Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Tag: International Space Station
-
Russia sending replacement Soyuz capsule to rescue International Space Station crew
Russia sending replacement Soyuz capsule to rescue International Space Station crew – CBS News
-
Soyuz ferry ship temperatures remain within limits despite major coolant leak
Temperatures in a Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship docked at the International Space Station — a lifeboat for three of the lab’s seven crew members — remain within safe limits despite a dramatic overnight leak in the spacecraft’s cooling system, officials said Thursday.
The leak developed around 7:45 p.m. EST Wednesday amid preparations for a planned 6-hour and 40-minute spacewalk by cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to move a radiator from the Rassvet module, where the Soyuz MS-22/68S spacecraft is docked, to the new Nauka laboratory module.
With the cosmonauts suited up in the Poisk airlock compartment, Russian flight controllers noted a low-pressure warning in an external Soyuz coolant loop, and then saw a sudden stream of coolant venting into space in a shower of icy particles.
The leak looked especially dramatic under certain lighting conditions, showing up in a NASA television camera view as a jetting shower of countless shiny particles, presumably frozen coolant. The leak was not clearly visible in another view, from another angle and with different lighting.
NASA TV
But there was no doubt a major leak was present. It continued for several hours and Russian flight controllers called off the spacewalk while engineers monitored telemetry and video.
More than 12 hours later, the origin and cause of the leak remained unclear. Options ranged from a space debris impact to an isolated hardware failure of some sort.
The Soyuz carried Prokopyev, Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the space station on Sept. 21, and it is required to carry them back to Earth at the end of March. In the meantime, the ship serves as a lifeboat in case of an emergency that might force the trio to abandon the ISS ahead of schedule.
Coolant systems are critical to all spacecraft in order to cope with a wide range of temperatures, such as when vehicles are in direct sunlight, the cold darkness of the Earth’s shadow, or during re-entry. It’s not yet known how much coolant, if any, might remain in the system, or how temperatures will respond to different sun angles in the station’s orbit.
But telemetry in the wake of the leak showed temperatures in the Soyuz spacecraft remained within safe limits.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos “is closely monitoring Soyuz spacecraft temperatures, which remain within acceptable limits,” NASA said in a blog post Thursday. “NASA and Roscosmos continue to coordinate external imagery and inspection plans to aid in evaluating the external leak location.”
While NASA did not address the issue directly, the Soyuz presumably is flightworthy as is, but no other details were immediately available.
Overnight Wednesday, cosmonaut Anna Kikina, who flew up to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship with three NASA-sponsored crewmates, used a new European Space Agency-built robot arm on the Nauka module to visually inspect the Soyuz.
NASA said an additional inspection by the Canadian-built robot arm on the U.S. segment of the lab complex is being planned. In the meantime, Crew Dragon astronaut Josh Cassada and Rubio are pressing ahead with plans to carry out a spacewalk of their own Monday to continue an ongoing solar array system upgrade.
“The crew aboard station completed normal operations Thursday, including participating in science investigations and research,” NASA reported. “Specialists are working through robotic plans ahead of Monday’s spacewalk to best optimize for upcoming station operations and the Soyuz inspection.”
-
SpaceX sends supplies to space station in 54th launch this year
NASA TV
SpaceX launched its 26th space station resupply mission Saturday, sending up 7,700 pounds of equipment and supplies aboard a Dragon cargo ship, including belated Thanksgiving Day treats for the lab’s crew, research gear and two new roll-out solar arrays to boost the station’s power.
Running late because of stormy weather earlier this week, the Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage engines roared to life at 2:20 p.m. EST and the slender rocket shot away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. About 12 minutes later, the Cargo Dragon was released to fly on its own.
If all goes well, the spacecraft will chase down the station early Sunday, approaching from behind and below. After looping up in front of the lab and then above it, the capsule will move in for an autonomous docking at the space-facing port of the forward Harmony module.
“Of critical importance to us (are) the two new solar arrays that we’ll be doing spacewalks … to install and deploy on board the International Space Station,” said Joel Montalbano, space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“And in addition to the two solar arrays, we have some life support equipment being delivered, some GPS hardware, some exercise hardware and some medical equipment. … All in all, we’re looking for an exciting mission.”
Also on board: belated Thanksgiving treats for the station’s seven-member crew, including spicy green beans, cranapple desserts and pumpkin pie.
“In addition, our standard food menu allows them to have everything that we’d be having on Thanksgiving, you know, mashed potatoes, candied yams, mac and cheese for those who want mac and cheese. So we’re going to get those guys fed very well.”
The Cargo Dragon also is loaded with research gear, including an experiment to grow dwarf tomatoes in space, an experimental in-flight medical diagnosis kit, an experiment to test novel techniques for building large structures in microgravity and another that will test new ways to produce key nutrients in space.
NASA TV
The ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays, or IROSAs, are the third and fourth of six being installed on the space station in a $103 million upgrade to augment the power output of the lab’s eight older, original-equipment blankets.
The space station was built with four huge rotating solar wings, two on the right side of the lab and two on the left. Each of those four wings is made up of two solar blankets extending from opposite sides of a central hub.
The first pair of original-equipment blankets have been in operation for more than 20 years. Subsequent wings were added in 2006, 2007 and 2009. All of them have suffered degradation from years in the space environment and they do not generate as much power as they did when they were new.
The IROSA blankets, about half the size of the original arrays, are more efficient and will eventually generate an additional 120 kilowatts of power. They were designed to be mounted on brackets at the base of an existing wing, extending outward at a 10-degree angle to minimize the shade they cast on the array below.
NASA
The first two IROSA blankets were installed on the left-side outboard arrays — the oldest set on the station — during spacewalks in 2021. The IROSAs carried up aboard the SpaceX Cargo Dragon Saturday will be installed on the left and right-side inboard wings during spacewalks in December.
“The first two arrays have been performing outstandingly well,” Matt Mickle, development projects senior manager at Boeing, said in a NASA release. “The solar cells are immensely more powerful than previous generations.”
Once all six roll-out arrays are installed, overall power generation will be boosted 20 to 30 percent, roughly matching the output of the original arrays when they were new.
The final two of the six IROSAs currently under contract will be launched next year. It’s not yet known whether NASA will buy two final IROSAs to augment all eight of the station’s original blankets.
-
SpaceX Crew Dragon successfully docks at International Space Station
The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance wrapped up a 29-hour rendezvous with a picture-perfect docking at the International Space Station on Thursday, bringing two NASA astronauts, a Japanese flier and a Russian cosmonaut, to the outpost a day after launch from the Kennedy Space Center.
Spacecraft commander Nicole Mann, co-pilot Josh Cassada, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the first Russian to fly on a Crew Dragon, monitored a series of automated rendezvous rocket firings as the SpaceX capsule moved in, docking at the station’s forward port at 5:01 p.m. EDT.
NASA TV
A dozen motorized bolts then drove home to firmly lock the two spacecraft together with an airtight structural seal.
“Docking sequence complete,” radioed SpaceX communicator Jake Vendl from the company’s Hawthorne, California, control room. “Crew Dragon Endurance, and Koichi, Nicole, Josh and Anna, welcome to the International Space Station.”
“Thank you so much!” Mann replied. “Crew 5 is happy to have finally arrived at the International Space Station. Endurance is a very proper name for our training, mission and the spacecraft. … We are looking forward to getting to work.”
At 6:49 p.m., Mann and her crewmates floated into the station to hugs and handshakes from Crew 4 commander Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, along with Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio.
NASA TV
The Endurance crew is replacing Lindgren, Hines, Watkins and Cristoforetti, who plan to return to Earth on Oct. 13 aboard Crew Dragon Freedom, which carried them to the space station last April. Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, who arrived at the lab aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry ship on Sept. 21, replaced an earlier Soyuz crew that returned to Earth on Sept. 29.
Kikina is the first Russian to fly aboard a U.S. spacecraft in nearly 20 years. She and Rubio were launched under a new agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, that ensures at least one astronaut or cosmonaut is always aboard the space station even if a Crew Dragon or Soyuz is forced to depart early, taking its crew with it.
Without the seat-swap arrangement, a medical emergency or some other major problem could leave an all-Russian or all-NASA crew aboard without the expertise to operate the other nation’s systems.
“We signed an agreement with Roscosmos for one flight this year, one flight next year and one flight in ’24,” said Joel Montalbano, manager of the NASA space station program at the Johnson Space Center. “That’s for all SpaceX missions.”
NASA and its partner agencies are working to extend station operations to the end of the decade. Assuming Russia eventually signs on for at least part of that planned extension, Montalbano hopes the seat-swap agreement will be updated with additional flights.
-
Crew flies to Florida ahead of launch to International Space Station
Two NASA astronauts, a Japanese space veteran, and Russia’s lone female cosmonaut, flew to the Kennedy Space Center Saturday to prepare for launch Wednesday on a flight to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
Their Falcon 9 rocket was rolled to the top of historic pad 39A before dawn Saturday and rotated vertical just after 12 p.m. Eastern. A few minutes later, Crew 5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina landed on the spaceport runway after a flight from Houston to begin final preparations.
NASA
“First of all, my prayers and thoughts go out to all the people in Florida who are affected by the devastating hurricane,” Wakata said. “I hope with this launch, we will brighten up the skies over Florida a little bit for everyone.”
The astronauts plan to don their pressure suits and strap into the Crew Dragon spacecraft Sunday morning for a dress-rehearsal countdown. Later in the day, SpaceX engineers plan to test fire the Falcon 9’s first stage engines to verify their readiness for flight.
If all goes well, Mann and her crewmates will strap in for real around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to brace for launch just after 12 p.m., the moment the Earth’s rotation carries the rocket into the plane of the space station’s orbit.
CBS News
It will take the crew about 29 hours to catch up with the lab complex, moving in for an automated docking at the station’s forward port around 5 a.m. Thursday.
Standing by to welcome them on board will be Expedition 68 commander Samantha Cristoforetti and her Crew 4 crewmates — Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins — along with Soyuz MS-22/68S crew members Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who arrived at the station Sept. 21.
Wakata is making his fifth space flight, while Mann, Cassada and Kikina, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a Crew Dragon, are space rookies.
Rubio’s addition to the Soyuz crew, and Kikina’s addition to Crew 5, were the result of a recent agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, that’s designed to ensure at least one U.S. astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut are aboard the station at all times.
NASA
Without such an agreement, a medical emergency — or some other problem that might force a Crew Dragon or Soyuz to depart early — could leave the station with an all-Russian or all-NASA-sponsored crew without the expertise to operate the other nation’s systems.
Kikina said she was thrilled by the opportunity.
“I want to share with you my feelings,” she said in broken English. “I really want to say, from my side, and to everybody who made for me that unbelievable, incredible opportunity to be a part of our joint, big something, for all of us. And to be a part of that great, for me, maybe for you also, Crew 5. I really love my crewmates, I really feel comfortable.”
Kikina, who joined the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps in 2012, said she was stunned when told she was being assigned to Crew 5.
“My leaders just appoint me and told me, do you want to be part of Crew 5? Yes. Why not? But I was so surprised.”
-
A Piece of Swiss Technology Goes to the International Space Station
Press Release
–
updated: Jul 9, 2020
ZURICH, July 9, 2020 (Newswire.com)
–
greenTEG is a Swiss company collaborating with engineers all over the world, providing them the best heat flux sensors for their experiments and applications. Up to now, hundreds of labs all over the world are using a sensor from the company. Recently, greenTEG made one step forward, supplying a space mission with sensing solutions for the first time. A tiny piece of Swiss technology helping to advance space exploration!Several weeks ago, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency launched the H-2BF9 rocket, carrying an automated cargo transfer vehicle, the HTV9. It supplies the International Space Station with 6.2 metric tons of cargo, supplies, and experiments.
The HTV9 successfully arrived at the ISS on May 25, 2020. During the automatic docking of the cargo ship, the WLAN Demo experiment was performed. It aimed to transmit the video of the monitor camera during HTV docking via Wi-Fi to acquire the automatic docking technology of the next generation of HTV-X (the next generation of cargo ships built by the Japanese Space Agency). Besides, it aims to contribute to the development of HTV-X by mounting a heat flux sensor built at greenTEG and measuring the thermal influence from the HTV propulsion system.
greenTEG’s sensors were chosen for this experiment because they combine the top sensitivity of energy transfer with robustness. They can withstand space-like conditions, as shown during this space mission.
We would like to congratulate all those involved in this space mission for this huge success. We hope that this successful launch and arrival to the ISS will be followed by many more in the following years. At greenTEG, we will gladly continue to support space exploration with our sensing solutions, as well as hundreds of other research projects all over the world.
greenTEG is a spin-off from the ETH in Zurich. Founded 11 years ago, it excels in the production and development of heat flux sensors for R&D and OEM purposes, as well as wearables for workforce protection, with clients all over the world. Its excellence has been recognized by several innovation prices and project awards during the last years, including Innosuisse, Venture Lab, and Climate KIC.
For more information, please contact
Holger Hendrichs, VP of Marketing and Sales
Email: Holger.Hendrichs@greenteg.com
Website: http://www.greenteg.com and http://www.corebodytemp.com
Source: greenTEG AG
-
Mouser Electronics Announces Final Call for Entries in First-of-Its-Kind Design Challenge to 3D Print an Object in Space
Press Release
–
Sep 29, 2016
Dallas & Fort Worth, TX, September 29, 2016 (Newswire.com)
–
Mouser Electronics Inc., a leading global distributor of electronic components, today announced the final call for entries for the exciting and imaginative International Space Station (I.S.S.) Design Challenge, part of Mouser’s award-winning Empowering Innovation Together™ program. The contest is open until midnight (Central Time) Oct. 7, 2016.The challenge is led by former commander of the I.S.S. Colonel Chris Hadfield and celebrity engineer Grant Imahara. With universities back in full swing, Mouser is challenging college and university students, engineers, and makers to create a 3D-printable project designed to help I.S.S. astronauts in space. All entries will be judged by Imahara and Col. Hadfield.
Mouser and Imahara are teaming up for the I.S.S. Design Challenge, part of the Empowering Innovation Together™ program. This challenge calls for designs that will help I.S.S. astronauts, with the winning design 3D-printed aboard the I.S.S. Entry deadline is Oct. 7.
In a recently released video, Imahara and Hadfield discuss what they are looking for in a winning entry: useful, practical items that can be used by astronauts on the I.S.S. in their weightless environment.
“Anyone designing for this competition is going to be able to share in the powerful feeling of being part of a global community of innovation,” said Col. Hadfield. “I look forward to reviewing the entries!”
For the I.S.S. Design Challenge, Mouser has partnered with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Made In Space, along with Hackster and MacroFab. The winner of the ISS Challenge will receive a 3D printer, a consultation with Made In Space — pioneers in additive manufacturing technology for use in the space environment — and the prestige of seeing their design 3D-printed aboard the ISS. Mouser’s valued suppliers Amphenol and Intel® are co-sponsors of the program.
“Mouser’s unparalleled selection of electronic components allows both amateurs and professionals to create nearly anything they can dream up for this contest,” said Glenn Smith, President and CEO of Mouser Electronics.
To learn more about the I.S.S. Design Challenge, view the video at https://youtu.be/j4FMRuZ_VRM. For full contest details and guidelines, visit http://www.mouser.com/contests/iss-project-contest.
About Mouser Electronics
Mouser Electronics, a subsidiary of TTI, Inc., is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway family of companies. Mouser is an award-winning, authorized semiconductor and electronic component distributor, focused on the rapid introduction of new products and technologies to electronic design engineers and buyers. Mouser.com features more than 4 million products online from more than 600 manufacturers. Mouser publishes multiple catalogs per year providing designers with up-to-date data on the components now available for the next generation of electronic devices. Mouser ships globally to over 500,000 customers in 170 countries from its 750,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility south of Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit www.mouser.com.
About Grant Imahara
Well known in the engineering community, Grant Imahara has paired his engineering expertise with a Hollywood TV and film career. In addition to his roles on MythBusters and BattleBots, Imahara is the inventor behind many famous robotic characters, including the Star Wars prequel-era R2-D2, talking robot sidekick Geoff Peterson from The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and the rhythmic arms on the modern-day Energizer Bunny.
About Chris Hadfield
“Good morning, Earth!” That is how Colonel Chris Hadfield—writing on Twitter—woke up the world every day while living for five months aboard the International Space Station. Since then, Colonel Hadfield—who served for 21 years as an astronaut, completing three spaceflights and 2,650 orbits of Earth—has become a worldwide sensation for infusing a sense of wonder into our collective consciousness. Over 32 million people have watched his famous cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, the first music video made in space, and he is the author of two internationally bestselling books, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth and You Are Here, as well as his newest book for children, The Darkest Dark. With his feet now firmly planted on Earth, Col. Hadfield works tirelessly to inspire young people to do what they love (especially, if it’s space-related) and to be fascinated by the world around them.
Trademarks
Mouser and Mouser Electronics are registered trademarks of Mouser Electronics, Inc. All other products, logos, and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.
Media Contact:
Jennifer Gooding
PRIME|PR
O: 512.477.7373
M: 310.927.1829
jgooding@prime-techpr.comSource: Mouser
