Category Archives: Space Station

The ISS is only visible when it is dark. The moment the station itself is illuminated by the sun, this light is reflected back to the earth. In the next few days, this will be the case in the Netherlands between 5.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. The ISS can then be seen on a clear day and looks like a fast moving star.

But, says Wouter van Bernebeek of Weerplaza, until Tuesday, clouds dominate in the Netherlands. Especially during the night. For the next three nights, therefore, it is unlikely that we will see the space station. If it does, it will be in the south of the country. This is where the chances of clarification are greatest. large.

This is because a northerly wind will blow until the middle of next week. The cold water of the sea brings forth many clouds. Also, the ISS cannot be seen all night long. So its a snapshot. And then there just has to be an authorization.

On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the chances of clearances increase everywhere in the Netherlands, explains Van Bernebeek. On Wednesday and Thursday evenings, the orbit of the ISS is also the most suitable for spotting. However, Van Bernebeek warns: it is still so far away that the prediction is very uncertain.

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ISS Space Station to be Seen from Earth Next Week ... Weather Permitting | House - DodoFinance

The cheese distributor says they are now working on releasing a special edition space cheese so you can try the same cheese that was sent to the space station.

HOUSTON A Belgium cheese maker and distributor are "out of this world" excited after finding out their cheese has been sent from Belgium all the way to the International Space Station.

It all happened through a Heights cheese shop called Houston Dairymaids.

NASA astronaut Shannon Walker had requested for them to send her cheese for her 210-day journey on the International Space Station.

They did, and she loved the cheese so much, she requested a second shipment!

Now the Belgium maker and distributor of that cheese are feeling the love.

They say the cheese is made on a small dairy farm in West Flanders, and then, they age the cheese in their facility.

They never wouldve thought their cheese would make from Belgium through Houston and up to space.

Very often, Belgium people are not as proud as they should be about their products so it was a very local story and now its international, so yeah, thats great," said Frederic Van Tricht with Kaasaffineurs Van Tricht. "Just delivering it all over the world is already great, but space is something that we never couldve dreamed of."

And get this: the cheese distributor says they are now working on releasing a special edition space cheese so you can try the same cheese that was sent to the space station.

But be patient. They say it could be two months before you see it back in the Houston Dairymaids store.

Read more:
Heights business helps get cheese to astronauts on the ISS - KHOU.com

Additively manufactured electronics (AME) manufacturer Nano Dimension has announced its first 3D printed integrated radiofrequency (RF) circuit has been flown to the International Space Station (ISS) for space effects studies.

Printed on Nano Dimensions DragonFly LDM system, the RF circuit will transmit data to and from the ISS, providing the project partners with systematic analysis of the RF properties of 3D printed High-Performance Electronic Devices (Hi-PEDs) within the rigors and demands of space.

Nano Dimension collaborated with communications technology firm L3Harris on the two-year project, which ultimately aims to demonstrate the viability of using new technologies such as multi-level and multi-material AMEs for use in space.

This project has been a significant opportunity to qualify our additive manufacturing technology for space applications by fabricating a fully integrated communications board enabled by the multi-material and multi-layer technology of our DragonFly LDM system, said Dr. Jaim Nulman, Nano Dimensions Chief Technology Officer.

The collaboration with L3Harris has increased the technological readiness of our system towards the TR-9 level, which is the highest technology readiness level that indicates the capability for volume deployment in a LEO environment.

AMEs for space applications

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) refers to a region 1,200 miles above Earth that is home to the ISS and other communications satellites, all of which utilize RF communications systems. Using AME technology to produce lightweight, high-performance electronic devices for use within these RF systems has the potential to yield several advantages, including rapid development time and the ability to create complex shapes and systems unachievable with traditional manufacturing techniques.

Typically, the traditional production of RF circuits is a tedious trial and error process involving multiple design iterations. As such, the development of AMEs for potential space applications is an area that is seeing mounting interest.

In 2017, 3D printed metal and electronics firm Optomec was awarded a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to develop its post-processing Adaptive Laser Sintering System (ALSS) and enable electronics 3D printing onto a wider variety of temperature-sensitive substrates for use on the ISS. Elsewhere, Silicon Valley-based startup Space Foundry has been exploring how its plasma 3D printing technology could be applied within the space and electronics industries.

In October last year, Swiss RF component supplier SWISSto12 delivered a large batch of 3D printed waveguide signal interconnects to Thales Alenia Space for use in the Eutelsat KONNECT Very High Throughput Satellite (VHTS) program. Manufactured using 3D printing and electroless plating, the waveguide components saw weight and cost savings alongside enhanced RF performance.

Fabricating the RF circuit

The project between Nano Dimension and L3Harris was issued by the ISS US National Laboratory to test the durability of 3D printed RF circuits in space for potential use in future small satellites.

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is playing a critical role in advancing the development and applications of small and nano satellites and the overall LEO economy, said Dr. Arthur Paolella, Senior Scientist in the Space and Airborne Systems segment of L3Harris. The applications of 3D printing are broad, touching almost every aspect of research, design, and manufacturing.

Utilizing its experience in RF circuit development for satellites and communications systems, L3Harris designed the RF circuit board and, once printed by Nano Dimension, mounted the component to the exterior of the orbiting laboratory of the MISSE Flight Facility launch module.

Nano Dimension 3D printed the RF board using its DragonFly LDM system which is equipped with the companys proprietary AME technology. The system features two individual printheads that simultaneously deposit a conductive silver nano-ink for the bulk of a printed circuits connections, and a dielectric photopolymer ink, which provides mechanical support, thermal resistance, and electrical insulation for the surrounding structure.

The multi-layer 3D printed communications device, which is 101 x 38 x 3 mm in size, is comprised of an antenna, electronic traces for mounting functional components, and a signal ground plane. According to L3Harris, when compared with a conventionally manufactured counterpart the 3D printed RF circuit displayed a similar transmission performance while delivering reduced costs and a faster time to market.

The device will be tested at three program points pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight and will be exposed to the LEO environment on the ISS for six months before being brought back to Earth for evaluation.

The major objective of this project is to fly an experiment consisting of an integrated communications circuit fabricated by additive manufacturing and analyze the RF properties of those materials in a space environment, added Paolella. The communications system now on the ISS went through extensive testing in order to prepare it for the mission. Nano Dimensions contribution to this project was extremely important, as their additively manufactured capability is technologically advanced and superior to existing technologies.

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Featured image shows Nano Dimensions First Ever AME RF communications circuit has been sent to the ISS. Photo via Nano Dimension.

Read more:
Nano Dimension and L3Harris send 3D printed radiofrequency circuit to the ISS - 3D Printing Industry

Nanoracks CEO Jeff Manber predicts that by the end of the year, private space companies will have more discretionary money to spend than the U.S. federal government. Listen in as heprovides an update on his companys acquisition by Voyager space and more.

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Transcript:

Jen DiMascio:

Hi and welcome to the Check 6 Podcast. I'm Jen DiMascio, the executive editor for Defense & Space. I'm here with Space editor, Irene Klotz, and a very special guest, Jeff Manber, the CEO, co-founder, and chairman of the innovative space company, Nanoracks. Manber has been a pioneer in helping to bring commercial ventures to outer space. He was the CEO of MirCorp, which leased the Russian Space Station Mir and so is one of the architects building a space economy in low Earth orbit, and I guess that's where we'd like to start, Jeff. Where does the effort to build a space economy in LEO stand right now, and where do you see it headed?

Jeffrey Manber:

Hey, it's good to be here with everybody. Boy, what an open question. The effort to make LEO commercialization a genuine market stands better than I would have thought of a few years ago, but frustratingly slow nonetheless. We've made remarkable progress in the last decade, as your listeners know, in making the government a customer, and that's been the radical breakthrough. For me, it's a frustrating time because so many people, especially at NASA say, "Oh, commercial, that's Adidas soccer balls going to space," or "That's a DoubleTree cookies going to space." And that is not what commercial is about.

What commercial is about is changing the public-private partnership between the government and industry and where you have cargo being delivered to the International Space Station by the private sector, but the government's the important customer there. And as we look at International Space Station, which Nanoracks is focused on and as we look at private space stations and as we look at so much happening in the industry today beyond that, it's about making the government a commercial customer, and there we have done we remarkable things and made remarkable progress.

Irene Klotz:

Jeff, so speaking of DoubleTree cookies and Adidas soccer balls, NASA recently put out revised pricing for ISS services that landed with a bit of a thud amongst the commercial suppliers. I understand there's been a bit of a walk-back or a clarification of what that means. Where does that stand for you, and have you been affected by the price increases?

Jeffrey Manber:

Great question. We were affected with the realization that our good friends at NASA still behave at times like Soviets. Okay, so in that sense, we were affected. As you say, the policy came out with all the grace and all the subtlety of what one would expect from a different sort of government agency and something we might've expected 15 years ago.

So first, the way it was released is what has disappointed me the most. It did not, and I'll talk about how it affects us and how it affects others in a moment. First off, they determined to raise the prices for media branding and entertainment. They did not run that by the NASA [NASA Advisory Council], on which I served for commercial. They did not reach out to stakeholders beforehand. There were all these calls going back and forth between people like myself and my colleagues saying, "Did you know about this?" And so I was, I am terribly disappointed that they felt it was not necessary to discuss this with the community.

Okay, having said that, the question is what is the new policy, and who does it affect? So it came out of concerns on the Hill in Congress, that when they heard about Tom Cruise going into the Space Station and NASA has a very advanced, very forward-thinking and important policy of subsidizing prices for things like tech demo, education, STEM, new products, and I'll talk about DoubleTree cookies in a second because it's an important point. As you begin to look at true commercial, Hollywood movies, I support that that should not be subsidized by the taxpayer on board a government platform like the International Space Station (ISS). So the increase in prices affects only fully commercial projects, whether it's a movie involving Tom Cruise, let's say, or whether it's a makeup like L'Oreal. It does not affect others efforts.

Let me say that at Nanoracks. We always work in educational, and let's look at the, if I may, quickly look at the DoubleTree cookies. We went to NASA and said, we have an opportunity with a sponsor, DoubleTree, when you go into their hotels, they bake cookies. They want to send those cookies to space. What did Nanoracks do on its own? Nanoracks persuaded DoubleTree, owned by Hilton, to strike an educational deal with Scholastic. Scholastic spent close to a million dollars in sending out curriculum to 50,000 kids to teach them how baking in zero gravity is different than baking on the Earth. That money going to Scholastic to do that program is more important to me than the U.S. Treasury getting more money, let's say half a million dollars, if it had gone purely commercial.

So number one, I personally do not believe that almost anything should be purely commercial at this time. It is a government program. We're in the midst of an education multi-year effort to educate people. So we at Nanoracks will continue to support having it be educational programs as well. Even for things you may think is completely commercial, there's always an opportunity to get people in the public, the taxpayer, to understand the cool things and how space is different as we educate kids for the next generation. It's my long answer for saying, to sum it up, number one, it went out into the public horribly. Number two, it doesn't really affect Nanoracks. Three, I support the price increase. And four, we continue at Nanoracks to have the subsidized pricing because what we do is God's answer to good things.

Irene Klotz:

Thanks, Jeff. That's a great perspective on a really big issue. So maybe in that light, NASA is taking a much more cautious approach next week, when it's setting up a briefing to discuss, I guess, its plans, maybe some options for a Free Flyer LEO platform. Does Nanoracks have an interest in that, and what do you think that might look like given that so far there hasn't really been strong financial support from Congress to help NASA get a commercial LEO platform in orbit?

Jeffrey Manber:

We are passionate that we cannot have a Space Station gap. You just cannot. Your listeners are sophisticated in the industry. They know about the Shuttle gap. We still are dealing with commercial crew and foreign policy implications for having to rely on the Russians. We don't know how long the Space Station is going to last, and I told that personally to Senator Cruz before the pandemic hit. And I thanked Senator Cruz for his support of Space Station Program, and I said to him, "But we don't know how long this is going to last." It's a mechanical engineering question as well as a political funding question.

And so today is the time that we need to start having players in the private sector, look at how you would do a free flyer that supports and builds it up and stimulates utilization in low Earth orbit, one that does not subtract from the ISS program, but makes the case for further utilization and to assure continuity in the event that something goes wrong with ISS. So we're looking forward to the dialogue with NASA.

Jen DiMascio:

Thanks, Jeff. I wanted to ask you a Nanoracks question, and Nanoracks is in the process of being acquired by Voyager Space. What's the status of that right now, and why did you choose the path that you did? What will it bring to Nanoracks?

Jeffrey Manber:

Let me answer the second first. The explosion taking place in the private sector capabilities presents one with the question of whether you wish to go it alone with the limitations or you wish to be part of a team that you believe in that allows for scalability and growth. And we went out to do a series B at the start of the summer, and we were talking to people, space is hot, and we were talking to people that were quite willing to give Nanoracks capital. But at the end of the day, at one point, as we began to talk to others, we spoke to Voyager. I spoke to Dylan Taylor who was kind enough to come to the office, and we spoke for about four hours. And I went to my colleagues and said, "As we look for going out further into the industry, I'd like us to align. I think it really makes sense to align with someone with whom you have a shared vision."

And so I'm sort of answering both parts of the equation. So we elected, we were fortunate that we could sit down with Voyager and discuss why we should join and reached the decision to. It's going very well. We expect the tender to be finished in the next, let's say, six to eight weeks. And I see that there's been a public conjecture, and Voyager has said that they're going to go public. And we're going down the public pathway at the same time. And it's an utterly fascinating time in the industry, and Voyager and we have a choice whether to do SPAC or do a more traditional IPO. And I know Voyager's looking at that very closely, but however, we go, one of the, so I'm answering... So let me stop and say, it's going well. Voyager's going to tender, and then immediately we're on the pathway for the IPO.

So if I may, I'd like to say something else about the implications for all these companies going public. And you can't see it on the podcast, but everybody's nodding. Yeah, so you're nodding, so I can continue. It's an utterly, as I've said, fascinating time where, I may be wrong here and push back on me, but I think that with all these entrepreneurial space companies going public and tapping the liquidity and the capital of private markets, by the end of the year, there will be more discretionary capital in the private sector than at DOD and NASA. How cool is that?

I've said that to a number of people and they look me. I said discretionary. NASA doesn't have several hundred million. You said a moment ago, they haven't had funds for LEO commercialization. Well, with Spire going public, Momentus going public, Astro going public, Virgin going public, the Lockheeds and Boeings don't have discretionary capital, nor are they inclined their shareholders wish to spend it the way. I am struck by the fact that you're going to have a billion dollars roughly in the hands of entrepreneurial space companies. How does that change the relationship with the American space agencies and those concerned? It's an extremely interesting question that I'm giving some thought to now.

Irene Klotz:

Jeff, would you say that the availability of private capital is kind of the single biggest difference between the commercialization efforts underway now and what you worked on and experienced 20, 30 years ago back when you were trying to commercialize the Mir Space Station? Or what else has kind of changed in the years?

Jeffrey Manber:

It's the second biggest, the ability of having this capital is a new phenomenon. It's happening now as we speak in March of 2021. The first is, as I said, at the start of this conversation, is government is customer. Okay, for those who remember the Shuttle era, no offense to those associated, but it was a launch vehicle built by committee. Wait, wait, a launch vehicle built by a government committee. And it's showed, unfortunately, sadly tragically. And so it was not a vehicle that a space-faring nation wanting to show leadership should hinge its future on.

But as we made the transition to government is customer where government became more willing to buy goods and services, what did you get? We went from a closed monopolistic situation on launch vehicles and satellites to the present era of extraordinary opportunity, services, pricing across the board in launch vehicles and satellite and Earth observation, and it only took a decade.

After 40, 50 years of the space program being closed and monopoly driven, and within 10 years, we have the situation today where I bet U.S. government worries about a lot of things, but right now they're not so worried about access to and from space. And for those of us who remember the Shuttle era, you worried. And we had times when the United States of America was, after Challenger, was basically grounded. And we had some abilities with Delta and other things, but the big change Irene is that the government has been a customer for a decade, and it's showing wonderful [inaudible 00:14:59].

Irene Klotz:

Jeff, I don't mean to put you on the hot seat, or maybe I do, but there's that SLS hot fire coming up this afternoon. And as you're talking about NASA's shift to buying commercial services, of course, the agency still has its legacy programs, I think, for programs like JWST and the Mars Rovers, which are fabulous. And there's doesn't seem to be a lot of controversy about government committee, government scientists, government programs, but what about SLS? What about the investment that the taxpayers have made in this program for more than a decade and still not at the launchpad?

Jeffrey Manber:

First, I'll give a somewhat poetic answer because I read a somewhat poetic column. And I forget who wrote it in The New York Times the other day. It might've been... Well, it doesn't matter to the podcast, but it was the other day that there was a columnist in The New York Times who had a piece on SLS, and I thought he phrased it very nicely. He said, "No matter the situation, SLS is the last launch vehicle program NASA and the government will ever build, be a part of."

So, first off I would like to celebrate that even the august New York Times recognizes that the future is in the private sector and development and probably more mature public-private partnerships. So in general, I'm an observer here. Both at Nanoracks and Voyager, we've been an observer. We have not been a participant in the program. And I'm sorry that, I'll put it in a more philosophical way, I'm sorry that still in 2021, we're pushing through programs where the government has had such a limited, allowed for such a limited contribution from private sector in design and stuff. But it has a momentum on its own, and it's really going to be a question for the administration, the new administration, of how forward they want to go with this. I don't have a crystal ball, but I have to believe that, as it was said in The New York Times, this is the final government launch program.

And I look forward to the next decade where science missions will be more decentralized, smaller. They'll be more innovative, quicker. You'll be allowed to fail. Fail fast, learn, move forward. So I think the next 10 years even programs and science will be more innovative. And there'll be far more things we can do on the limited budget we're going to have once we begin to recognize that debt is debt no matter who suggests it, Democrat or Republican, so.

Jen DiMascio:

Since we are at the start of a new administration, what would you like to see policy-wise to support the momentum that's been built in terms of commercializing space?

Jeffrey Manber:

Number one, recognize that not all that [former President Donald] Trump did was bad. I'm very, very worried that this administration will dismiss some things accomplished in space because it was done during the Trump administration. I thought there was some very good, the focus on space, the high level focus on space was good. I thought the creation, not my area, I'm not an expert on this, but the creation of a dedicated sector in DOD to space was a positive thing. I did not applaud the fashion and all the publicity on it and all that. The way that the Trump administration worked I'm not a fan of.

I thought space councils are good. I think clearly we're not going to have a space council in the Biden administration. And if the Office of Science and Technology policy is being elevated, and they can have cross-government discussions on space issues, that's critical. You cannot allow one or two agencies such as NASA and units within DOD to dictate policy for the United States. So I welcome the having the cross-agency discussion with Transportation and Commerce and other agencies.

And so our government is customer. We need to understand. We need to extract ourselves from artificial deadlines. "Returning to the moon by," put in any date, I'm against it, any date whatsoever. I'd rather just say it is the policy of the United States of America to return to the moon, this time to stay. First boots on the ground will be by a woman. And we will be working with our friends at Congress and the private sector and internationally to set realistic goals based on technological and budgetary challenges. Boom! I mean, so I'm against any date. And I thought the 2024 was ridiculous, and it's proven. And some good people were sacrificed on the altar because of their feeling that an artificial date wasn't good.

So the message I would like to give, and I've given to some friends coming in the administration is, as I said at the start of this conversation, commercial is not simply frivolous things. It's a procurement reform. It's a new way of doing it, doing space. It's working. Let's keep it going.

I'd like to see more international. I'm a believer in international because it becomes more credible, and it's some of our big ticket items in space are going to be multi-year, decades in the making, and it's good to have international support. So I'm excited to see what the folks bring. At the same time, I have the realization that it's not key in importance, that it was the previous administration.

We've unveiled a new initiative, if I may say quickly. We're working with friends in Abu Dhabi on a space farming initiative. And we have a five-year program to look at innovations in ag tech, and we're doing it not only to sustain, to have, let's say, greenhouses on the moon, we're doing it to green the Earth's deserts. And there's been some fascinating research within the harsh environment of space. Micros, bacteria, and crops survive in the harsh environment of space. They can survive in the deserts of Earth, which are being subjected horrifically to climate change. And so I think we see new ways to communicate with this administration and meet its priorities. I started this two years ago. I'm not doing it because of the new administration, but I think space is on the cusp of a one to... It's a legitimate marketplace now, and that's exciting.

Irene Klotz:

Jeff, in the little time we have left, do you want to give us an update on the newest Nanoracks hardware to get to orbit, Bishop? How have sales been going, and is there a broader market for the Airlock beyond supporting NASA?

Jeffrey Manber:

The little engine that could. Okay, in December the Bishop Airlock arrived at the station and is now permanently attached to the ISS or as one of the mission control folks said when we were attached, they said, "We're delighted at NASA to be permanently attached to the Bishop." So I thought that was really cool. So now we at Nanoracks say, "Yeah, the ISS is permanently attached to Bishop." It's the largest module or hardware commercially done. It was done without government funding. Somehow through the grace of space gods, we funded it internally, but we could only do it with the help of NASA.

And so we have our first commercial customer announced is Japanese robotic company GITAI, and they're coming down to our shop in a couple of weeks to begin working on their first payload on the Airlock. We have a NASA as a customer for a variety of things. We have the European Space Agency as a customer. And now that it's up there, we are going out to satellite folks and others to explain how you can use the Airlock both to put things out into space and bring things in, talking to NASA about allowing us to bring things in.

And so it's a great example of the public-private partnership and that NASA did not put out, envision an airlock, but when we went to them and said, "We'll be five times larger than the current airlock, and here's how we see using it." We're already talking to our friends in Abu Dhabi in ag tech using the airlock for research labs. It has Wi-Fi, it has power. There's all sorts of things. So I know the astronauts have delighted about the additional real estate.

We did a very cool downlink with NASA, last week I think it was. And one of the things Shannon Walker said, by the way, which was very intriguing, she said, "We weren't expecting how much it would change the airflow within the Space Station." So that was interesting, but it brings us closer to NASA. And so far we're pleased with the sales, and we look forward and like Free Flyer saying, how do we take this public-private partnership and build it now for other things in LEO?

Jen DiMascio:

Well, thank you so much. Unfortunately, that's all we have time for today, but I hope you'll come back and join us again, maybe in the fall later this year. And I just wanted to thank our listeners for tuning into another edition of Check 6, which you can download on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play.

Excerpt from:
Podcast: Nanoracks' CEO on Commercializing Space - Aviation Week

Astronauts never travel to space alone. Each person voyaging off-world is accompanied by up to 100 trillion bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms, any number of which could jeopardize human health. Yet we are still mostly in the dark about how these communities of microscopic hitchhikers react to microgravity. We do not even know the full spectrum of spacefaring species living onboard the International Space Station (ISS). New studies, however, are designed to change that. Last month astronauts collected samples from across the interior of the ISS to build an unprecedented three-dimensional map of its microbiome. This effort at a space-based microbial census is the first step toward understanding, preventing and mitigating dangerous outbreakswhether they arise onboard the station, during long-duration flights toward Mars or even back home in hospitals.

We are constantly overrun by microbes. From the bacteria lining our guts to the too-small-to-see mites living at the base of our eyelashes, it is estimated that there are at least as many microbes on and within us as there are human cells. You can think of people as walking ecosystems, says Pieter Dorrestein, a chemical biologist at University of California, San Diego. Most of these minuscule creatures are actually essential and have such far-reaching impacts on our healthaffecting our immunity, our heart and perhaps even our mental healththat scientists often refer to the microbiome as an invisible organ. In fact, the microbial multitudes within us are so numerous that their total mass can add up to roughly the weight of our brain.

It might not come as a surprise, then, that understanding how the microbiome behaves during spaceflight is crucial if we want to send astronauts on long-term missions to Mars and beyond. But scientists are not only worried about the human microbiomethey are also worried about the spacecrafts microbiome. Take the Russian space station Mir as an example. In 1998about three years before the station deorbited into the Pacific Oceanscientists discovered several dozen species of bacteria, fungi and dust mites hiding behind a service panel. I never pictured an inanimate objecta machine that works beautifully like the stationas having a microbiome similar to someone whos alive, like a human, says Serena M. Aun-Chancellor, who is both a physician and a NASA astronaut. Yet, counter to the notion of space as a sterile, inert environment, any spacecraft will inevitably host an assortment of microbes in numbers sufficient to make any astronauts skin crawl.

A spacecrafts microbiome could prove hazardous to the health of the astronauts. Can you imagine youre on a long flight and all of the sudden you start to get, lets say, a flesh-eating bacterium, and you cant get rid of it? Dorrestein says. Those are the kinds of consequences that could materialize.

It is not a crazy idea. In 2006 a team of scientists sent a culture of salmonella bacteria for an 11-day ride on the space shuttle Atlantis only to find that once the microbes returned to Earth, they more easily killed mice. Bacteria that have slipped Earths surly bonds can also become more resistant to antibioticsa recipe for disaster, given the fact that long-duration spaceflight tends to weaken astronauts immune systems.

The new project launched by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and U.C. San Diego could help mitigate the microbial threat. In February astronaut Kate Rubins swabbed 1,000 different locations throughout the ISS. That is about 100 times greater than the number of swabs in typical microbial tracking studies, which usually focus on the most suspect parts of a living space such as kitchens, bathrooms and exercise areas. The samples will be placed in cold storage and, in a few months, sent back to Earth, where scientists will analyze their genetic signatures and name the various microbes to build a three-dimensional map of the ISSs full microbiome.

Moreover, each swab will capture trace molecules from food, oils, skin, and more. That prospect particularly excites Dorrestein, who is working on the project. Scientists currently know very little about what kinds of molecules are present on the ISS that nourish the growth of different microbial communities there. The new map will help them link specific molecules or nutrients to specific microbes. With that connection, scientists can craft guidelines to promote the growth of beneficial microbes and reduce the dangerous onesthrough nutrients alone. That might be as simple as utilizing specific construction materials on a spacecraft to Mars. All of this suggests the problem of a sick spacecraft could be partially solved before it even reaches the launchpad.

But Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a microbiologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and principal investigator of the project, is most excited about the protective measures that could take place in transit. Although the current samples are being sent back to Earth, he notes that astronauts will need to cut out that middleman on future missions. When we go all the way to other planets, you dont have a FedEx to send the samples back, Venkateswaran says. Although scientists do have the capability to perform genomic analysis onboard the ISS, the process is not particularly speedy, and in the event of a dangerous outbreak, every moment may count (just think about how long it often takes to get results back from a PCR test for COVID-19). You want to make sure you can stay on top of thatas were all too aware these days of how some little bug can kind of mess up your world, says David Klaus, a space microbiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

To combat that issue, the swabs Rubin used in the station-sweeping assay are double-headed. One tip collects microbes for simple detection whereas the other intends to capture their metabolitesthe microorganisms natural chemical by-products. Once Venkateswaran and his colleagues have created a database linking specific microbes with certain metabolites, they can build small biosensors that look for just the metabolites. Picture a handheld device that could diagnose the presence of bacteria or fungi on the spacecraft and alert astronauts of an outbreak immediatelysimilar to a carbon monoxide detector.

A notification from such a system (which Venkateswaran suspects will take another five to 10 years to become a reality) would spark immediate actionas astronauts would intensify their cleaning protocols to prevent the an onboard outbreak. This will make for a better maintenance of tomorrows habitat, Venkateswaran says. Astronauts onboard the ISS already work hard to keep the microbiome population under control. Every week they vacuum the vents and wipe down surfaces with disinfecting wipes. Aun-Chancellor estimates that when she was in orbit, each of the crews six astronauts spent roughly three hours a week cleaning. That is 18 hours each week for the ISSs total habitable volume of just 388 cubic meters (around half of the passenger space in a Boeing 747), which may seem excessive. But given the ISSs unique circumstances, all that sanitizing is necessary. Up there, food just doesnt fall to the floor, she says. Food goes to the ceiling. Food sticks to the walls. Food is everywhere. So its 3-D cleaning.

This kind of conscientious cleaning leads some scientists to dismiss worries about an outbreak en route to Mars. I dont think that the influence of bacteria is really a big showstopper for long term spaceflight because evidence suggests otherwise, Klaus says. Weve had people living on the [ISS] with rotating crews continuously for over 20 years now. And there hasnt been any kind of outbreak there. Aun-Chancellor notes that simply finding dangerous bacteria is not cause for alarmit is only worrying if the microbes are making astronauts sick. I see it more as an identification and a heads up, she says. And then were just kind of watching and mapping and waiting to see what those bacteria do in that stressful environment, she adds.

But Venkateswaran is worried not only about risks to the astronautsbut also the chances of microbial contamination of any otherworldly destinations they visit. Astronauts are basically a pathogen to the planet, Aun-Chancellor says. Theyre a new microbiome thats suddenly stepping foot on Mars. Even the spacesuit that they step out in will have their own missions microbiome on the material surface of that suit. If scientists could map the microbiome on that suit better, they might be able to clean it better, too. Venkateswaran is hopeful that the research will even help scientists design superior suits with joints that prevent even the smallest microbes from leaking through.

The unique applications do not end there. For Liz Warren, senior program director at the ISS U.S. National Laboratory, the most tantalizing aspect about all this research has little to do with space. Any partially closed environmenta house, an airplane, a hospitalwill have its own microbiome. So learning how to prevent certain microbes from thriving in space (or how to halt them when they do) offers helpful lessons for similar environments on Earth. For example, consider another project running on the ISS that tests the efficacy of antimicrobial coatings manufactured by Boeing. The idea is that if the coatings work in spacewhere microbes can be far more dangerousthen they will work on Earth. In short, the ISS is an incredible laboratory in its own right. You cant do that on Earthyou cant take gravity out of the picture, Klaus says. Having microgravity is kind of like having a microscope for the first time in a different way. You see behaviors that you couldnt otherwise see.

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NASA Will Map Every Living Thing on the International Space Station - Scientific American

China and Russia have agreed to build a new lunar space station together, according to a statement by the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

CNSA and Russian federal space agency (Roscosmos) leaders signed a "memorandum of understanding" on Tuesday to move forward with plans to construct a lunar research station, according to Jessie Yeung with CNN.

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"China and Russia will use their accumulated experience in space science, research and development as well as the use of space equipment and space technology to jointly develop a road map for the construction of an international lunar scientific research station (ILRS)," CNSA said.

A statement from Roscosmos said the two space agencies plan to "promote cooperation on the creation of an open-access ILRS for all interested countries and international partners, with the goal of strengthening research cooperation and promoting the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes in the interests of all mankind," Yeung wrote.

Neither statements from the CNSA or the Roscosmos provide a target date for the ILRS.

NASA isn't far behind with its plans to send astronauts to the moon and "establish sustainable exploration by the end of the decade," according to the space agency'sArtemis program.

Back in October, NASA signed the Artemis Accords to work with eight other nations and several partners in the private sector on future moon explorations, according to Mike Wall with Space.com.

A company called the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) has set its sights on constructing the first commercial space station by 2025.

Russia and China, however, are not part of the Artemis agreement to work with the United States on their race to the moon, according to Wall.

While Russia has collaborated with the U.S. through the International Space Station, China is prohibited from collaborating on space projects unless Congress approves the partnership in advance, Wall said.

China also plans to send astronauts to the moon by the 2030s, and if they succeed, they will be only the second country after the U.S. to accomplish such a mission, Yeung wrote.

Originally posted here:
China and Russia agree to build lunar space station together - Chron

China is now one step closer to achieving its goals of bringing its people to the moon.

The country's national space administration announced this week that it had signed an agreement with Russia to build a lunar space station together. This station, they say, will be "open to all countries."

The International Scientific Lunar Station will also "carry out a wide range of scientific research including exploration and utilization of the moon," a statement from both agencies said.

This memorandum of understanding was signed by Dmitry Rogozin, general director of the Roscosmos State Corporation, and Zhang Kejian, head of China's National Space Administration.

"China and Russia will use their accumulated experience in space science, research and development as well as the use of space equipment and space technology to jointly develop a road map for the construction of an international lunar scientific research station (ILRS)," the statement continued.

Al Jazeera previously reported that China had poured billions into its "space dream" in the hopes of one day building a crewed space station and sending humans to the moon.

This investment has clearly paid off. The Chang'e-5 space probe last December brought back samples that it had picked up during its moon landing. The success of the Chang'e-5 was noted at the time to be a landmark demonstration of China's rapidly accelerating space capabilities.

According to a CNN report, the Chinese have now put in motion plans to send astronauts to the moon by the 2030s, which would make it the second country to send a man to the moon.

A statement from Roscosmos also noted that the organizations would "promote cooperation on the creation of an open-access ILRS for all interested countries and international partners, with the goal of strengthening research cooperation and promoting the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes in the interests of all mankind."

This announcement to cooperate with the Chinese comes four months after Russia reportedly snubbed NASA's invitation to join the Artemis Accords, a plan that was meant to facilitate the US's preparations to build a permanent base on the moon and, eventually, send astronauts to Mars. At the time, NASA had announced its resolve to return to the moon in 2024, complete with plans to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by that deadline.

In October last year, however, Russia opted not to sign on to the Accords despite being courted by NASA, and despite seven other countries (including Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom) getting on board with the agreement.

The Artemis Accords, named after NASA's moon-and-Mars-bound human-spaceflight program, also outlined guidelines for space exploration for nations to follow if they joined the effort: such as being peaceful, cooperating, and mining resources sustainably from space.

See the rest here:
China and Russia are building a lunar space station together - Insider

In a new study published in the journal npj Microgravity, scientists and astronauts conducted experiments with human cells and pathogens to see how the two would change and interface differently in a low-gravity environment. The researchers used the microbial species salmonella typhimurium to infect human cells in controlled experiments on Earth and on the International Space Station.

The researchers found that there were changes in RNA and protein expression in the human cells in a microgravity environment. They also found that salmonella was able to cause the human cells to upregulate increase the rate or level of expression of compounds that would help fight an infection in both cells that were inflight and on the ground.

Inflight cells upregulated genes that were associated with inflammation, one of the human bodys mechanisms for fighting pathogens. Other genes that are related to virulence or stress regulators were also upregulated in the cells in space compared to the cells on the ground.

"We appreciate the opportunity that NASA provided our team to study the entire infection process in spaceflight, which is providing new insight into the mechanobiology of infectious disease that can be used to protect astronaut health and mitigate infectious disease risks,"said one of the studys authors Cheryl Nickerson, who is based at the Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Arizona State University, in a press release. "This becomes increasingly important as we transition to longer human exploration missions that are further away from our planet."

There were limitations to the study; not all samples that came back from space were able to be analyzed as fully as the scientists were hoping to. There were also small differences in the amount of pathogen administered to cells on the ground compared to inflight.

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Still, this studys findings are a good start to understanding how infections in space might affect our bodies. Scientists will need to know a lot more about the bodys response to a variety of pathogens, not just salmonella. This is all so that in the future humans may be able to spend more time in space and on longer flight missions.

"We knew that spaceflight also impacted several important structural and functional features of human cells that Salmonella normally exploits during infections on earth," the studys lead author Jennifer Barrila, who is also based at the Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Arizona State University,said in the press release. "Our study indicates that there are some pretty big changes in the molecular landscape of the intestinal epithelium in response to spaceflight, and this global landscape appears to be further altered during infection with Salmonella."

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New study from space station looks at human cells infected with salmonella | TheHill - The Hill

A flowering perennial ryegrass spike

Perennial ryegrass is fed to livestock in the United States and many other countries. The Artec Space Spider is a handheld 3D scanner created for use on the International Space Station. Travis Tubbs is a major with U.S. Space Force using the scanner to measure ryegrass varieties on Earth and help identify specific plants with the most desirable traits for breeders and farmers.

The problem here is with seeds that fall off too early. In the state of Oregon alone, where Tubbs has conducted published research, 360 million pounds of ryegrass seed was harvested in 2019, valued at more than $186 million. But 20% of the ryegrass grown there very year is lost due to something called early seed shattering, when seeds break off from the plant prematurely.

Artec Studio x-ray representation of a scan of a perennial ryegrass spike

Tubbs says creating 3D scans of individual plants, a simple process that takes about a minute, can help scientists pinpoint plants with the most desirable traits and outcomes in the field and use them to breed superior ryegrass and other kinds of plants, from rice and barley and wheat to fruits and vegetables.

These superior plants will be highly insect-resistant and drought tolerant, and require little to no pesticides, he says.

Technology is going to march forward and this is a great tool that can be used to help all farmers in analyzing whats out in their field.

Space Force and the Spider

The Space Force, the newest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, was established in December 2019, before Tubbs started the project.

Hes a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado who teaches in the Biology Department and conducted his research at Oregon State University. Space Force is part of the Air Force.

Travis Tubbs

Tubbs came across the Artec Space Spider while looking for ways to study ryegrass and early seed shattering. I was literally going to build my own camera system to make this work, he says.

His research involved using the Space Spider to precisely capture ryegrass spikes and literally count the number of seeds that particular plants were losing every week. Coming back to specific plants was as simple as marking them with pieces of tape, then using intuitive software to analyze the scans, Tubbs says.

The advantage to 3D scans is that you can observe the unique characteristics of a plant, twisting a stalk around, for instance, to see how many seeds a spike of ryegrass has retained.

One big takeaway of the research: The height of the plant has something to do with how well it can retain seeds, Tubbs says. The taller the plant, the less likely it is to hold on to those seeds. So you want to breed shorter plants.

Also, plants with a wider angle of spikes, or spikes that dont grow too closely together, are more desirable.

Throughout two years of the project, Tubbs had 640 ryegrass plants under his care, originating from seeds collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 40 different locations around the world. A total of 160 individual plants in the field were measured six to eight times over the duration of the work. The Artec Space Spider costs about $20,000.

The Moon and Mars

At first blush, you might think this ryegrass research by a Space Force major has something to do with growing crops for upcoming missions to the moon, or Mars.

Not yet, but this is definitely something thats useful for that, Tubbs says. You can digitize a 3D structure and send it off to whenever you need, around the world. Or above the world.

Tubbs predicts that improved plant varieties derived from 3D scanning will be sprouting from the ground in the near futuremaybe a decade or more. And farmers can be involved in using the technology.

As the world population continues to grow, weve got to get better and faster at producing food.

Excerpt from:
3D Scanning Tech Developed For Space Station Can Help Feed People On Earth - Forbes

The next launch window for a NASA crew to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX rocketship has been pushed back by at least another two days, to no earlier than April 22, the space agency said.

SpaceX, the private rocket company of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, was previously scheduled to carry its second operational space station team into orbit for NASA in late March. But NASA announced in January that the target date had slipped to April 20.

The schedule was adjusted again on the basis of available flight times to the space station, driven by orbital mechanics, that would keep the astronauts need for sleep shifting to a minimum, NASA spokesman Dan Huot said on Monday.

The flight marks only the second full-fledged space station crew-rotation mission launched aboard a privately owned spacecraft a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket tipped with the Crew Dragon capsule it will carry into orbit.

The four-member SpaceX Crew-2 consists of two NASA astronauts, mission commander Shane Kimbrough and pilot Megan McArthur, along with Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and fellow mission specialist Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.

After docking with the space station, they will join the four SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts who arrived in November, and cosmonauts carried to the orbiting outpost aboard a Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft.

The newly arrived Crew-2 are to remain in orbit six months, while Crew-1 is due to return to earth by early May.

McArthur will become the second person from her family to ride a Crew Dragon into space. Her husband, Bob Behnken, was one of two NASA astronauts on the very first manned Crew Dragon launch, a trial flight last August marking NASAs first human orbital mission from U.S. soil in nine years, following the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.

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Read more from the original source:
NASA-SpaceX launch of next International Space Station crew delayed - The Japan Times