Category Archives: Space Station

A computer simulation showing how a pulsars magnetic field might result in multiple hot spots in one hemisphere. Image: Goddard Space Flight Center

A modest X-ray telescope aboard the International Space Station has provided the first accurate measurements of an isolated neutrons stars size and mass. Taking advantage of how the concentrated gravity of massive stellar remnants bends light, the researchers even managed to peer beyond the targets visible face to track the movement of million-degree hot spots across its surface.

From its perch on the space station, NICER is revolutionising our understanding of pulsars, said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Pulsars were discovered more than 50 years ago as beacons of stars that have collapsed into dense cores, behaving unlike anything we see on Earth. With NICER we can probe the nature of these dense remnants in ways that seemed impossible until now.

When stars like the Sun run out of nuclear fuel, fusion stops, gravity takes over and cores collapse to form slowly cooling white dwarf stars. But when much more massive stars burn out, gravity is strong enough to crush core material beyond white dwarf densities, producing neutron stars just a few miles across. Spinning neutron stars are known as pulsars because of polar jets that sweep across space like light house beacons.

NASAs Neutron star interior Composition Explorer telescope, or NICER, aboard the International Space Station was used to study a pulsar known as J0030 located about 1,100 light years from Earth in the constellation Pisces. The pulsar spins on its axis 205 times per second.

The northern hemisphere of J0030 is visible as viewed from Earth, but the intense gravity makes the star appear larger than it actually is, warping the surrounding space and bending light from the far side enough to keep hot spots in view as the pulsar rotates.

Theory predicted one near each pole, the result of powerful magnetic fields, but the NICER data shows J0030 sports two and possibly such hot spots, all in the southern hemisphere. The results indicate the pulsars magnetic field is much more complicated than predicted in the traditional two-pole model.

NICER also allowed two teams of researchers, using independent methods, to calculate J0030s mass and size with an uncertainty of less than 10 percent. One team, led by Thomas Riley, a doctoral student at the University of Amsterdam, concluded the pulsar has a mass of about 1.3 times that of the Sun crammed into a body just 25.4 kilometres (15.8 miles) across.

The other team, led by Cole Miller, an astronomy professor at the University of Maryland, came up with values of 1.4 solar masses and a diameter of 26 kilometres (16.2 miles).

Its remarkable, and also very reassuring, that the two teams achieved such similar sizes, masses and hot spot patterns for J0030 using different modelling approaches, said Zaven Arzoumanian, NICER science lead at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. It tells us NICER is on the right path to help us answer an enduring question in astrophysics: What form does matter take in the ultra-dense cores of neutron stars?

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Seeing beyond the horizon of a space-warping pulsar - Astronomy Now Online

Welcome to 321 Launch, our wrap-up of the biggest space news you might have missed over the last week. Here's what's happening:

The Monday night SpaceX launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as seen from along the Indian River in Rockledge.(Photo: TIM SHORTT / FLORIDA TODAY)

SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket and commercial communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Monday, a fiery kickoff to a week that will include yet another high-profile mission before the weekend.

Up next: Boeing and United Launch Alliance, which will launch an uncrewed Starliner capsule on an Atlas V rocket from Launch Complex 41 at 6:36 a.m. Friday. The mission, labeled Orbital Flight Test, will demonstrate the capsule's capabilities to carry astronauts to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

Read about both here.

Spacecraft are high-tech wonders of engineering. But one technology that aerospace experts have had a hard time mastering is one that has been around for centuries: Parachutes.

Most spacecraft employ parachutes to slow the vehicle as it returns to the ground. But making sure that the chutes deploy properly is a task that still gives engineers fits.

Learn more about the problems with parachutes here.

A team of students from the University of Minnesota is heading back up north $25,000 richer after a visit to the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center.

The team earned the money by launching a rocket to more than 500 feet using some unusual rocket fuel: Alka-Seltzer tablets and water.

Read about the Alka-Rocket challenge here.

Contact McCarthy at jmccarthy@floridatoday.com or 321-752-5018.

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321 Launch: Space news you may have missed over the past week - Florida Today

An eagle feather from Chilliwack flew all the way to the International Space Station with Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques.

Believed to be the second eagle feather in space, it will be a source of inspiration for all soon from the Sto:lo Service Agency in Chilliwack, now that it has touched back down to Earth.

The story starts with the At Home in Space Program, where some UBC researchers were studying ways to reduce stress on astronauts, and help them adapt to the isolating effects of working on the space station. One of the psychology researchers, Peter Suedfeld, has close familial ties to Michael Suedfeld, who does research and communications for Sto:lo Service Agency (SSA).

My father offered us the chance to send something of note into space with David Saint-Jacques, Michael Suedfeld recounted, explaining how the item from Sto:lo territory ended up hurtling through in space.

Suedfeld sought out SSA colleague, Kelowa Edel, Sto:lo Health Director, to come up with a suitable suggestion.

Edel said she glanced over at a bookshelf where she kept an eagle feather.

It was perfect.

Its light. Its significant. Its our connection to creator, Edel said, adding that the eagle is known across Turtle Island as the messenger.

Edel, who is not Sto:lo but of Ojibway ancestry, said the eagle feather was gifted to her at one point for her work with Sto:lo people.

We want to really encourage our people, Edel said. You really have to reach for the stars. If you really want something, you can reach higher and higher.

Its just like the feathers trajectory to the space station.

The feather went up, and the feather came back down to earth, Edel said.

As a keepsake, Saint-Jacques snapped a photo of the two-toned eagle feather floating weightlessly in space against the backdrop of Earth, through the cupola window portal on the space station.

That was a really nice gesture on the part of Saint-Jacques, Suedfeld said about the picture.

READ MORE: Saint-Jacques completes spacewalk

Suedfeld said hed been told by Sto:lo elders, that when the eagle reaches the moon, true reconciliation can begin, and his understanding is that this is the first ever eagle feather on the ISS.

So for anyone reading this story, or seeing the small feather, his wish is that they take hope and inspiration from it.

And theres an official certificate of authenticity that came with a note that reads: It is with great pleasure that we are returning to you this item which flew aboard the International Space Station during David Saint-Jacques Mission.

The feather is set to be mounted in a special frame, and will be eventually on display in Chilliwack, along with the space station mission patch, and space agency certificate, after a small ceremony is held in the new year.

Space exploration enriches humanity with new perspectives on ourselves and the work, Saint-Jacques wrote about his mission.

The astronaut was aboard the ISS from Dec. 3, 2018 to June 24, 2019.

I thank the At Home in Space study team for symbolically taking part in the adventure through this feather that was on board with me.

READ MORE: David Saint-Jacques announced science winners from space

@CHWKjournojfeinberg@theprogress.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The eagle feather that flew to space along with the mission patch from the At Home in Space program. (Jennifer Feinberg/ The Progress)

Sto:lo Nation Health director Kelowa Edel and Michael Suedfeld of Sto:lo Service Agency gingerly holding the first eagle feather ever to make it aboard the International Space Station. (Jennifer Feinberg/ The Progress)

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VIDEO: Eagle feather from BC flew to space with Canadian astronaut - Surrey Now-Leader

20Death Stranding

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima crafts a strange, highly contemplative dystopian adventure about a deliveryman who must bring hope, along with couriered parcels, to the lonely survivors of a supernatural cataclysm.

What we said: This uncompromising, unashamedly political work of artistic intent is 2019s most interesting blockbuster game by a distance. Read the full review

The cleverest puzzle game of the year is this series of lo-fi mazes, in which blocks containing nouns, conjunctions and verbs can be rearranged to remix the rules of each conundrum. Ingenious and mind-bending.

What we said: From a simple premise, Teikari spins dozens of ingenious challenges an invitation to play the role of a chaotic god, rewriting the rules of the universe. Read the full review

Waking early on a ship bound for the furthest human colony in the galaxy is the intriguing start point for Obsidians epic and amusing role-playing adventure. With beautiful worlds and interesting characters, this treatise on unencumbered space capitalism is a joy.

What we said: The Outer Worlds is vital proof that mid-sized indie teams can take on the big guns at their own game, and leave them looking a little foolish. Read the full review

Described as a pop album video game, this joyous adventure sends you scorching through a brash, electric neon landscape, collecting hearts and dodging obstacles to a synth-drenched soundtrack.

What we said: Embellishes its ideas in step with its fizzing tracks, which sustain second and third listens as you try to beat your score. Stylish, memorable game-making. Read the full review

An overlooked treasure, Horace is both an innovative and brilliant genre-bending platform-adventure game and an unexpectedly moving story about a robot butler, stuffed with references to the pop-cultural obsessions of its British creators. It spirals outwards from deceptively humble beginnings into a sprawling and singularly strange experience.

The grand tactical role-playing adventure returns, this time pitting three regal households against each other in a quest to rule the land. Players swap between battlefields and academy classrooms in a mix of war and romantic entanglements.

What we said: By turns grandiose and silly, but always engrossing, this bubbling school soap opera is a game to spend a summer with. Read the full review

A Gothic-horror space exploration game, where every journey between space stations is a life-or-death gamble. Inspired by the novels of HG Wells and Jules Verne, this is a singular sci-fi role-playing game, filled with weird characters fighting it out to survive in a galactic Victorian empire.

What we said: Depending on what you want from it, Sunless Skies is a merciless odyssey of oddball sci-fi survival, or a fantasy novel trilogys worth of wild, written ideas. Read the full review

On a space station floating in the ether, something has gone very wrong and you watch it unfold not from the perspective of the astronauts, but as the stations AI. A novel, intelligent space thriller that draws from several cinematic sci-fi greats, and doesnt suffer by comparison.

What we said: An idea so good that you wonder why it hasnt been done before. Its unsettling and unconventional, and I was totally unable to turn away. Read the full review

A supremely clever, funny detective game set in a surreal recreation of the early-90s internet, complete with obscure message boards, dodgy low-bitrate music downloads and MySpace beef. Youll never have played anything like it.

What we said: Rather than lazily pastiching the ugliness and awkwardness of turn-of-the-century web pages, it really conjures that time, when the internet was a place to go rather than a liminal omnipresence. Read the full review

Of all the games to jump on the battle royale bandwagon, Tetris was surely the least expected but it turns out that 99-player Tetris is genius. Insanely moreish, competitive and just chaotic enough to keep things interesting, this is one of 2019s best multiplayer games.

What we said: Forget serene, calming Tetris, where you arrange blocks into pleasing configurations to make them disappear. This is survival Tetris, where youre squeezing tetrominos into teensy gaps at high speed as the screen fills. Read the full review

A resurgent Capcom resurrects a dormant series to great effect. The screaming guitars and gothic fashions might be a bit early 2000s, but the hack-and-slash action is unquestionably stylish and the challenge enticing.

What we said: Its bloody, spectacular and irresistible, all cheesy one-liners, guns, swords, explosions, and it plays like a dream. Read the full review.

Stealing peoples shoes and glasses, knocking over pints, fleeing from irate gardeners: who could have foreseen the fun there was to be had in waddling around as a horrible goose? There are those who remain resolutely uncharmed by Untitled Goose Games ramshackle whimsy, but we are not among them.

What we said: Certainly not fowl, most definitely worth a gander, its a whimsical little game full of charm and joy, a wonderful experience for just about anyone. Read the full review.

A musical Zelda spin-off thats suffused with love and respect for Nintendos peerless series of colourful adventure games, remixing both the music and the sword-swinging monster-bashing.

What we said: Stylish and excellent fun, this tribute captures the excitement and sense of discovery that makes Zelda what it is: a real adventure. Read the full review.

Supernatural adventure specialist Remedy Entertainment returns with another bewildering sci-fi romp, this time following Jesse Faden of the Federal Bureau of Control, a secretive agency invaded by paranormal forces. Literally nothing not even the furniture is what it seems in this dizzying thrill ride.

What we said: Remarkably, it all manages to hang together, providing a meaty, exciting and utterly unforgettable video game experience. Read the full review.

The follow-up to the fascinating CCTV thriller Her Story uses a similarly voyeuristic interface as you raid stolen National Security Agency archives for phone videos and webcam footage that may or may not implicate a group of characters in a major investigation.

What we said: Telling Lies requires a deliberateness from its players that turns us from viewers to active plot participants. Its a game that doesnt hold your hand, and ultimately its down to you to decide the truth. Read the full review.

Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment takes on the battle royale genre, with 100 players descending on a bright, detailed sci-fi landscape to do deadly battle. Smooth controls, excellent weapon balancing and thoughtful co-op features make this a true contender to the mighty Fortnite.

What we said: You cant really blame this talented team for shooting at the biggest target in modern gaming. And with Apex Legends, it scores a direct hit. Read the full review.

Among the most difficult games of the modern era, Hidetaka Miyazakis sublime samurai game is punishing, extraordinary and dense with meaning for those with the time and skill to delve into it.

What we said: If you have frequent long evenings to throw at its mountainous challenges, you will find here an exquisite game whose subtle themes, gradually unfurling mysteries and beautiful sights reward the determined and skilled player. Read the full review.

Arguably the finest title in Capcoms survival horror series is brought chillingly up to date with rookie cop Leon Kennedy and student Claire Redfield exploring a redesigned version of the zombie-filled Raccoon Police Station. All the old monsters and puzzles are there, but not necessarily in the places that veteran players expect.

What we said: A reminder of how beautifully crafted survival horror games were in their heyday. From a terrifying orphanage to the festering sewers beneath the city, the feel of the action is always perfectly matched with the aesthetics of the setting. Read the full review.

An amnesiac detective wakes up in a grotty hotel room with the hangover from hell and a murder to solve. From this noir-esque opening comes an open-world role-playing adventure like no other, mixing grim psychodrama with wonderful comic writing.

What we said: This is a quietly important game, singular in direction, filled with unexpected, thrilling effects on its player. Read the full review.

Outer Wilds asks you to plumb the depths of space in a ramshackle ship with a primitive clutch of gadgets, probing the mysteries of a capsule universe of bizarre planets without firing any guns or killing any aliens. Survive long enough without getting swallowed by a space creature or crashing fatally into an asteroid and the nearby sun goes supernova but every time you die, you wake up at the start of a time loop, ready to piece together more knowledge of this mysterious little solar system and progress towards learning its secrets. Offbeat and exceptional, Outer Wilds is a game for the curious and the contemplative, an intricate and endearing space adventure with the ambience of a camping trip.

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Top 20 games of 2019 | Games - The Guardian

Anyone whos watched any sort of episodic television series could tell you that the setup for the most recent episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian meant that the main character was due for trouble.

The setup: In the episode, Mando arrives on a desolate space station where he meets with some old associates from his past. He agrees to pull a heist job for them rescuing a prisoner from a New Republic space station.

What happens: In the second half of the episode, we see the contention between Mando and the pack unravel. We see Mayfield turn on Mando. Burg and Mando battle in their own little fight. Zero attempts to steal Baby Yoda. Everything goes wrong, just as you imagine it would.

But still: The episode has a lesson for us about instant certainty. Mando could have seen everything that happened to him from a parsec away. He could have realized that these fellow bounty hunters were going to turn on him. Previous episodes of the show indicate that bounty hunters are ruthless and willing to take him down for the promise of fortune.

The bottom line: Thats the whole point of any Star Wars show, isnt it? Hope. The entire franchise kicked off with Princess Leia asking Obi-Wan Kenobi to help her. He was her only hope. Luke Skywalker became her hope, too. A new hope. Were constantly looking for hope in the Star Wars franchise. You cant find hope if you make your mind up instantly. Sometimes you need to open up and trust a little bit to find it.

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian episode 6 review: What we learned about instant certainty - Deseret News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Boeing's first Starliner capsule is on the launchpad waiting to fly, and Space.com got a first look at its successor, which will carry astronauts for the first time.

That capsule is currently tucked inside a former space shuttle parking garage, where Boeing invited members of the media to check it out in November. The vehicle will fly on Starliner's first crewed test mission, dubbed Crew Flight Test. Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson will join NASA astronauts Nicole Aunapu Mann and Mike Fincke in the capsule when it flies.

For now, the Crew Flight Test vehicle is sitting on a stand in the former orbiting processing facility with its hatch open so engineers can access its insides while they work. With its outer shell removed, the crew capsule looks less like a spacecraft and more like a maze of wiring and tubing. Boeing officials said during the event that the vehicle is further along in its development than it looks. The craft is slated to fly in mid-2020, assuming everything goes smoothly with another Starliner milestone, the uncrewed flight test.

Related: In Photos: Boeing's Starliner Pad Abort Test Launch

According to Boeing officials, the Crew Flight Test vehicle was originally used for environmental testing. Once that was complete, the craft returned to Florida, where it was outfitted with a few minor upgrades. Currently, engineers are installing fuel lines and tanks.

There are some final assembly steps to finish before the craft is completed. After that, it will be joined to the service module and will go through some final testing.

Its predecessor Starliner is preparing for its first flight to the International Space Station, with the gumdrop-shaped vehicle currently scheduled to blast off atop an Atlas V rocket at 6:36 a.m. EST (1136 GMT) on Friday, Dec. 20.

Once it arrives, it will dock with the space station and stay in orbit for about a week. Then, Starliner will undock and make the trek back to Earth, where it is scheduled to land in White Sands, New Mexico, around 5:28 a.m. EST (1028 GMT) on Dec. 28.

Dubbed the Orbital Flight Test, this uncrewed first voyage of Starliner will pave the way for future flights that will eventually carry astronauts to the space station. During the uncrewed test flight, the vehicle will prove it can autonomously dock with and undock from the space station and go through a variety of different test objectives. The flight will also evaluate the vehicle's systems, ensuring that everything is working as planned.

For example, Boeing engineers expect to determine whether the vehicle reaches the proper orbit, navigates as it should and docks with the space station. Essentially, the goal of the Orbital Flight Test is to make sure the vehicle's systems work.

That would mean that the crewed flight test focus will be on evaluating the human elements of the vehicle, including whether the hygiene and environmental control systems work and what the noise levels are like inside the capsule.

Boeing's Starliner capsule is one of two new private space taxis that NASA has reserved to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Currently, the agency relies on Russian rockets to transport astronauts to the orbital outpost. (A costly arrangement, as each seat on the three-person Soyuz currently costs NASA about $85 million.)

Earlier in November, another Starliner spacecraft took part in a different type of preflight procedure called a pad abort test. Each Starliner vehicle (and every capsule that carries humans) is equipped with a safety feature called a launch abort system, which can carry the astronauts away from the rocket should something go wrong before or during flight.

For the most part, the pad abort test went as planned, except for one tricky piece of hardware: parachutes. Only two of the Starliner's three parachutes deployed properly, but Boeing officials said this performance was within the vehicle's safety parameters.

Currently, the first crew of Ferguson, Mann and Fincke is set to blast off sometime in the summer of 2020.

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

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Boeing Shows Off 1st Starliner Destined to Carry Crew to Space - Space.com

Lightning is such a common phenomenon that people often overlook just how powerful it is (provided it doesn't hit you, obviously). But over the past decade, research has gradually revealed just how extreme lightning is. This everyday phenomenon is powerful enough to produce antimatter and transform atoms, leaving a radioactive cloud in its wake. Understanding how all of this happens, however, is a real challenge, given just how quickly multiple high-energy events take place.

Now, researchers have used an instrument attached to the International Space Station to track the physical processes that are triggered by a lightning strike. The work tracks how energy spreads out from the site of a lightning bolt into the ionosphere via an electromagnetic pulse.

The work relies on a piece of hardware called the AtmosphereSpace Interactions Monitor (ASIM), an ESA-built instrument attached to its lab module on the International Space Station. It's an impressive piece of hardware, tying together two X-ray/gamma-ray detectors, three UV detectors, two optical-wavelength light meters, and two high-speed cameras.

These features are needed to understand lightning, where a lot goes on very rapidly as a bolt of lightning forms and propagates. The environment in which a lightning bolt forms typically has some loose electrons, and these get rapidly accelerated to relativistic speeds by the intense electrical fields. As these electrons slow back down or get forced to travel on curved paths, they lose energy in the form of bremsstrahlung radiation. The amount of energy being lost is so large that some of it is emitted in the form of the highest-energy category of photons, gamma-rays.

That radiation is responsible for a couple of the downstream effects mentioned above. If the gamma rays strike an atom's nucleus, they can transform some of the mundane atom's subatomic particles, converting the atom into a radioactive isotope. In addition, if the photons become concentrated enough, they can spontaneously form particle/antiparticle pairs, which is why antimatter has been detected in the wake of lightning bursts.

While all that's going on, there are often bursts of light that are not directly connected to the lightning bolt itself. Termed sprites, jets, and elves, these phenomena are erratic and poorly understood, but we do know they occur above the clouds where the bolt actually forms.

To piece together how all this happens, we need a huge amount of imaging at multiple wavelengths and with exquisite timing. The details we can get from the ground, from cloud level, and from outer space should all provide perspectives on where specific events take place. Different phenomena occur at different wavelengths, which is why we need a broad range of sensors. And tracking the timing can help us determine which events may cause later phenomena. From its perch on the International Space Station, ASIM provides a low-space perspective on these events.

A paper released by Science today describes ASIM's imaging of a single lightning bolt, which took place in 2018 off the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Optical activity heralded the formation of the lightning bolt and started to intensify about 200 microseconds before the gamma rays began registering in the detectors. The gamma rays were primarily in the form of a transient flash lasting about 40 microseconds, but there was a "long" tail of emissions that extended out to 200 microseconds as their energy gradually declined.

UV light started arriving right at the same time that the gamma-ray burst hit. The initial UV light was produced by ionized oxygen as the lightning bolt moved through the atmosphere. But the UV shifted to what's called an "elve," which is a different phenomenon entirely. In the case of elves, the light is the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the lightning bolt itself. This travels into the ionosphere, a sparse layer of ionized gases that starts about 100km above Earth and extends up to roughly where the ISS orbits. Because the pulse takes time to reach the ionosphere, there's a delay between the lightning and the appearance of the elve.

In this case, that delay was about 10 milliseconds, but the elve persisted for a while. That's because the pulse spreads like a balloon being inflated, tracing out an expanding sphere above the Earth. Different areas of the ionosphere get excited as the sphere makes its way through, ultimately causing UV emissions to extend over a radius of up to 800 kilometers.

All of this took place in under 300 milliseconds.

The authors conclude that, to form an elve, it takes a large pool of charge that gets drained into the lightning bolt rapidly; otherwise, it would be impossible to form an electromagnetic pulse without that (past studies have suggested that draining these pools could transfer hundreds of kiloAmps). This strengthens the idea that there's a connection between gamma-ray flashes and elves, as both require a significant pool of charge to operate.

Normally, this would be the point when caution about this being a single event would become appropriate. But these observations are generally in line with things that have been seen previously, and they provide an improved spatial and temporal resolution to the many events associated with a lightning burst. If the results were less consistent with what we've seen previously, then there would be more reason to worry about this single sampling.

That doesn't, however, mean that scientists wouldn't love more data. Finding out whether there might be exceptions to the timing of events seen here, and a good distribution of the range of timings that are possible, should help give us greater confidence in the mechanisms that have been proposed for the many phenomena triggered when a lightning bolt forms.

Science, 2019. DOI: 10.1126/science.aax3872 (About DOIs).

Editor's note: a number of small changes were made to improve clarity.

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Data from the International Space Station confirms: Lightning is insane - Ars Technica

"SpaceX is about to send hemp to the ISS" is maybe the most perfectly 2019 sentence, and thankfully, it's true.

Specifically, an upcoming research project will use a March 2020 SpaceX flight to send plant cultures of hemp and coffee to the International Space Station for studying. This is all thanks to a collaboration between Front Range Biosciences, SpaceCells USA, and BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado.

Front Range will supply the plants, SpaceCells the management and funding, and BioServe the hardware to take care of the plants. BioServe will also monitor the hemp and coffee remotely from Earth to monitor whether radiation and lack of gravity mutate the plants in any way. After 30 days, the plants will come back home for further examination.

According to a statement from Dr. Jonathan Vaught, CEO of Front Range, this is the first time anyone has tested the effects of space travel on these specific plants. It could provide valuable insight into how the plants respond to new environments, which might be useful in space and on Earth, considering the threat of climate change.

There's obviously comedic value in the idea of sending weed to space for scientific research, but to be clear, that's not exactly what's happening. The project is sending a hemp tissue culture to the ISS, so it's pretty unlikely that anyone would use it to get high. Industrialized hemp has been legal in the United States since 2018, but the legal variety isn't strong enough to get you high.

Instead, it's used for everything from food to textiles. If you want to get stoned in space, you'll have to find another way. Good luck.

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Weed and coffee are finally going to space - Mashable

A new version of the robotic astronaut assistant Cimon Crew Interactive MObile companioN has been sent to the International Space Station.

Cimon-2 lifted off on its journey into space on 5 December 2019. This modified version of the astronaut assistant has been equipped for new tasks and was developed and built in Germany.

Like its predecessor, Cimon-2 will be deployed in the Columbus European research module. Cimon is a free-flying, spherical technology demonstrator for human-machine interaction and features artificial intelligence.

Cimon-1 our prototype landed back on Earth on 27 August 2019 after spending 14 months on the ISS, and has now arrived at Airbus in Friedrichshafen, says Dr Christian Karrasch, Cimon project manager at the German Aerospace Center.

The technology experiment was developed and built by Airbus in Friedrichshafen and Bremen on behalf of the Space Administration and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

The demonstrators artificial intelligence is based on IBMs Watson technology, with medical experts from the Ludwig-Maximilian University Hospital in Munich, responsible for scientific issues.

On 15 November 2018, Cimon-1 became the worlds first AI to be deployed on the ISS, working with German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst.

We want to use Cimon-2 to build on the successful demonstration with Cimon, says Christian Karrasch.

During its debut the first Cimon impressively demonstrated that an AI-based mobile application can function on the ISS, working together with Alexander Gerst for 90 minutes.

Cimon-2 is expected to remain on the ISS and support the crew for up to three years, explains Till Eisenberg, Cimon project manager at Airbus. Cimon-2s microphones are more sensitive, and it has a more advanced sense of direction. Its AI capabilities and the stability of its complex software applications have also been significantly improved.

Another key point in Cimons evolution is its extended service life: During this mission, we are also considering further steps, such as uploading the AI to a cloud on the ISS.

This would represent a milestone in the development of a completely autonomous assistance system.

Christian Karrasch, DLR project manager, says: When travelling to the Moon or Mars, the crew would then be able to rely on an AI-based assistance service, even without a permanent data link to Earth. One application back on Earth could be to support people with complex tasks in areas with poor infrastructure, for example.

IBM is responsible for the implementation of Cimons artificial intelligence.

During its first deployment on the ISS, Cimon proved that it can not only understand content in context, but also the intention behind it, explains Matthias Biniok, IBM project lead for the Watson AI.

Cimon-2 is taking this a step further. Thanks to the IBM Watson Tone Analyzer from IBM Cloud in Frankfurt, Germany, it is now capable of assessing the astronauts emotions and reacting in a manner that is appropriate to the situation, either at the request of the astronauts or when its emotional analysis is being tested as part of an experiment.

This means Cimon-2 can, if required, switch from being a scientific assistant to an empathetic conversation partner.

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Astronaut assistant Cimon-2 travels to International Space Station - Robotics and Automation News

Friday was a beautiful evening to check out the International Space Station (ISS). It was scheduled to appear in the NW sky at 5:37 pm and disappear in the ENE at 5:41 PM.

Mark Brown, from Marion, was set up to take some amazing space related photos. He uses an 11-inch scope with a Canon 6D DSLR attached to the telescope.

He shared the photos you are about to see of the moon and the ISS crossing in front of it.

Before we get to the photos did you know the space station is about the size of a football field?

The ISS orbits the Earth 16 times a day as it travels about 17,500 mph. This means it travels around the world in 90 minutes. It stays at an altitude of 248 miles above the Earth.

Now lets look at the photos from December 6th. The first one shows a beautiful shot of the moon. On the right half of the moon there is a dark spot...that is the ISS

If you didn't see it on the above photo, the photo below I outlined the area and zoomed in so you can see the ISS.

Now the last photo is a composite image showing the path of the ISS took across the moon.

A special thanks to Mark Brown for sharing his photos for this post.

Excerpt from:
Friday view of the space station - kwwl.com