Category Archives: Space Station

NASAs SpaceX Crew-2 is pictured during a training session at SpaceX headquarters. Photo: SpaceX

An international crew of four is launching this week to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center. Once on station,theyll conduct more than 200 experiments during their six-month stay.

NASAsShane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur along with European Space Agencys Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys Akihiko Hosidewill make up Crew-2, heading to the station Thursday on SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule.

While there, the crew will work on hundreds of science experiments, including new medical research. The science will help biomedical researchers here on Earth fight disease and help prepare future astronauts for deep-space missions.

The collaboration allows people to work together efficiently and avoid duplication so that we can all get more done together, said Julie Robinson, NASAs chief scientists for human exploration and operations.

Experiments include testing a new tissue chip. Biomedical researchers created small systems of cells and tissues on a tiny chip that mimic the action of those cells when inside the human body and have great potential for biomedical breakthroughs.

The crew will also test a new portable ultrasound device designed to help astronauts on long-duration missions to places like the moon and Mars.

SpaceX is launching the astronauts to the station. The private company is working with NASA to ferry astronauts into low-Earth orbit, ending a nearly decade-long reliance on the Russians after the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

Transportation of that crew on commercial vehicles so that we can maintain a full crew of seven on the ISS is the backbone of getting the most research done on the platform, said Robinson.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting a launch from Kennedy Space Center Thursday at 6:11 a.m. ET.The crew will remain on the station for about six months before returning to Earth in the Dragon capsule.

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New International Space Station Crew To Conduct Hundreds Of Space Experiments - WMFE

SpaceX recently inked a deal with NASA to move any of the company's Starlink internet satellites out of the way if they stray too close to the International Space Station or other agency spacecraft.

The Space Act Agreement, which was signed on March 18, will help maintain and improve space safety, NASA officials said.

SpaceX has launched more than 1,400 of its Starlink broadband satellites to orbit to date. Following the first operational Starlink launch in 2019, the company has tweaked the satellites' design, providing upgrades intended to reduce their reflectivity, enable them to communicate with each other on orbit and even maneuver out of the way if necessary.

Related: SpaceX's Starlink satellite megaconstellation launches in photos

"With commercial companies launching more and more satellites, its critical we increase communications, exchange data and establish best practices to ensure we all maintain a safe space environment," Steve Jurczyk, NASA's acting administrator, said in a statement.

In 2020, the International Space Station had to adjust its orbit multiple times to avoid potential collisions, a task that takes some coordinated effort. As the number of Starlink and other satellites in orbit increases, so does the likelihood that some type of space-traffic incident could occur.

SpaceX has long stressed that its Starlink satellites are equipped with autonomous collision-avoidance features that help the craft change positions in orbit. By signing this new agreement, NASA is hopeful that if such a close pass should occur, only the Starlink spacecraft will have to move.

The agreement also requires SpaceX to notify NASA at least a week before each Starlink launch so the agency can determine if that mission poses any collision-avoidance issues. To go one step further, SpaceX has agreed to launch its satellites into initial orbits that do not come within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of the ISS or other NASA spacecraft.

"NASA has agreed to not maneuver in the event of a potential conjunction to ensure the parties do not inadvertently maneuver into one another," the agreement states. "NASA will operate on the basis that the autonomous maneuvering capability of the Starlink satellites will attempt to maneuver to avoid conjunction with NASA assets, and that NASA will maintain its planned trajectory unless otherwise informed by SpaceX."

Additionally, the collaboration with SpaceX will include work to further reduce the brightness of the Starlink satellites. To date, SpaceX has outfitted its Starlink satellites with a special sun visor that reduces the spacecraft's brightness, but the agreement allows for the sharing of information between the two entities.

SpaceX is not the only company with big plans for space-based internet service. OneWeb, Telstar and Amazon all have their own constellations planned. In a real-world example of why these types of agreements exist, a Starlink spacecraft and a OneWeb satellite zoomed uncomfortably close to each other on March 30.

The two companies were able to coordinate, with OneWeb moving its satellite out of the way. As the number of satellites in space increases rapidly, such cooperation will likely be key to avoiding collisions.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SpaceX agrees to steer Starlink internet satellites clear of space station, NASA spacecraft - Space.com

SpaceX has already proved that its better at building human-carrying spacecraft than Boeing. Now its busy operation schedule is actually hampering Boeings effort to catch up. SpaceX has so many missions scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station in the coming months that there are no docking ports available for Boeing to conduct test flights with.

SpaceX and Boeing are both contractors under NASAs Commercial Crew Program, tasked with building a reusable rocket-spacecraft system for transporting astronauts and payloads to the ISS. SpaceXs system consists of its workhorse Falcon 9 booster and a new capsule called Dragon, and Boeing is building a capsule called Starliner to be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

SpaceX delivered the Dragon capsule last May and has successfully flown six astronauts to the space station through two missions. Boeing, by contrast, is still struggling to lift Starliner off the ground.

A key upcoming test is to launch an uncrewed CST-100 Starliner capsule to the ISS, have it docked at one of the stations ports for a week, and fly it back to Earth. The test, called OFT-2, was scheduled for this month. But Boeing may have to push it back to July or August due to a traffic jam near the ISSs docking ports in the coming weeks.

Boeings Starliner has to been docked at a port with an international docking adapter. There are only two such ports on the space station. One of them is currently occupied by the Dragon capsule used in SpaceXs Crew-1 mission, launched last November. The other port will be occupied by another Dragon capsule on April 22 when SpaceX launches its Crew-2 mission carrying four astronauts. The Crew-2 vehicle will remain attached to the space station for six months. And soon after Crew-1 returns to Earth on April 28, a SpaceX cargo mission is set to launch on June 3 occupy the vacated port until mid-July.

That leaves Boeing about a one-month window in May to conduct the Starliner test. Otherwise, it will have to wait till July.

A May launch seems unlikely, since Boeing hasnt provided any updates on the test since early March.Two NASA sources told Ars Technica that Starliner is close to being ready, with only a few small tests remaining to certify the spacecraft for flight.

Based on the current traffic at the space station, NASA does not anticipate that OFT-2 can be accomplished later in April. NASA and Boeing are working to find the earliest possible launch date, Boeing said in a statement dated March 4.

Boeings last attempt to test Starliner was in December 2019. An uncrewed Starliner failed to reach the ISS and returned to Earth in a shortened test flight.

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Boeings Starliner Is Further Delayed Due to ISS Traffic Jam Created by SpaceX - Observer

NASA just shared a breathtaking image of a milky way galaxy captured from the International Space Station (ISS) on its official Instagram page. Ever since its posting, the image has received over 9 lakh likes and 3000 comments.

See Pic: NASAs Perseverance Rover And Mars Ingenuity Helicopter Just Captured Their First Ever Selfie Together!

The caption for the image that has left netizens completely awestruck states, Our next photo needs no introduction. We could stare for hours. Shown here, we see our Milky Way galaxy captured from the International Space Station (@ISS) from the @SpaceX Crew Dragons eye by @JAXAJP astronaut Soichi Noguchi. The luminous horizon of the Earth dominates the image along with thousands of brilliant specks of stars. Check it out:

NASA also highlighted an exciting fact about the stars, stating that they are arranged in "a pinwheel pattern with four major arms", and we live in one of them, about two-thirds of the way outward from the centre of the Milky Way. In fact, our Solar System is located at about 25,000 light-years away from the centre of our galaxy, meaning that we live in the suburbs of our galaxy! How cool! Also, it takes 250 million years for our Sun and the solar system to go all the way around the centre of the Milky Way.

For the uninitiated, A large group of stars, gas, and dust bound together by gravity is referred to as a galaxy. All the stars that you can spot in the bright sky are in our milky way galaxy, explains NASA. The sun and all the planets around it are considered part of a galaxy known as the Milky Way Galaxy.

SEE ALSO: NASA Hubble Telescope Captures A Beautiful Evil Eye Galaxy In The Sky!

Now, in case youre wondering why our galaxy is called the Milky Way galaxy, thats because it can be seen as a milky band of light in the sky when you observe it in a really dark area.

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NASA Shares Breathtaking Image Of Our Milky Way Galaxy Captured From The International Space Station! - Mashable India

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - We are one week away from the next crewedlaunch into space.

NASA and SpaceX aretargeting Thursday, April 22for their second crew flightaboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour, carried by the company's Falcon 9 rocket.

Liftoff is currently scheduled for 6:11 a.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center'sLaunch Complex 39A. The crew will head to the International Space Station (ISS), with expected arrival on Friday morning.

TRENDING:NASA shares stunning image of blue dunes on Mars

The crew for the flight is made up of NASA astronautsShane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

To prepare for the mission, NASA said on Tuesday that the astronauts have entered quarantine, also known as"flight crew health stabilization." It is a routine part of final preparations before space flight. They will spend two weeks isolated to ensure that they are healthy, protecting themselves and the astronauts they will meet at the ISS.

The Crew-2 astronauts will reportedly be the second crew to fly on a full-duration mission to the ISS on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. This will also be the first mission to fly two international partner crew members as part of the agency's commercial crew program.

MORE NEWS:2 space fans get seats on billionaire's private SpaceX flight

NASA said that the crew will spend six months in space. At the ISS, they will joinCrew-1 NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi. In addition, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are also there.

The NASA, SpaceX Crew-1 mission lifted off on November 15, 2020. They are scheduled to return back to the Earth in late Spring 2021.

MORE NEWS:Artemis I boosters stacked at Kennedy Space Center

The SpaceX crew missions are said to be part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Companies work with the space agency to develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems that can bring humans to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station.

Following this mission, NASA said that they are planning three more in 2021: SpaceX Crew-3, Boeing Crew Flight Test, and Boeing Starlink-1.

Threeastronauts for the Crew-3 SpaceX launch have already been selected. They includetwo NASA astronauts and one astronaut from theEuropean Space Agency (ESA).

WEATHER ALERTS: Download the FOX 35 Storm Team Weather app for live radar, severe weather alerts, and daily forecast reports on your phone

NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn will reportedly serve as commander and pilot while ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer will serve as the mission specialist. A fourth crew member will be announced at a later date. They will spend six months at the ISS andwill have a slight overlap with the Crew-2 astronauts.

NASA's contract with SpaceX includes six total crew missions to the ISS.

Tune in to FOX 35 Orlando for launch updates and to watch liftoff later this month.

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1 week away: NASA, SpaceX's Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station - FOX 35 Orlando

CARIBOU, Maine NASA astronaut Jessica Meir spoke Wednesday with Caribou students about her time aboard the International Space Station and her return to Earth amid a global pandemic.

Meir, who graduated from Caribou High School in 1995, said that while astronauts are not allowed to travel for public appearances because of the pandemic, she hopes to make an in-person visit to her former school soon.

Im sorry its not going to be quite as exciting as when I was in space, and my hair is much more boring now, she said, referring to her last video call with students from aboard the International Space Station.

Students asked Meir questions during the Zoom meeting, with the first being what was the worst problem she encountered in space.

Meir said that during a spacewalk, her crewmate Christina Kochs lights came off her helmet shortly after the pair had left the space station.

When the sun is shining, you dont really need the light so much, but of course were going around the planet every 90 minutes, Meir said. So were going in and out of complete sunlight and complete darkness, and when its dark you need those lights.

The lights cant be reinstalled while on a spacewalk, because astronauts need to take their gloves off to reattach the device. Meir said they weighed the advice from the team on the ground, then were able to detach the lights, secure them with a tether and allow Koch to use Meirs lights or the sun when it was available.

It made things much more interesting for us, and its just a really important lesson to remember that you always have to be ready and agile to adapt to a problem, because thats just life. Things usually dont go according to plan, so you have to be ready for that, she said.

When a student asked if at any point she regretted going into space, Meir said, absolutely not.

It was something I thought about doing since I was 5 years old, she said. I said this many times during the mission, but it was even more incredible than Id ever imagined, which is really saying a lot because I had some pretty big expectations. So no regrets, and like I mentioned I wouldve rather stayed up there longer.

Returning to Earth was actually more difficult than going into space because it can take a while for the body to readjust to gravity, she said. The lack of gravity in space creates more separation between the discs in an astronauts backbone, resulting in lingering back pain once the person returns to Earth.

You can literally feel gravity, because your body has adapted to months and months of not having it, she said. Coming back isnt fun. Youre really tired as youre readapting and I kept saying Man, gravity is overrated. My neighbor put it pretty well, hed say Whats wrong Jessica, has gravity got you down?

Meir also had to adjust to life amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which she said was strange for the returning astronauts to wrap their heads around.

Sometimes we thought that we were in some bad science fiction movie where they pan to the space station and Earth gets hit by a meteor, everyone goes extinct, and its up to us to repopulate the entire planet, she said. Luckily things werent that bad, but coming back was definitely an adjustment.

Another student asked if Meir thought aliens were real. Meir said that even though some people may laugh at that question, or the thought of aliens, that it was a great inquiry.

This universe is so big that we would be pretty naive to think that we are the only planet that has life on it, she said. I am certain that there is some kind of life it might not be exactly like us, it might be completely different, and my guess is that it doesnt look like the aliens on TV. But unfortunately if you also think again on that time and space dimension we might not ever actually have any proof of that because we might not be able to get that signal back, and to have all the planets kind of literally align so that we had knowledge of each other.

She left the students with the advice that it is important to persevere, stay patient, go outside of their comfort zones and take risks. Meir said she failed the first time she interviewed to become an astronaut, but that it became an important life lesson.

I could have given up then and said well its not worth it. I dont want to go through that all again, she said. It takes such a psychological toll to go through the selection process, and what if I dont get it again? But I didnt say that. I applied again, and thats the only reason why Im here. So remember to persevere and that it does take that hard work, but I promise you that in the end it will be worth it.

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Astronaut Jessica Meir describes her time in space and return to Earth in talk with Caribou students - Bangor Daily News

In 2019, Front Range Biosciences (FRB) teamed up with SpaceCells USA Inc. and BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) to take cannabis (and coffee) plants to the final frontier.

On March 6 of that year, hundreds of plant cell cultures were loaded onboard the SpaceX CRS-20 cargo flight, which was bound for the International Space Station (ISS). U.S. astronauts would tend to the cannabis and coffee plants for the next 30 days, becoming the first of their genera (cannabis sativa and coffea, respectively) to grow 248 miles above the Earth.

But the mission wasnt intended to provide astronauts with fresh bud and beans. The zero-gravity conditions of the ISS offered the researchers at FRB a unique opportunity to observe how space conditions affect cannabis and coffee genetics.

Ultimately, we wanted to better understand how plant cells underwent gene expression changes or genetic mutations while in a microgravity environment, says Dr. Jonathan Vaught, cofounder and CEO of FRB, the Boulder-based hemp and cannabis genetics platform company that spearheaded this research.

We were very pleased with this first experiment, he adds.

Once the 480 cannabis and coffee plant cell cultures arrived on the ISS, they were kept in special-made microhabitats inside a temperature-regulated incubator. There, they grew in zero gravity, under constant observation by BioServe Space Technologies.

Then, a month later, the plant cell cultures (now sapling plants) hitched a ride back to Earth on the Space Dragon capsule.

According to Vaught, the data this experiment and FRBs subsequent genetic analysis yielded is valuable on several levels. First, its helping provide a better understanding of what kinds of gene expression occurs when crops like cannabis and coffee are grown in space and how they respond to zero-gravity conditions.

On Earth, plants are constantly working to defy gravity in order to rise above the ground, but since they were not utilizing this energy in zero-gravity conditions, we were able to observe where different biological changes started to occur, Vaught says. The results of the research could help growers and scientists identify new varieties or chemical expressions in the plant.

Which would be lucrative knowledge for farmers growing these cash crops if it means they can increase the plants genetic resiliency. Cannabis is an extremely sensitive crop that responds dramatically to changes in temperature, moisture and exposure to other environmental factors. Changing the threshold of what it could endure could open up vast new tracts of potential farmland that were previously unusable.

Also, Vaughn points out, This is important in the context of climate change.

By exposing these plants to stressors (or in this case, taking away the stressor of gravity), FRB hopes to gain a better understanding of stress responses in these plants. Once this is known, FRB can engineer trait-specific cannabis strains to withstand challenges like temperature changes, drought and disease.

There are many regions here on Earth that no longer have viable growing conditions to support agriculture, Vaught says. By learning how plants adapt in a new environment space, in this example we will be able to better understand, and subsequently breed, various crops so that they thrive in new environments and conditions.

While FRB was the first to send cannabis plants into space, it wasnt the last. Several other companies have begun their own cannabis experiments on the ISS since, including Space Tango out of Kentucky. And although FRB isnt planning any follow-up space mission studies yet, Vaught is excited to see this area of agricultural science progress.

With the birth of private space travel, more and more researchers are now able to study the effects of microgravity on various organisms, he says. This will also allow FRB to better understand how plants manage the stress of space travel, and set the stage for a whole new area of research for our company and the cannabis industry as a whole.

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Cannabis on the ISS - Boulder Weekly

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. For astronauts to go on long missions to the moon or Mars, they need a refrigerator. But todays fridges arent designed to work in zero gravity or upside down if oriented that way when a spacecraft lands on another planet.

A team of engineers from Purdue University, Air Squared Inc., and Whirlpool Corporation is working on building a fridge for zero gravity that operates in different orientations and just as well as the one in your kitchen, giving astronauts access to longer-lasting and more nutritious food.

In May, the team will test their fridge design on Zero Gravity Corporations (ZERO-G) unique weightless research lab. The only testing space of its kind in the United States, the specially designed plane will fly in microgravity dozens of times for 20-second intervals during each of four flights. Data from these flights, which are supported by NASAs Flight Opportunities program, will help the team determine if the design is ready to be used in space.

The canned and dried food that astronauts currently eat during missions have a shelf life of only about three years. The teams project, funded by NASAs Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, aims to give astronauts a supply of food that could last five to six years.

Astronauts need to have better quality food that they can take along. And so thats where a refrigerator comes into play. But its still a relatively novel technology for space, said Eckhard Groll, a professor and head of Purdues School of Mechanical Engineering.

The engineers are not the first to attempt building a fridge like those used on Earth for space missions, but they are among the few who have tried since astronauts walked on the moon in 1969. Even though fridge experiments have been in space before, they either didnt work well enough or eventually broke down.

Cooling systems currently on the International Space Station are used for experiments and storing biological samples rather than for storing food, and they consume significantly more energy than fridges on Earth. The team is aiming to design a fridge that could be sent into space ahead of a mission and operate at freezer temperatures to meet the needs of astronauts. (Watch a YouTube video.)

The engineers May flights will test possible solutions to making the type of cooling process that a typical fridge uses vapor compression refrigeration reliable enough for space missions.

When I jumped on this project, it wasnt completely clear what the problems would be, since there havent been many vapor compression refrigeration experiments in microgravity in the past, said Leon Brendel, a Purdue Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering. In a typical fridge, gravity helps to keep liquid and vapor where they are supposed to be. Similarly, the oil lubrication system inside of a fridges compressor is gravity-based. When bringing new technology into space, making the entire system reliable in zero gravity is key.

Brendel and Paige Beck, a Purdue junior majoring in mechanical engineering, and three other members of the team from Air Squared will be flying with experiments testing various aspects of the fridge design. For each flight, the plane will perform 30 parabolas including Martian, lunar and micro gravities. During and after the peak of the parabola, the engineers will experience a microgravity environment, allowing them to float around to observe their experiments and collect data.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. I cant wait to board the plane, Brendel said.

The teams fridge prototype is about the size of a microwave, ideal for potentially fitting onto the International Space Station and plugging into an electrical outlet like on Earth. The prototype, built by Air Squared, will fly as one of the teams three experiments.

Purdue researchers built two other experiments to fly that will help them understand in detail how well the prototype operates. One of these experiments is a larger version of the prototype with sensors and other instruments to measure the effects of gravity on the vapor compression cycles, while the other experiment tests the prototypes vulnerability to liquid flooding that could damage the fridge. The experiments were built at Purdue's Ray W. Herrick Laboratories, facilities for research on heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration.

The Purdue team is testing the ability of the fridge design to operate in different orientations, such as upside down and sideways, by rotating the larger version of the prototype in the lab. Rotating this experiment gives the team a sense of how gravity affects the design before flying in May.

Nowhere on the ground can you find microgravity to run an experiment, but we can change the relative direction of gravity to our fridge by rotating it, Brendel said.

If the researchers prove in their lab that gravity has a negligible impact on the vapor compression cycle, then the design might also work in zero gravity. And if the fridge can work in any orientation then space crews wouldnt have to worry about making sure the fridge is right side up at a landing.

To avoid the problem of how a zero gravity environment would affect the flow of oil throughout the fridge, Air Squared developed an oil-free compressor. The compressor will be tested both in the prototype and in its larger, more instrumented counterpart built by Purdue researchers.

No gravity means that oil isnt flowing where it should. Our design provides a higher reliability by not requiring oil in the compressor so that the fridge can run for a long period of time and not be challenged by a microgravity environment, where oil might leave the compressor, become trapped in the system and render the compressor inoperable, said Stephen Caskey, a project engineer at Air Squared, principal investigator for the teams NASA SBIR award and an alum of Purdues School of Mechanical Engineering.

Whirlpool Corporation provided other components for the fridge experiments as well as expertise on how to integrate these components, run the experiments and package the prototype in a way that would meet requirements for use on the International Space Station.

If you have a problem with a fridge in space, you cant just call a service team to come fix your fridge like you can on Earth, said Alberto Gomes, senior principal engineer at Whirlpool Corporation. When we develop fridges for household applications, reliability is a very important piece. You need the fridge to last for several years. Weve brought in some expertise to this project on how to make these systems more reliable for space.

If these experiments are successful, it shouldnt be long before astronauts have a reliable fridge in space, the researchers said.

During the last two years of this project, we have made tremendous strides in moving the technology forward, Groll said. If these parabolic flights check out as we imagine they will and prove our system works in microgravity, were just a couple years away from having a refrigerator for spaceflight. Were excited to provide the refrigerator for that flight. I think we have all the tools in place to do so.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 5 Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap athttps://purdue.edu/.

Writer, Purdue University media contact: Kayla Wiles, 765-494-2432, wiles5@purdue.edu

Air Squared media contacts: Ryan Riebau, r.riebau@airsquared.com; Kirk Shaffer, k.shaffer@airsquared.com

Whirlpool Corporation media contact: Cean Burgeson, cean_m_burgeson@whirlpool.com

Zero Gravity Corporation (www.gozerog.com) contact: kleeds@kirvindoak.com

Sources:

Eckhard Groll, groll@purdue.edu

Leon Brendel, lbrende@purdue.edu

Stephen Caskey, s.caskey@airsquared.com

Alberto Gomez, alberto_r_gomes@whirlpool.com

Michelle Peters, michelle@gozerog.com

Journalists visiting campus: Journalists should followProtect Purdue protocolsandthe followingguidelines:

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Astronauts need a fridge. Engineers are building one that works in zero gravity and upside down. - Purdue News Service

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed off on plans for the country to begin the construction of a manned orbital satellite to eventually replace the International Space Station (ISS), which appears to be on its last legs.

In recent years, the ISS has begun to fall apart, with astronauts now frequently discovering cracks. Last week, it was revealed that Russian cosmonauts were still working on plugging a leak first noticed in 2019. The ongoing problems with the international station have prompted Moscow to begin creating a replacement.

Called ROSS, the Russian orbital satellite will consist of three to seven modules and will be able to carry up to four people. Although only approved by Putin on Monday, on the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarins landmark first human spaceflight, the project has been in the works for some time. Last November, the first deputy designer general for space contractor RSC Energia revealed his belief that Russia needed to get started on a new station, saying the ISS was already falling apart.

Until 2025, Russia has obligations to participate in the ISS program, Vladimir Solovyov told the Russian Academy of Sciences. There are already a number of elements that have been seriously damaged and are out of service. Many of them are not replaceable. After 2025, we predict an avalanche-like failure of numerous elements onboard the ISS.

Russia has a long history of making its own satellites, with Sputnik 1 being the first to ever be launched into low Earth orbit, all the way back in 1957. In 1986, the Soviets launched a domestically made space station named Mir, which at the time was the largest artificial satellite in orbit.

Last May, Russian space agency Roscomos revealed that the proposed ROSS could be ready for deployment after 2024.

Despite Moscows willingness to go it alone, Roscosmos has reaffirmed its commitment to international cooperation in recent months. Earlier this month, Russia signed off on a plan to continue to collaborate with the US in space, and the two nations are due to use each others rockets to head into the cosmos. Roscosmos also signed a moon exploration deal with China in March, with the space agency agreeing to share a lunar station with Beijing.

While space has often been a place for international competition, both Washington and Moscow regularly help each other in times of need. For example, earlier this year, American astronauts donated food to their Russian counterparts when supplies from Earth were delayed.

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As International Space Station shows signs of falling apart, Putin approves ambitious plan for Russia to make its own replacement - RT

LANSING, MI A 113-year-old former train station in Michigans capital city is on deck to become a mixed-use community space if a brownfield redevelopment plan is approved, according to a news release from the city mayors office.

Most recently occupied by Claras Restaurant, the historic train station, 637 E. Michigan Ave., sits vacant in downtown Lansings Michigan Avenue Corridor just a few blocks from the Capitol building. The Gillespie Group has plans to develop it.

The redevelopment of the train station on the Michigan Avenue Corridor will be the latest project to further revitalize the Stadium District in downtown Lansing, Mayor Andy Schor said in a statement.

Recent development in the area includes the opening of the Capital City Market and the Courtyard by Marriott hotel.

The repurposing of this now vacant building will help create an even more vibrant Michigan Avenue, while still allowing residents to enjoy its historic charm, Schor said.

The news release was short on details about what the redeveloped building would offer, but said plans include mixed-use space for the entire community to enjoy.

The Gillespie Group has invested in and redeveloped downtown Lansing for more than a decade, including the BLOCK600 brownfield project across the street from the train station, which redeveloped several vacant, contaminated parcels, including a former gas station.

Brownfield plans are used to capture new property taxes generated by private investment as reimbursement for the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites.

The Gillespie Group has asked the City of Lansing and Lansing Brownfield Redevelopment Authority to amend the Michigan Avenue brownfield plan to include train station property.

LBRA approved the amended plan during a meeting on Friday, April 9. The Lansing City Council received the plan from the mayors office during its meeting on Monday; no action was taken.

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113-year-old Michigan train station to be redeveloped into mixed-use community space - MLive.com