as 45 degrees, NASA said. The station is back under control, a NASA spokesperson said, and its seven-person crew of astronauts, including three US astronauts, are safe, according to the agency.

The erroneous thruster firings from Russias Nauka module, a new 23-ton multipurpose laboratory, began a few hours after it docked to the ISS at 12:25PM ET, NASA spokesman Rob Navias said. Mission control at NASAs astronaut headquarters in Houston first noticed the space station deviate from its normal position a few minutes later, triggering an automatic alert to the astronauts on board. By 12:42PM ET, the space station had lost control of its positioning, NASAs ISS manager Joel Montalbano said during a press conference on Thursday.

The station, an ornate science laboratory with 16 pressurized living and cargo modules, was pitching off track by about 1.5 degrees each minute, NASA officials said. Thrusters on another side of the space station, from Russias Zvezda service module, fired up to counter the force from Nauka in what NASAs mission control communicator described as a tug of war.

Just to update you guys, mission control communicator Drew Morgan told US astronauts from Houston, right now were in a little bit of a tug of war between thrusters firing from both the [service module] and [Nauka]. We are sorting through the best course of action right now.

Nearly an hour later, at 1:29PM ET, mission control in Houston and Moscow regained control of the station and wrested it back to its normal position. The [Nauka] thrusters are no longer firing, we are back in attitude control, rates are stable, Morgan told the US astronauts. Its safe to say that the remainder of the day is no longer going to happen as scheduled.

Navias said the crew was safe. It wasnt immediately clear what caused the erroneous thruster firings Roscosmos, Russias space agency, would lead the investigation into the cause, Montalbano said. Seeing the ISS deviate from its attitude like it did on Thursday under the influence of errant jet firings is definitely not something that happens on a regular basis, Montalbano added, guessing an event like Thursdays has only happened roughly three to four times in the space stations 20-year history. The stations other partners at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency were on call monitoring the health of the station during the event, Montalbano said.

The mishap forced NASA to postpone Boeings planned launch of its uncrewed Starliner capsule to the ISS, which was slated for Friday at 2:53PM ET. The launch is now scheduled for Tuesday, August 3rd at 1:20PM ET, the agency said in a statement.

Nauka, which means science in Russian, launched from Russias Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan last Wednesday after weeks of 11th-hour delays caused by issues with the modules guidance system. Even though it launched last week, the module has a long history its development started in 1995, and it was originally slated to launch in 2007. But launch delays and several changes to its design and purpose pushed its deployment back by years.

Nauka ran into problems almost immediately upon entering space. The spacecraft deployed its solar arrays 13 minutes after launch without a hitch, but propulsion and communications issues prevented the spacecraft from entering its intended orbit. Engineers and mission control in Moscow scrambled to come up with a fix, eventually powering up the spacecrafts secondary thrusters to prevent Nauka from falling out of orbit and burning up in Earths atmosphere.

Nauka regained its footing in a normal orbit and carried on with its eight-day trek to the space station, where it docked autonomously.

Update July 29th, 6:10PM ET: Adds information from NASA officials speaking at a press conference.

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Uncontrolled thrusters firing on Russian module pushes ISS out of place - The Verge

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A major mishap on the International Space Station has forced NASA and Boeing to delay the company's planned spaceship flight.

Boeing was set to launch its spacecraft, called Starliner, toward the ISS on Friday afternoon and dock there on Saturday. This mission is meant to be Starliner's last test flight before carrying its first astronauts. Boeing attempted this demonstration flight once before, in December 2019, but failed to reach the ISS due to software issues. Now the company is trying again, hoping to prove to NASA that Starliner is ready to fly astronauts.

But Boeing will have to wait just a little longer.

That's because Russia added a new module to the ISS on Thursday, then immediately encountered major technical issues. The new module, called Nauka, starting unexpectedly firing its thrusters just hours after arriving at the ISS which moved the entire station out of position.

NASA announced on Thursday afternoon that it had decided to delay Boeing's Starliner launch. The next opportunity to launch is on Tuesday, August 3.

"We wanted to make sure we had some breathing room to fully assess the situation on station before adding another vehicle," Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of NASA's human-spaceflight directorate, said in a press briefing on Thursday.

Boeing is one of two companies SpaceX is the other that NASA has funded to develop human-spaceflight systems. Both NASA and Boeing are determined to finish Starliner's test flights and start using the spaceship to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.

Before SpaceX's Crew Dragon completed its test flights last year, NASA could only use Russian Soyuz spacecraft to fly its astronauts. Starliner's next flight is critical to giving the agency more options.

Russia originally planned to add Nauka to the ISS in 2007, but technical issues delayed its development on the ground. Nauka finally launched on July 21, but it immediately encountered technical problems. It didn't complete the first engine burn that was supposed to push it into a higher orbit above Earth, so Russian flight controllers had to initiate several smaller burns to push it onto the right path.

The long-awaited science module finally docked to the ISS at 9:29 a.m. ET on Thursday. It latched onto the correct ISS port and sealed itself. Cosmonauts began preparing to open the hatch connecting the module to the station.

But three hours later, at about 12:34 p.m. ET, Nauka suddenly began firing its engines. It took flight controllers about an hour to get the ISS back under control, after playing "tug of war" by firing engines on another part of the station.

The thrusters rotated the ISS by 45 degrees before NASA and Russian flight controllers regained control.

"It's safe to say the remainder of the day is no longer going to happen as scheduled, of course," a flight controller told the ISS astronauts.

NASA says the astronauts on the ISS were never in danger.

Currently there are two cosmonauts, Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov, and five astronauts aboard the station: Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency, and Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, and Mark Vande Hei of NASA.

Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.

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NASA has delayed Boeing's spaceship flight after a Russian module pushed the space station out of position - Business Insider

Hours after a new Russian module docked at the International Space Station on Thursday, it unexpectedly fired its thrusters again and set the space station into an unexpected spin.

It took 45 minutes for mission controllers to get the situation back under control. NASA officials said there was no danger to the seven astronauts on the space station.

Today was another day where we are learning how important it is to have an operational team that is prepared for every contingency, Kathy Lueders, NASAs associate administrator, said during a news conference Thursday afternoon.

The 23-ton module, named Nauka, adds a laboratory, an additional sleeping quarter and other capabilities to the Russian segment of the space station. After its launch last week, it encountered a series of propulsion problems that Russian controllers were able to resolve ahead of its rendezvous with the space station.

On Thursday morning at 9:29 a.m. Eastern time, the module gently docked with the outpost in orbit. Cheers could be heard over the audio feed as the operation was completed. Even that success was accompanied with some drama as the automatic docking system did not operate quite as expected, and Oleg Novitsky, a Russian astronaut aboard the station, had to take over manual control of Nauka to guide it the final few feet to its docking port.

Oleg, congratulations, that was not an easy docking, Russias ground control said to Mr. Novitskiy.

At about 12:34 p.m. Eastern time, Nauka upended the astronauts day when its thrusters unexpectedly started firing, twisting the orientation of the space station. The rate of spin reached a maximum of about half a degree a second and the stations orientation twisted by 45 degrees.

If it had continued to spin at half a degree a second, the space station would have flipped around entirely in about 12 minutes.

Controllers fired other thrusters first on Zvezda, another Russian module, then on a docked Russian Progress cargo vehicle to push the space station back into its correct position by 1:30 p.m.

The torque of Naukas thrusters would have put strain on some the structures and the change in direction would have meant that the solar panels and antennas were not pointing in the correct direction. You risk some things getting too warm or too cold, said Joel Montalbano, NASAs program manager for the space station.

Communications with the crew were disrupted twice once for four minutes, then for seven minutes.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, will lead the investigation of what went wrong with Nauka while NASA engineers are evaluating whether the stress and strain caused any damage. Right now, we havent noticed any damage to the I.S.S., Mr. Montalbano said.

He said the Russian controllers have sent commands to prevent any more inadvertent thruster firings.

The problem with Nauka led NASA to postpone the launching of Boeings Starliner spacecraft, which was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Friday and dock at the space station on Saturday. Launch is now scheduled for Tuesday.

We wanted to make sure we had some breathing room to fully assess the situation on station before adding another vehicle to the I.S.S. configuration, Ms. Lueders said.

Like SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule, Starliner is designed to take NASA astronauts to and from the space station. This flight will not have any people on board but is a do-over of an uncrewed flight to demonstrate all of the systems are working properly. The first demonstration flight, in December 2019, went awry because of software flaws and never docked at the space station.

Earlier this year, Russian space officials were talking about pulling out of the International Space Station when the current agreement with America and other partners expires in 2025, a reflection of souring relations with the United States.

But that didnt stop them from sending up the Nauka module, whose design and development began more than 20 years ago long before the current political tensions bubbled up. Its launch was repeatedly delayed by manufacturing flaws and underfinancing.

The module is seen as important for the entire Russian space program. Russia is currently the only major operator without its own laboratory module, and Nauka in Russian means science. That is fitting for its main mission: housing laboratory equipment for experiments.

But the 42-foot-long cylinder will also provide extra living room, including a bed for one astronaut. It also adds water purifying equipment and can draw electricity from its solar wings. The Russian section of the station had been drawing power from the American side.

It will also host a new robotic arm provided by the European Space Agency.

Nauka is now one of the largest modules on the station. A series of spacewalks will be needed to hook it up to the stations electrical and command circuits.

Although a Russia Proton rocket flawlessly lofted the new module into orbit, problems appeared almost immediately.

A glitch with the spacecrafts engines had scientists back on Earth nervous for days, according to the European Space Agency. Adversity insisted on being part of the journey, the agency said in a statement.

While Nauka eventually attached to the station, it flew as an autonomous spacecraft for several days in orbit. The module deployed its solar panels and antennas but then failed to fire engines to raise its orbit, a potentially mission-ending problem. Russian engineers managed to correct it, the European Space Agency said, characterizing the episode as a few hectic days at mission control.

Roscosmos never directly addressed the problems in its updates on the mission, noting only in a news release last Thursday that the modules thrusters were, in fact, operating.

The docking procedure itself was risky. After all, Russia sent a 23-ton object on a collision course with the $100 billion space station.

What Russia sought to avoid is what happened in 1997, when a Progress cargo rocket crashed into its earlier space station, Mir, rupturing one of the modules and destroying a solar panel.

Since the 1997 accident, docking procedures have become much more sophisticated. At the time, the Progress was under the manual remote control of a Russian astronaut on Mir. The docking of the new Nauka module was entirely autonomous.

And mission managers have had much practice in the 20-some years they have been managing the International Space Station. It was launched in pieces that had to be docked in orbit. Still, engineers are properly paranoid about avoiding even unlikely disasters.

When SpaceX was readying its first mission of its astronaut capsule to the space station without crew aboard Roscosmos raised a concern that if the Crew Dragons computer failed during approach, the capsule would crash into the space station. (SpaceXs cargo capsules approached from a different direction so there was no possibility of a collision.)

NASA agreed to implement some precautions closing hatches on the I.S.S. and readying the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that carries astronauts to and from the outpost for a rapid evacuation, if necessary. The Crew Dragon docking proceeded without a hitch, and before the second Crew Dragon mission, the one taking NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the space station last year, SpaceX made more changes that eliminated even the unlikely possibilities of something going wrong.

Earlier this year, Russian officials said they were considering ending their participation in the International Space Station in 2025, which is when operations are currently set to end.

But American officials are looking to extend the stations life to 2028, or maybe 2030. They, so far, do not seem concerned about the Russian statements. The Russian news agency TASS reported that Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency, said that the exit would be gradual.

Decisions regarding space are rarely sudden.

Just three years ago, it was the United States and NASA that were saying they intended to leave I.S.S. by the end of 2024. Space station supporters in Congress, like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, balked, and space agency officials subsequently made clear that this was not a hard deadline and that they would not leave until the commercial stations were operational.

A year later, the Trump administration shifted its space focus to sending astronauts back to the moon, and talk of withdrawing from or retiring the I.S.S. ended.

The Russian officials said they would work toward building a new Russian space station, although they did not say how the countrys chronically underfinanced space program could sustain one. With SpaceXs Crew Dragon becoming operational, the Russian space program lost one of its main sources of revenue: NASA buying seats on the Soyuz rockets.

NASA is negotiating an agreement with Russia in which NASA astronauts would continue to ride on the Soyuz spacecrafts in exchange for Russian astronauts going to space in SpaceX and Boeing capsules. In that arrangement, no money would be exchanged, but it would help ensure that astronauts become familiar with all of the equipment.

The announcement has also come as tensions have grown between the United States and Russia. In April, President Biden formally blamed Moscow for hacking operations and placed sanctions on Russian entities. Russia has also entered into an agreement with China to work toward a lunar base in the coming decade.

Still, cooperation between the two countries in space goes back decades before the Soviet Union fell apart. Even in 1975, during the Cold War, NASA and Soviet spacecraft docked in orbit, and the astronauts greeted each other. Later, American space shuttles flew to the Russian Mir space station, and several NASA astronauts lived aboard Mir.

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Space Station Tilted After New Russian Module Fires Thrusters - The New York Times

SpaceX astronauts give tour of 'Endeavour' capsule enroute to ISS

The four crew members onboard Endeavour plan to dock with the International Space Station.

STAFF VIDEO, USA TODAY

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station got into the Olympic spirit with their own "Space Olympics" to herald thestart of the long-awaited Summer Games in Tokyo.

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet announced the start of the "very first Space Olympics" in a tweet last week. The cosmic games, waged between members of SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Russia'sSoyuzcrew ship, included space-friendly events such as synchronized floating, long jumps and no-hand ball, Pesquet said on Instagram.

"For crew cohesion, we put together a friendly competition between the #Soyuz team and the #CrewDragon team," Pesquet said on Twitter.

The astronauts, who represent counties including Russia, the U.S., France and Japan,also watched a video feed of the opening ceremony and cheered on their respective countries while wearing patriotic gear, according to photos Pesquet posted on flickr and a video shared on the official Olympics Instagram page.

"Here on the ISS, 400 kilometers away from Earth, we are very much looking forward to watching the Olympic Games in Tokyo," Pesquet said in the video. "So good luck to all the athletes and all the best from space. We'll be watching."

NASA:Astronauts are growing chile peppers on the International Space Station

Space squid: NASA, SpaceX launch baby squid and water bears to International Space Station

In a series of photos,the astronauts posed under an array of national flags hung up on the ceiling of the lab.

"We had all flags of the world (yes, every single country) hung up on the ceiling of the lab which gave an inspiring (and colourful) backdrop to our athletic prowess (or lack of)," Pesquet said in an Instagram caption."Let the Earthly games begin."

Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.

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Synchronized floating among events in 'very first Space Olympics' from International Space Station - USA TODAY

NASA is at risk of losing a foothold in orbit after the end of the International Space Station.

Why it matters: Without an operating base in space, the agency's plan to shift from being a sole provider of services in orbit to becoming a customer of companies operating there is in jeopardy.

Driving the news: NASA this month put out a final call asking for companies to submit their ideas for space stations they could build and operate where astronauts could visit and perform experiments.

Background: It took nine years for SpaceX's Dragon to fly NASA astronauts to the space station after the end of the space shuttle program, a long gap during which NASA had to pay to fly people aboard Russia's Soyuz rocket.

The stakes: If NASA is unable to continue sending their astronauts to a space station, it could affect the space agency's plans for exploration in the future.

Yes, but: It's not clear Congress will fund NASA's plan to help support industry development of low-Earth orbit.

What to watch: NASA already has a deal with Axiom Space to fly a module to the ISS in 2024, as the first stage in the company's plans to eventually operate its own commercial space station.

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What comes next after the International Space Station ends - Axios

A Russian Progress cargo ship undocked from the International Space Station early Monday, taking with it the two-decades-old Pirs airlock and docking compartment to clear the way for Thursday's arrival of Russia's new Nauka multipurpose lab module.

With the Progress MS-16/77P supply ship firmly locked to Pirs, hooks and latches holding the docking compartment to the Zvezda service module's Earth-facing port were commanded open, and the Progress backed away at 6:55 a.m. EDT.

After moving a safe distance away, the Progress fired its thrusters at 10:01 a.m., setting up a destructive plunge into the atmosphere 41 minutes later. The braking burn was planned to make sure any debris that might survive reentry heating would fall harmlessly into the southern Pacific Ocean.

Undocking originally was planned for last Friday, two days after Nauka's launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but problems with the lab's navigation and propulsion systems prompted Russian flight controllers to delay Pirs' departure.

Finally, after several anxious days of troubleshooting, Nauka's propulsion system was restored to normal operation, and two successful tests of its KURS navigation and rendezvous system were carried out. While few details were provided, Russian mission managers then cleared Pirs and Progress for departure.

Pirs was launched on September 14, 2001, three days after the 9/11 attacks. It served as a docking port for visiting Soyuz crew ships and Progress freighters for nearly 20 years and as an airlock for Russian spacewalks.

The much larger 44,000-pound Nauka module features an airlock and docking port, expanded crew quarters, research space, an additional toilet, oxygen generator, solar arrays and a European Space Agency-built robot arm. Nauka's thrusters also will help provide roll control to keep the station properly oriented.

With the departure of Pirs, NASA flight controllers planned to reposition the station's Canadian-built robot arm on the Russian Zarya module so it could carry out a seven-hour inspection of the Zvezda module's now-vacant Earth-facing port. Russian engineers want to make sure no debris or other issues are present that might prevent the docking mechanism from working properly when Nauka arrives.

Assuming no problems are found, the lab module will complete its rendezvous with the space station Thursday, moving in for docking at Zvezda's Earth-facing port at 9:24 a.m. It will take up to 11 Russian spacewalks over about seven months to electrically connect and outfit the new lab module.

Nauka's docking will come the day before a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launches a Boeing CST-100 Starliner crew capsule to the station for an unpiloted test flight. The Atlas 5 rollout to pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is expected Wednesday, setting up a launch at 2:53 p.m. Friday.

The Starliner, like SpaceX's already operational Crew Dragon spacecraft, is designed to carry U.S. and partner-agency astronauts to and from the space station on a commercial basis, helping end NASA's post-shuttle reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for crew transportation.

An initial Starliner test flight in December 2019 had major software problems, prompting Boeing to launch a second unpiloted test flight before the ship's first planned launch with a crew on board late this year or early next year.

For the test flight, the Starliner will dock at the front end of the station's forward Harmony module, returning to a White Sands, New Mexico, landing on August 5.

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Russia ditches 20-year-old space station module to clear way for lab's arrival - CBS News

Blue Origin suborbital spaceflier Mark Bezos throws a ball to Oliver Daemen in zero-G while Wally Funk floats above in the New Shepard capsule. (Blue Origin Photo)

The state of commercial space travel is changing so quickly that even science-fiction authors are struggling to keep up.

Thats what Time magazines editor at large,Jeffrey Kluger, found out when he was finishing up his newly published novel,Holdout,half of which is set on the International Space Station.

Klugers plot depends on the Russians being the only ones capable of bringing an astronaut back from the space station but that no longer holds true,now that SpaceX is flying crews to and from orbit.

At the very end of the editing process, SpaceX started to fly so I had to quickly account for that, he explains in the latest episode of theFiction Science podcast, which focuses on the intersection of science and technology with fiction and popular culture.

Kluger filled that plot hole by writing in a quick reference to a couple of fictional companies CelestiX and Arcadia and saying they were both grounded, due to a launch-pad accident and a labor strike.

Its been even harder to keep up in the past few weeks, due to the high-profile suborbital spaceflights that have been taken by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. Each of them flew aboard their own companys rocket ship:Blue Origins New Shepard for Bezos, andVirgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo rocket plane for Branson. Kluger told me those billionaire space trips are at the same time less significant and more significant than they might seem at first glance.

Theyre less significant because this is a very elite group of very wealthy and powerful people who are in a unique position to build and fly their own spacecraft, Kluger said.

That is hardly something that the great mass of the rest of us are in a position to do, he added.

But Kluger said these first flights also hint at the enormous growth potential for private-sector spaceflight.

One of the points we like to make when we talk about this at Time is that Charles Lindbergh flew across the ocean by himself in 1927, he said. And just 12 years later, we had Pan Am trans-Atlantic service. In very short order, we have the democratization of air travel.

Which billionaire will win the lions share of the suborbital space travel market? If its a two-billionaire race, Kluger would put his money on Blue Origin, because its vertical launch-and-landing system is less complicated than Virgin Galactics air-launch system. But Kluger noted that rival billionaire Elon Musks SpaceX has far outpaced both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

Theyve stayed suborbital, he said. And until I see them going orbital and achieving some of the kinds of things that SpaceX is achieving, I think they are pretty much eating SpaceXs dust at the moment and SpaceX is, in turn, eating their lunch.

SpaceX is due to mark a milestone of its own in the months ahead when it launches an all-civilian orbital mission. The Inspiration4 mission, funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman as a charity project for St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital, is shaping up as the first crewed orbital mission that doesnt have a government employee on board. Isaacman himself, whos the CEO of Shift4 Payments as well as a trained jet pilot, will be the mission commander.

We dont know exactly what all of the seats cost, but going by what the market bears for orbital seats, probably a good guesswork figure is $50 million a seat, Kluger said. So to put four people aboard the Inspiration4 mission is $200 million, I would guess.

The four-person crew aims to conduct zero-G science experiments and teach lessons from orbit over the course of three days. So the mission as a whole is longer, more ambitious and more selfless than the other two missions, Kluger said.

Inspiration4 wont be heading for the space station. But yet another commercial space mission, organized by Axiom Space with SpaceX in charge of the launch, will carry three customers and an Axiom mission commander to the 20-year-old orbital outpost early next year. Still more customers including Tom Cruise and the winner of a reality-TV show are expected to visit the station in the years ahead.

Life aboard the space station is going to become a little bit more crowded, and a little bit more versatile, Kluger said.

Lets just hope those visitors dont face the kinds of troubles that the protagonist of Klugers novel has to deal with. The central character in Holdout, an astronaut named Walli Beckwith, encounters perils including an in-space collision, an ammonia leak and a balky Soyuz capsule all based on true-to-life space station incidents.

Kluger said he was careful to stay within the bounds of the space stations technological capabilities and potential shortcomings as he was writing Holdout.

Some of the politics in Washington, I may have taken a few liberties with that but when it came to the science, I tried to keep it as close to the actual physics of spaceflight as possible, he said.

In addition to the space drama, the ingredients in Klugers book include international political intrigue as well as environmental threats and a refugee crisis in the Amazon. (No, Jeff Bezos, not your Amazon.) It all sounds like the perfect recipe for a movie script.

I think almost hourly of this book being on screen, Kluger admitted. Im not saying I wrote it more as a screenplay than as a book, but I did write it with the idea of a movie in mind. My agent in Hollywood at William Morris is working on getting it out there.

Kluger already has someone in mind to play Walli Beckwith: Elisabeth Moss, who has starred in Mad Men and The Handmaids Tale.

I think shes got the grit. I think shes got the toughness. I think shes got the emotional availability and accessibility, Kluger said. I just think she would be the perfect person for Walli Beckwith.

Elisabeth Moss hasnt yet shown up alongside Tom Hanks and Lady Gaga on the list of prospective suborbital spacefliers. But in light of Klugers interest, maybe she should think about it.

This report was originally published on Alan Boyles Cosmic Log. Check out the original posting for bonus links to Klugers favorite space TV show, the book thats on the top of his reading list and other recommendations from the Cosmic Log Used Book Club.

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Bezos vs. Branson vs. Musk: A reality check on the billionaire space race and space station sci-fi - GeekWire

The International Space Station in 2006, shortly after the departure of Space Shuttle Atlantis.Image: NASA (Getty Images)

Russias newly launched International Space Station module Nauka is still in the fight as of Friday afternoon, as early reports indicate that the modules backup engines have fired successfully. Thats a big relief for Roscosmos, which nearly saw its long-awaited module become a tragic piece of space trivia instead of the newest piece of the International Space Station. But its not out of the woods yet.

The first glitch in Naukas journey happened yesterday, when the spacecraft didnt complete its first orbit-raising burn. This meant that the uncrewed Nauka wasnt on track to actually intercept the ISS, which its scheduled to dock with on Thursday, July 29. The problem was attributed to a software issue in a computer aboard Nauka, which prevented the spacecrafts main engines from firing. Naukas team was able to manage a remote course correction, but a second bout of course corrections were deemed necessary, and scheduled for today. One early report from journalist Anatoly Zak indicated that one of the spacecrafts engines sputtered back to life in a mission. The backup engine seems to have fired fine, said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in an email today, though he added that the status of the engines was not yet certain and it would likely be a few hours before a new dataset from Nauka verified the situation.

The thrusters are just one piece of the engineering puzzle, so the new module is hardly home free. Naukas also been having issues with one antenna and its docking target, and its uncertain how those issues will affect docking attempts, SpaceNews reported. Apparently there is still an issue with the Kurs rendezvous system, and that is pretty critical for docking, McDowell said, adding that the spacecrafts TORU systemwhich allows the astronauts aboard the ISS assist with the dockingis working normally.

For now, the Pirs docking compartment is currently sitting in Naukas assigned dock on the ISS. Pirs scheduled undocking to make way for the new module was postponed from Friday to Sunday, according to RussianSpaceWeb.

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It is not unusual for complex spacecraft to have teething troubles. However, the number and severity of problems on this flight is above the norm, and perhaps this is not too surprising given the long delays in the development of the vehicle. Nevertheless, I am moderately optimistic that they will eventually complete a successful docking, although not necessarily on the first attempt, McDowell said.

Keep your eyes on this spacecraft. Theres certainly a twist or two left in this tale.

More: Russia Averts Possible Disaster as New Space Station Module Finally Reaches Proper Orbit

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Russian Module Headed for the ISS Is Still Having Problems - Gizmodo

NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station are growing red and green Hatch chile peppers that will be ready to eat in just a few months.

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The 48 chile pepper seeds were planted here on Earth at the Kennedy Space Center then delivered to the ISS in June. The seeds were slotted into the Advanced Plant Habitat, one of three plant growth chambers on the ISS. This is one of the longest and hardest growth experiments the astronauts and scientists on the ground have attempted.

Luckily, NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, who initiated NASAs Plant Habitat-04 (PH-04) experiment onboard, has already tended to space crops. He helped grow (and eat) "Outredgeous" red romaine lettuce in late 2016.

The peppers will be harvested in about four months. Some will be sampled by the astronauts onboard, while others will be sent back to the Kennedy Space Center for analysis.

It is one of the most complex plant experiments on the station to date because of the long germination and growing times, said Matt Romeyn, principal investigator for PH-04. We have previously tested flowering to increase the chance for a successful harvest because astronauts will have to pollinate the peppers to grow fruit.

Jason Fischer (left), a research scientist, and Lashelle Spencer, a plant scientist, with the Laboratory Support Services and Operations contract at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, harvest peppers from pepper plants on Jan. 15, 2020, that were grown in the Space Station Processing Facility for a growth assessment in preparation for sending them to space. As NASA prepares to send humans beyond low-Earth orbit, the ability for astronauts to grow a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables in space will be critical. Fresh produce will be an essential supplement to the crew's pre-packaged diet during long-duration space exploration when they are away from Earth for extended periods of time.

Growing peppers on the ISS has a few benefits for NASA's astronauts. Living in microgravity can cause astronauts to lose some of their sense of taste and smell, which means spicy foods are a welcome meal for some. Peppers are also high in Vitamin C and other nutrients. Plus, the bright peppers even help the astronauts' mental health while onboard the ISS.

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Growing colorful vegetables in space can have long-term benefits for physical and psychological health, Romeyn said. We are discovering that growing plants and vegetables with colors and smells helps to improve astronauts well-being.

It's comforting to know when humans eventually colonize Mars, we might not have to give up our beloved chiles. Man can only live on astronaut ice cream for so long.

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NASA astronauts are growing chili peppers on the International Space Station - Chron