Category Archives: Space Station

A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station early Wednesday (Aug. 16), delivering 3 tons of supplies, experiments and even some ice cream for the orbiting lab's crew.

The uncrewed Dragon spacecraft was captured by astronauts using the station's robotic arm at 6:52 a.m. EDT (1052 GMT) as the two spacecraft were flying over the Pacific Ocean, just north of New Zealand.

"Congratulations on a job well done," astronaut Andreas Morgenson of the European Space Agency radioed the station's crew from NASA's Mission Control in Houston. "You've just earned yourself some food." [Watch SpaceX Launch Dragon, then Land a Rocket]

The Dragon cargo ship is filled with more than 6,400 lbs. (2,900 kilograms) of supplies, science experiments and food - and yes, ice cream - for the space station's Expedition 52 crew. SpaceX launched delivery mission Monday (Aug. 14) on a Falcon 9 rocket, which then returned its first stage to Earth in a smooth landing.

Called SpaceX-12 or CRS-12, this flight is SpaceX's 12th cargo flight for NASA under the Commercial Resupply Service program. NASA initially agreed to buy 12 delivery flights from SpaceX, but has extended the agreement to include 20 flights. SpaceX did lose one mission in 2015 when a Falcon 9 rocket failed during liftoff, but the rest have been a success.

"Today has special significance because SpaceX-12 is the last flight on the original cargo resupply contract," NASA astronaut Jack Fischer said from the station. "And this, the 36th flight of a Dragon, stands as a testament to a burgeoning commercial industry that has become a pillar of support to NASA's and really all of humanity's quest to explore the universe."

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship flies over Italy (the country's boot shape can be seen upside in the background) while delivering vital NASA supplies to the International Space Station on Aug. 16, 2017.

Fischer and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli captured the Dragon using the station's robotic arm. At one point, cameras on the space station captured Dragon as it soared high over Italy, Nespoli's home country.

Most of the cargo riding on Dragon is science gear, a massive haul that includes a protein crystal experiment to research a new treatment for Parkinson's disease, an experiment to grow lung tissue from stem cells and 20 live mice to help scientists study the effects of long space missions. The U.S. Department of Defense also has a small microsatellite prototype on board, and the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass for the International Space Station (which has the tasty acronym ISS-CREAM) will study cosmic rays.

The Dragon spacecraft will stay docked to the space station for about a month, after which it will be filled with science experiment results and other items for the return to Earth.

NASA has used SpaceX and another spaceflight company, the Virginia-based Orbital ATK, to make commercial resupply flights the space station since 2012. The space agency has since picked SpaceX, Orbital ATK and a third company Sierra Nevada Corp. to make future deliveries under a new agreement.

In addition to cargo delivery flights, SpaceX will fly NASA astronauts to the space station on a crewed version of the Dragon spacecraft. (NASA has also picked Boeing for astronaut trips to space using that company's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.)

The first crewed flights on Dragon and the Starliner are expected in mid-2018, NASA has said.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him@tariqjmalikandGoogle+.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookorGoogle+. Original story onSpace.com.

See more here:
SpaceX Dragon Delivers Supplies (and Science) to Space Station - Space.com

While millions of Americans gather across the country to catch a glimpse of Monday's total solar eclipse, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station will view the event from a much different vantage point.

The ISS crew members are predicted to view both a partial eclipse and the moon's shadow cast on the North American continent as they make three tracks around the planet 400 km above Earth's surface, according to NASA.

"Observing a total solar eclipse from manned spacecraft is difficult though not impossible," NASA reported.

NASA said the different rates of speed and intersecting paths are the main challenge to viewing an eclipse from space.

At minimum, ISS spends less than 15 seconds traversing the 100-km-wide lunar shadow even when the paths align in space and time, according to NASA. However, Earths horizon extends nearly 2,300 km from the ISS, allowing astronauts to see the lunar shadow if they are close enough during the event.

NASA

The International Space Station (ISS) was in position to view the umbral (ground) shadow cast by the moon as it moved between Earth and the sun during a solar eclipse on March 29, 2006. This astronaut image captures the umbral shadow across southern Turkey, northern Cyprus and the Mediterranean Sea. (Photo/NASA)

The total eclipse will begin on the Oregon coast at 17:15 UT (10:15 a.m. PDT) and will end along the South Carolina coast at 18:49 UT (2:49 p.m. EDT).

As the space station makes its first pass during the eclipse, the crew members will be able to view a partial solar eclipse with approximately 37 percent of the sun covered up, NASA reports.

However, at this point in time, the ISS will not be able to see the umbra, or the darkest part of the moon's shadow on the Earth's surface. The space station will pass over the western United States and southeastern Canada in the first pass. The total portion of the eclipse will not have started yet for the Earth.

As the station makes its second pass through the moon's shadow, the partial eclipse will be visible to the astronauts with 44 percent of the sun covered.

"ISS will witness the moons umbra moving from southwestern Kentucky to northern Tennessee during a portion of this pass," NASA reports.

RELATED: Solar eclipse viewing conditions: Clouds could spoil views in coastal Northwest, Southeast Total eclipse towns stock toilet paper, add cell towers ahead of unprecedented crowds 5 solar eclipse viewing parties you can't miss

"The moons umbra is visible on the Earth from ISSs viewpoint while ISS traverses from southern Canada just north of the Montana-Canada border to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence."

At its closest approach, the space station will be making its way south of the Hudson Bay, far removed from the moon's umbra, which will be passing over southwestern Kentucky nearly 1,700 km away.

However, despite the distance, crew members aboard the ISS should still be able to view the shadow near the horizon.

The third pass for the ISS will bring another view of a partial solar eclipse with 85 percent coverage just minutes before orbital sunset. At this point, the darkest part of the lunar shadow will no longer be visible to crew as the umbra will have lifted from the Earth's surface as it makes its transit.

"Because of atmospheric friction and other ISS activities, the orbits undergo small changes from week to week," NASA reports.

The most precise timing will be available on NASA's ISS observations website.

Click on the banner above to visit AccuWeather's center for the Great American Eclipse.

Report a Typo

View original post here:
International Space Station astronauts to view the solar eclipse 3 times - AccuWeather.com

August 15, 2017 10:46 AM By Bernie Tafoya

CHICAGO (CBS) A Boy Scout troop from the northwest suburbs got a chance to see their dreams and more lift-off into space on Monday.

Andrew Frank, 16, and several other scouts from Troop 209 in Palatine were at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and other members of their troop were at a watch-party in Arlington Heights, as a Space X Falcon 9 rocket took off, carrying the scouts science experiment to the International Space Station.

We were all counting down with the clock as it launched off. It was really a big sense of excitement with the whole team, Frank said minutes after the rocket headed into orbit. Everyone kind of cheered and threw their arms up in the air when it actually launched. It was really cool.

Adult project lead Norm McFarland said the experiment was designed to see whether an organism in this case, E. coli mutates at a different rate in low gravity.

We think there could be implications here for either tissue growth or maybe something in cancer research, McFarland said.

Frank and his team of about a dozen scouts put in more than 5,000 hours of work on the experiment before launching it into space.

When we get our data back, were going to have to go through all the pictures, all the data. Were going to have to analyze it, and put together our report, he said.

McFarland said it will take at least three months to analyze all the data once the 24-day experiment on the station has been completed. He said the experiment will result in 6,200 pictures, each containing 70 pieces of biological information.

Frank said he and his fellow scouts likely have checked off a number of requirements for several merit badges by working on the experiment.

McFarland said the project began two years ago, with leaders suggesting the idea of trying to get an experiment in space. He said 84 suggested experiments were whittled down to two that were merged into the experiment that is now up in space.

Im a lifelong Chicagoan and could never see myself living anywhere else (except maybe Hawaii!). I was born on the North Side in 1958 but have lived all but the first three months of my life on the South Side. That said, thank (or is that curse?)...

CBS 2

WBBM Newsradio 780 & 105.9FM

670 The Score

Connect

Mobile

Advertise With Us

Contest & Promotion Rules

About Us

Advertise

Ad Choices

Business Development

Contact

Only CBS

CBS Radio Jobs

CBS Television Jobs

EEO Reports

CBS Television Public File

CBS Radio Public File

Excerpt from:
Boy Scouts Launch Science Project To International Space Station - CBS Chicago

Hewlett Packard Enterprise's unassuming Spaceborne Computer will test supercomputing reliability with NASA's help on the International Space Station.

HAL seemed to have little trouble in "2001: A Space Odyssey," but here's the problem with computers in space: a constant stream of cosmic rays seriously disrupt electronics.

That's why Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NASA are testing how well supercomputing technology works on the International Space Station. A SpaceX rocket scheduled to lift off Monday will carry a machine called the Spaceborne Computer that will see whether software techniques can catch and correct errors induced by the radiation from our sun and galaxy that reaches low Earth orbit. HPE announced the work Friday.

The research ultimately could improve computers here on Earth -- but also get humans to Mars.

"Mars is the next frontier, and we need supercomputing to get there. Mars astronauts won't have near-instant access to high-performance computing (HPC) like those in low-Earth orbit do -- the red planet is 26 light minutes round-trip away," said Mark Fernandez, Americas technology officer at HPE's SGI business unit. Supercomputers can be used for tasks like figuring out what to do if a spacecraft or Mars habitation has a system failure.

The Spaceborne Computer is nothing like the mammoth supercomputers on Earth, which take up rooms the size of basketball courts to tackle complex challenges like simulating the planet's weather or the effects of aging on nuclear weapons. But it uses the same basic technology, including Intel processors and a high-speed interconnect to join the system's independent computing nodes.

In this case, the computer employs a 56Gbps optical interconnect to link its different nodes. That's fast enough data-transfer speed to transfer three episodes of "Game of Thrones" from one machine to another in less than a second.

Space is a tough environment, but it has its perks. One of them is that the machine's water cooling system can poke out into space, keeping the machine from overheating for free. On Earth, cooling data centers is a major expense for companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft that operate thousands upon thousands of machine.

The challenge for the Spaceborne Computer is to get it all working despite cosmic rays. The Earth's magnetic field protects the planet's surface from these electrically charged particles -- protons and other particles that stream in from our sun, elsewhere in the galaxy and sometimes even other galaxies. They carry so much energy they can blast electronics out of whack, corrupting memory and messing up calculations.

Some computers destined for space have special shielding and other protection, but not this one. Instead of hardware changes, the computer employs software layers to for detection, correction and protection, Fernandez said. "Success would be ... correct results for a year," he said.

And that's the kind of reliability that could benefit us even here on Earth.

The Smartest Stuff: Innovators are thinking up new ways to make you, and the things around you, smarter.

iHate: CNET looks at how intolerance is taking over the internet.

See the rest here:
Space station to test supercomputer bathed in cosmic rays - CNET

LEE HENAGHAN

Last updated20:32, August 15 2017

What caused the six crew members of an orbital space station to abandon ship? Tacoma is a deep space detective game.

Exploring an abandoned space station after a disaster left the crew fighting for their lives sounds like the perfect set-up for a thrill-a-minute action game or nail-biting survival horror. Tacoma couldn't be further removed from that end of the gaming spectrum.

It's a seriously slow burner that makes Fullbright's previous "walking simulator" hit Gone Home feel like a Bayonetta boss battle.This is a game that you take at your own pace, soaking it in as youanalysetiny details.

There's no intense combat, no terrifying enemies or world to save. If you prefer your games to be a little more dynamic and exciting, then Tacoma probably won't be your cup of tea.

If, however, you're a fan of gripping narratives, fascinating characters and brilliantly delivered dialoguethen this is well worth checking out. I found it difficult to put down and enjoyed pretty much every minute of it

Captured conversations between the station's crew members are replayed by the Tacoma AI, allowing you to piece together the events that led up to the mysterious disaster.

Playing as security contractor Amy Ferrier, you arrive on the lunar orbital space station Tacoma in the wake of a orbital debris collision which destroyed the facilities communication mast and wiped out most of its oxygen supply.

The six-person crew that manned the station are nowhere to be found. It's your job to move from section to section, downloading data from the ship's AI system in an attempt to piece together what went wrong, and work out where the hell everybody went..

The good news is that the AI recorded everyinteraction between the crewmates during the year leading up to the accident. The bad news is that much of that data appears to have been corrupted or destroyed.

Most of the Tacoma station is covered by the installation's artificial gravity system, but travelling between each section is done in zero-g, allowing you to get your float on.

This means that you although you can access snippets of conversations, played out in real time by augmented reality figures that move around the Tacoma station. there are gaping holes in the narrative which you need to fill by fleshing out the characters' back-stories and exploring their abandoned home.

Effectively, you experience Tacoma as a series of theatrical plays, as you move from room to room, recovering the data and watching the 2-10 minute conversations with the crew unfold. Sometimes, characters will move around the facility as they're talking, requiring you to follow individuals around before rewinding and going back to see what everyone else was saying while you were away.

Full credit must go to the writing team and voice acting cast. The story is perfectly paced and delivered in fine style. The AR models have no facial features so the drama is conveyed entirely via dialogue and body language.

Exploring the various rooms and living quarters will uncover more clues and vital details about the station's inhabitants.

Despite the sci-fi setting, Tacoma is essentially a story about relationships. Not just between the crew members but between their friends and family on Earth and thecorporate overlords running the show.

You're also able to download data from character;s AR desktops (although much of this is also corrupted) giving you an insight into their lives via email chains, internet browsing history and image files.

Perhaps the creepiest part of the game though , is how you'reactively encouraged to go snooping through the crew's private living quarters looking for clues and items of interest.

Food wrappers, postcards, cups, coins and mementos. Every item you see on board the Tacoma can be picked up and pored over.

There's a certain voyeuristic thrill about searching through drawers, lockers and bedside tables and although some of the details you uncover arefascinating, it's hard not to feel like it's all a massive invasion of privacy.

It's also interesting how much of the junk and random items of interest have absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever, but picking them up and analysing them somehow adds even more depth and realism to the experience. In most games, everything is there for a reason and it's rare to see a pixel wasted on something that doesn't serve an obvious purpose.

In Tacoma, scribbled notes, postcards, crumpled space-food wrappers, even a casually discardedsex toy in one couple's bedroom, have no real reason to be there, other than to make the abandoned space station feel like a real place, where real people lived, laughed and loved for a year prior to your arrival.

Tacoma isn't a particularly long game. Depending on how distracted you get and how deep you delve into the facility's nooks and crannies, you'll probably get through it in a few hours. You probably won't be too keen to replay it againeither - it's not a branching narrative game where your choices have a bearing on the ending or how events unfold.

It will almost certainly stay with you though, it's an innovative and interesting experience in interactive storytelling that you won't forget in a hurry.

Tacoma Developers: Fullbright Publishers: Microsoft Studios Formats: Xbox One, PC Price: $19(RRP) Score 8.5/10

-Stuff

Read the original:
Tacoma review: A slow-burning space station mystery - Stuff.co.nz

One of the largest challenges a human mission to deep space would face would be the inevitable communications delay caused by the vast distances between Mission Control on Earth, and the spacecraft carrying the crew. During the Apollo missions, in which American astronauts visited the moon, that communications delay was only around 1.3 seconds each way, meaning that youd need to wait 2.6 seconds (1.3 for your message to get there, and 1.3 for their response to come back) to get an answer to your question.

Insignificant as that delay may seem, it will eventually grow to a full 90 minutes or so for the crew of a trip to Mars, meaning the astronauts would not be able to rely on the collective expertise and computing power offered by our ground-based space infrastructure. Emergency course corrections, in three dimensions and with limited fuel, would require the ability to instantly complete complex calculations with little to no margin for error. While there are rumors of early Gemini astronauts doing just that at least once, a mission to Mars or further would require the ability to make these decisions near-instantly; something no human being may be able to do.

or Log In

If you liked this article, tell someone about it

Alex Hollings Alex Hollings served as an active duty Marine for six and a half years before being medically retired from service. As an athlete, Hollings has raced exotic cars, played Marine Corps football and college rugby, fought in cages, and even wrestled alligators. As a scholar, he has earned a masters degree in Communications from Southern New Hampshire University, as well as undergraduate degrees in Corporate and Organizational Communications and Business Management.

Continue reading here:
SpaceX set to deliver 'supercomputer' to the International Space Station for testing - SOFREP (press release) (subscription)

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP Two Stockton University students will find out if the experiment they designed will work on the International Space Station.

Stockton University students Danielle Ertz of Woodlynne and Valkyrie Falciani of Hammonton and faculty mentor Tara Luke, associate professor of biology, developed an experiment that studies fungus as a potential force for improving agriculture in space.

The students want to see if astronauts can sustain their food supply in space.

The project was accepted by the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program and launched Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the on SpaceX-CRS-12.

The students watched the launch in person in Florida.

Their experiment uses a mycorrhizal fungus species and flax. Flax was chosen because its seeds are edible, the plant can be used to make cloth, its extensive taproot system allows growth in limited space and it is proven to grow in space.

The experiment consists of a fluid mixing enclosure mini-lab that will hold enough water, fungi spores and flax seed to grow for 4-6 weeks on the International Space Station. The same experiment will be conducted here as a scientific ground truth for later comparison.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in the U.S. and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with DreamUp PBC and NanoRacks LLC, which are working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laborator

For more details see https://stocktonspaceflight.org/.

Originally posted here:
Stockton student spaceflight experiment at Space Station | News ... - Shore News Today

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

SpaceX Cargo Mission Demonstrates Increasing Research on Space Station Wall Street Journal (subscription) An unmanned SpaceX mission scheduled to blast off Monday highlights the expansion of scientific research on the international space station. In addition to routine supplies such as replacement parts and food, the more than three tons of cargo headed to ...

View post:
SpaceX Cargo Mission Demonstrates Increasing Research on Space Station - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

When SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasts off Monday, one of the items on board will be a supercomputer built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, dubbed the "Spaceborne Computer." When SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasts off Monday, one of the items on board will be a supercomputer built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, dubbed the "Spaceborne Computer." Related Content

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - A SpaceX rocket is ready to deliver one of the most high-tech payloads ever to the International Space Station.

When the Falcon 9 rocket blasts off on Monday, one of the items on board will be a supercomputer built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, dubbed the "Spaceborne Computer." If it works, it could be the most powerful commercial, off-the-shelf computer ever to operate in space.

Astronauts aboard the space station already have a bunch of devices you'd find at your local electronics store -- including HP laptops.

But a supercomputer is something different. It's a much more powerful piece of hardware that can crunch massive amounts of data and send the results to other computers in just moments.

According to Mark Fernandez, the HPE engineer who is heading up this new experiment, the space-bound supercomputer will have the ability to make one trillion calculations in a single second -- about 30 to 100 times more powerful than your average desktop computer.

Julie Robinson, the chief scientist for NASA's space station program, said if this supercomputer can function in the harsh conditions of space -- it'll be very exciting news for companies down here on earth.

Robinson points out that a huge point of interest for the private sector is taking high-quality satellite images of earth in order to track things like crop growth or oil exploration.

"What's happening is -- just as your TV now has so much more resolution -- the same thing is happening with [satellite imagery]," she said.

But the high-definition images require 200 to 300 times more data, which can clog up the communication pipeline between earth and space. That's where a supercomputer on board the space station would become hugely valuable, Robinson told CNNMoney.

"If you can process the data on board [the space station], you then only need to send down a subset of the data that's actually needed," she said.

Space-bound computers have been slow to reach such powerful data processing capabilities. A lot of the hardware on board the space station now has undergone significant retrofitting via a process called "hardening" -- which means it's been beefed up with extra protection to keep it safe in the rough conditions of space.

"By the time it goes through the hardening process, and then the tests needed to ensure it's ready to fly, the computers are many generations old," HPE's Fernandez said.

HPE's supercomputer, however, is just like one you'd buy on earth. Fernandez said the only thing different about the one flying to space is some special software that should be able to detect when the computer is exposed to something dangerous -- like high radiation levels -- and make small adjustments to keep it safe.

Will the avant-garde software be enough to ensure the supercomputer will survive in space?

Not everyone is so sure. "Some think it'll never power up or be fried within the first few minutes," Fernandez said.

We'll find out soon enough.

Fernandez said he expects to receive word the device has been plugged in and booted up sometime on September 4.

"I told them to let me know as soon as that happens -- anytime, day or night," Fernandez said with a laugh. "If it powers up, that's going to be my first relief. I will be very excited then."

Fernandez and his team will then run about 2-and-a-half hours of tests to determine if the computer is fully functional. That, he said, will be the next major victory.

Then, the plan is for scientists here on earth to keep running tests with the supercomputer for a full year to see how it fares on the space station.

If the supercomputer is still operational at the end of one year -- Fernandez said it'll pave the way for NASA to send up even more powerful computers.

And one day, a similar computer could be used by astronauts traveling to Mars.

HPE's Fernandez and NASA's Robinson both said having the ability to process large amounts of data on board a Mars mission would be a huge advantage.

That's because there could be long minutes of lag time in communicating with Mars-bound astronauts, and communications could even be cut off for days at a time.

"Such a long communication lag would make any on-the-ground exploration challenging and potentially dangerous if astronauts are not able to solve certain problems themselves," HPE explained.

"By sending a supercomputer to space, HPE is taking the first step in that direction," the company said.

View original post here:
SpaceX to launch most powerful computer ever sent to space station - NBC Montana

A new experiment set for an Aug. 14 launch to the International Space Station will provide an unprecedented look at a rain of particles from deep space, called cosmic rays, that constantly showers our planet. The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass mission destined for the International Space Station (ISS-CREAM) is designed to measure the highest-energy particles of any detector yet flown in space.

"The CREAM balloon experiment achieved a total sky exposure of 191 days, a record for any balloon-borne astronomical experiment," said Eun-Suk Seo, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland in College Park and the experiment's principal investigator. "Operating on the space station will increase our exposure by over 10 times, taking us well beyond the traditional energy limits of direct measurements."

Sporting new instruments, as well as refurbished versions of detectors originally used on balloon flights over Antarctica, the refrigerator-sized, 1.4-ton (1,300 kilogram) ISS-CREAM experiment will be delivered to the space station as part of the 12th SpaceX commercial resupply service mission. Once there, ISS-CREAM will be moved to the Exposed Facility platform extending from Kibo, the Japanese Experiment Module.

From this orbital perch, ISS-CREAM is expected to study the "cosmic rain" for three yearstime needed to provide unparalleled direct measurements of rare high-energy cosmic rays.

At energies above about 1 billion electron volts, most cosmic rays come to us from beyond our solar system. Various lines of evidence, including observations from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, support the idea that shock waves from the expanding debris of stars that exploded as supernovas accelerate cosmic rays up to energies of 1,000 trillion electron volts (PeV). That's 10 million times the energy of medical proton beams used to treat cancer. ISS-CREAM data will allow scientists to examine how sources other than supernova remnants contribute to the population of cosmic rays.

Protons are the most common cosmic ray particles, but electrons, helium nuclei and the nuclei of heavier elements make up a small percentage. All are direct samples of matter from interstellar space. But because the particles are electrically charged, they interact with galactic magnetic fields, causing them to wander in their journey to Earth. This scrambles their paths and makes it impossible to trace cosmic ray particles back to their sources.

"An additional challenge is that the flux of particles striking any detector decreases steadily with higher energies," said ISS-CREAM co-investigator Jason Link, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "So to better explore higher energies, we either need a much bigger detector or much more observing time. Operating on the space station provides us with this extra time."

Large ground-based systems study cosmic rays at energies greater than 1 PeV by making Earth's atmosphere the detector. When a cosmic ray strikes the nucleus of a gas molecule in the atmosphere, both explode in a shower of subatomic shrapnel that triggers a wider cascade of particle collisions. Some of these secondary particles reach detectors on the ground, providing information scientists can use to infer the properties of the original cosmic ray.

Technicians lower ISS-CREAM into a chamber that simulates the space environment during system-level testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in summer 2015. Credit: University of Maryland Cosmic Ray Physics Laboratory These secondaries also produce an interfering background that limited the effectiveness of CREAM's balloon operations. Removing that background is another advantage of relocating to orbit.

With decreasing numbers of particles at increasing energies, the cosmic ray spectrum vaguely resembles the profile of a human leg. At PeV energies, this decline abruptly steepens, forming a detail scientists call the "knee." ISS-CREAM is the first space mission capable of measuring the low flux of cosmic rays at energies approaching the knee.

"The origin of the knee and other features remain longstanding mysteries," Seo said. "Many scenarios have been proposed to explain them, but we don't know which is correct."

Astronomers don't think supernova remnants are capable of powering cosmic rays beyond the PeV range, so the knee may be shaped in part by the drop-off of their cosmic rays in this region.

"High-energy cosmic rays carry a great deal of information about our interstellar neighborhood and our galaxy, but we haven't been able to read these messages very clearly," said co-investigator John Mitchell at Goddard. "ISS-CREAM represents one significant step in this direction."

ISS-CREAM detects cosmic ray particles when they slam into the matter making up its instruments. First, a silicon charge detector measures the electrical charge of incoming particles, then layers of carbon provide targets that encourage impacts, producing cascades of particles that stream into electrical and optical detectors below while a calorimeter determines their energy. Two scintillator-based detector systems provide the ability to discern between singly charged electrons and protons. All told, ISS-CREAM can distinguish electrons, protons and atomic nuclei as massive as iron as they crash through the instruments.

ISS-CREAM will join two other cosmic ray experiments already working on the space station. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), led by an international collaboration sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, is mapping cosmic rays up to a trillion electron volts, and the Japan-led Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET), also located on the Kibo Exposed Facility, is dedicated to studying cosmic ray electrons.

Overall management of ISS-CREAM and integration for its space station application was provided by NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. ISS-CREAM was developed as part of an international collaboration led by the University of Maryland at College Park, which includes teams from NASA Goddard, Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, and Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, as well as collaborating institutions in the Republic of Korea, Mexico and France.

The Daily Galaxy via NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

View original post here:
New NASA Mission Going to the International Space Station --"To Explore Mysteries of Cosmic Rain" - The Daily Galaxy (blog)