Kongsberg equipment is to enable broadband transmission for the International Space Station (ISS) - significantly improving communication between the ESA astronauts manning the station and earth. - This is a great benefit for the personnel onboard, and Kongsberg is proud to deliver technology to the project, says Ingelin Dropping, Executive Vice President of Kongsberg's Space and Surveillance division.

February 14th the ESA Columbus Ka-Band Terminal (COLKa) started its journey to the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting earth. Here, the terminal will be installed on the European Columbusmodule, a science laboratory which is part of the ISS. It will then enable continuous signaltransmission to the ground via the European Data Relay Satellite (EDRS) system.

"This will enable the European astronauts and scientists to exchange important information with ground stations in real time. They will benefit from higher bandwidth communications, faster delivery of scientific data and high definition video imagery, thanks to this terminal," says Ingelin Dropping, Executive Vice President of Kongsberg's Space and Surveillance division.

The terminal is to be delivered to the International Space Station as part of the Northrop Grumman's thirteenth contracted commercial resupply services mission. Northrop Grumman launched their Cygnus spacecraft aboard an Antares rocket from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, supplying will ISS with several tons of cargo.

International teamworkKongsberg has been part of the team developing the terminal, through its Space and Surveillance division's environment in Horten, Norway. The project has been headed by MDA Space and Robotics Limited, the UK division of MDA, the world leading Canadian space equipment manufacturer.

"Our Space Electronics team in Horten, formerly known as Norspace, has developed, manufactured and delivered frequency converters. They are critical parts of the Columbus Ka-band Inter-Satellite Link (ISL) terminal provided by MDA. The terminal itself offers the astronauts greater capacity and availability of broadband connection, as it is capable of speeds of up to 400mbps downlink and 50mbps uplink," says Ellen Tuset, Vice President Division Space in Kongsberg.

COLKa has been designed and integrated by MDA in the UK with both internal investment and funding provided by the UK Space Agency though the ESA Human Spaceflight program. Both Kongsberg and Antwerp Space have supported the project with significant investments in the development of key subsystems.

Related LinksKongsberg Space and Surveillance DivisionSatellite-based Internet technologies

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Kongsberg contributing to broadband connection for the International Space Station - Space Daily

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 20, to discuss select science investigations launching on the next SpaceX commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station.

Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

SpaceX is targeting 1:45 a.m. Monday,March 2, for the launch of its Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket fromSpace Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

To participate in the teleconference, media must contact Kathryn Hambleton at 202-358-1100 orkathryn.hambleton@nasa.govby 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 20, for dial-in information.

Participants in the briefing will be:

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft also will carry crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory to support the Expedition 62 and 63 crew for the20th mission under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.

The space station is a convergence of science, technology, and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and enables research not possible on Earth. The orbiting laboratory has been occupied continuously since November 2000. In that time, 239 people, and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft, have visited the orbiting laboratory. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in exploration, including future human missions to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

For launch countdown coverage, NASA's launch blog, and more information about the mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/spacex

SOURCE NASA

http://www.nasa.gov

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NASA Highlights Science on 20th SpaceX Resupply Mission to Space Station - PRNewswire

To put things in perspective the only material tougher than the ceramic used in Vollebaks latest jacket is literally diamond.

Making the worlds most indestructible clothing does require constant reiteration, and Vollebaks constantly believed in pushing the boundaries of material science. Having made hoodies out of everything from Kevlar to carbon nanotubes, Vollebak now returns with a material so resistant to wear and tear, its used on the international space station. The ceramic hoodie comes with an aramid layer (Kevlar is an aramid) and is further coated with a layer comprising more than 60,000 matte-black ceramic particles that allow it to be theoretically destruction-proof, but still breathable and flexible. The hoodie builds on one of Vollebaks most popular items, the Ceramic T-Shirt, which was developed in 2017 and has, since then, been taken into jungles, warzones, and live volcanoes.

The Ceramic Hoodie is designed to be protective yet comfortable. The fabric is tough but breathable and comes with an inner fleece lining and waterproof zippers. Each hoodie is equipped with a layer of ceramic coating thats as thin as a human hair, and soft to the touch, but is abrasive-resistant enough to make it the toughest garment not just on earth, but arguably on the space station too!

Designer: Vollebak

See the rest here:

This damage-proof hoodie is made with the same ceramic technology used on the space station - Yanko Design

Learning can be fun, it turns out, as an Aerospace Engineering student has demonstrated with LEGO Ideas 21321 International Space Station.

Twitter user and Aerospace Engineering student Ian Benecken has used LEGO Ideas 21321 International Space Station to tell the real-life story of the International Space Station. Starting with the launch of the first modular, he explains the history of the technological marvel and reveals how it came to be in its current state.

On November 20th 1998 the first #ISS module #Zarya aka #FGB was launched from #Kazakhstan with a #ProtonK rocket. It was built in Russia but funded by @nasa but operated by @roscosmos. Its purpose is cargo storage, he begins.

Brick Fanatics reviews LEGO Ideas 21321 International Space Station

Then, two years on: On August the 6th 2000 the very first unmanned #Russian #Progress resupply capsule launched to the still unmanned #ISS #ProgressM1-3 2 days later on August 8th 2000 it docked to the aft end of #Zvesda. The #ISS looked like this from now on:

The full thread on Twitter is well worth perusing, illustrating how these detailed LEGO models provide an enjoyable creative pursuit, but also provide a tangible connection to real-world history.

Another three LEGO Ideas sets are on the way later this year the Playable Piano, Sesame Street and the Pirate Bay, with two more recently confirmed for production Winnie the Pooh and Medieval Blacksmith.

To continue to support the work of Brick Fanatics, please buy your LEGO sets from LEGO.com and Amazon using our affiliate links.

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Learning space exploration history with LEGO Ideas 21321 International Space Station - Brick Fanatics

As far as romantic nights out go, you can barely go past a night gazing at the stars.

Tonight, just in time for Valentines Day, West Australians will be treated to a spectacle in the night sky.

The International Space Station will fly over tonight and, according to the experts at the Perth Observatory it will be glow particularly bright for the most romantic night of the year.

It will be visible over WA between 8.37pm and 8.41pm.

Matt Woods said the space station flew over WA monthly but rarely is it so bright.

It happens to be that because its about 450km above Earth, its still receiving light from the sun and were in the right place at the right time to see it so bright, Mr Woods said.

Valentines Day night is proving to be popular for Perth stargazers, so much so, that loved-up couples had been put on to a waiting list for a special event at the observatory tonight.

I think even if theyre not thinking it all the time, people really are pretty amazed by whats in the universe, he said.

It also gets you massive brownie points.

If youll be too busy gazing into your lovers eyes to look at the stars tonight, the space station will also make two appearances at 7.50pm tomorrow and at 7.51pm on Monday.

But, stargazers will have to keep their fingers crossed for clear skies with stormy conditions and showers forecast tonight and partly cloudy conditions over the weekend. The clouds are forecast to clear in time for Monday.

Space enthusiasts will gather at Curtin University on February 29 for Astrofest, which is one of their biggest events of the year.

Excerpt from:

International Space Station flyover to light up Valentines sky over WA - The West Australian

It had been 1,106 days since a North American team won a major tournament in Rainbow Six Siege, and on Sunday night, it looked like that counter would tick up to 1,107.

In front of a hometown crowd at Place Bell in Montreal, the home of Siege game developer Ubisoft, a North American team was about to lose again. A few days early, that seemed impossible. A troika of NA squads -- Spacestation Gaming, Team SoloMid and DarkZero Esports -- were nestled in the upper bracket of the tournament, a fast pass to the final that appeared to be an almost assured all-American affair. Yet DarkZero was eliminated by Brazil's Ninjas in Pyjamas, who then went on to take down TSM in the semifinal.

Once the final began, everything began to unravel for North America's last hope. Their map choice, Villa, which the Ninjas had been shying away from and seemed to be a slam dunk victory for Spacestation, turned upside down almost immediately. Before the fans in the venue could even catch their breath, the first map of the grand final was over, the Brazilians tying up the best-of-five series with SSG getting an auto-win for having qualified from the upper bracket without losing a match.

The next map, Border, was more of the same. If you believe in momentum in sports, the Ninjas had all of it. SSG were ransacked in a second straight map with the stunned crowd not knowing how to react outside of the pockets of Brazil fans in the arena, screaming for Ninjas to bring its country their first Siege world title home. On the map that would have brought them the title, they once again jumped out of the gate, pushing themselves a couple of rounds from lifting The Hammer, the aptly named trophy given to each year's best Rainbow Six Siege team.

Up 5-3 and on the verge of pushing the series to a match point, it came down to a one-on-one duel. SSG's captain, Javier "Thinkingnade" DeAndre Escamilla, was chunked down to a single hit point, but he somehow pulled through, clutching from the depths of defeat and sparking the Montreal crowd to rise from their seats.

And once they were up, they didn't sit down. From that single play that could have gone to Ninjas on any other day in the year, SSG never looked back, the fans propelling them to a comeback victory to win the series in five games. The team's newest addition, Troy "Canadian" Jaroslawski, an icon in the Siege community who was part of the last North American team to win a major title in 2017 at the inaugural Six Invitational, was there to put a dagger into the streak of futility.

"It's f---ing amazing, there are no other words," Canadian told ESPN minutes following his second world championship victory. "I've been working for it for so long. Ever since I blew a lead at the 2018 [world championship], I've been working, putting everything I have into it to get back. This ... made it all worth it."

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For Canadian, the 1,000-plus day record without a North American championship has been a curse. Where other players have come in and out of the spotlight, as the de facto face of his region since he began playing, it's stuck with Canadian every step of the way. From social media posts to post-match interviews, every loss at a premier tournament has been followed up by questions of when would he, and North America, win again.

During the 2018 Six Invitational, Canadian's Evil Geniuses team were in an almost unbeatable position against rival European organization PENTA. Up two games in the five-match series, he was one win away from winning back-to-back world titles and cementing himself in the history of the fledgling game as its first legend. He would be called the greatest of all time. The best. Instead, EG were reverse-swept and PENTA, who later became G2 Esports, became the team that would win back-to-back world championships, while Canadian was labeled a choker.

Since then, Canadian's career became one of tragedy. Like Sisyphus, doomed to roll a giant boulder up a hill for eternity to only have it come crashing down on him, Canadian was in a forever loop of potential to only end in dismay. At the 2019 world championship, he was confident and ready to get revenge against the now-G2 Esports, a year removed from the reverse-sweep. Canadian didn't even make it to the semifinals, where he would have played G2, falling in the quarterfinals and having to answer once again what went wrong.

After bombing out at another major tournament, the Raleigh Major, Canadian needed a change. Spacestation Gaming, a team made up of talented and flexible players, needed an in-game leader. So he left Evil Geniuses, the core with which he won his first title and was built through friendship, a decision with only one goal on his mind -- lifting The Hammer in Montreal.

"[I've changed] my attitude and how I handle myself as a captain," Canadian said. "I think I've definitely caused some problems on my past team, EG, where I could be condescending and hard to work with. I don't think it was horrible or the guys on EG thought it was horrible either, but it definitely could have been better. Towards the later days of EG, I really tried to work on it, but once I joined SSG and got into the right environment I think, I really kinda shined through. I think I've become a whole new person and teammate, and I think it's for the best."

Along with the end of its three-year championship drought, the North American Siege scene had more good news during the weekend. In the developer's yearly panel before the grand final, where Ubisoft shares the changes to the game and esports leagues across the globe for the upcoming year, they announced that an offline domestic league for 10 North American professional teams would begin following its Proleague final this coming May in So Paulo, Brazil.

It's a new era for Canadian and North American Siege as a whole. While it wasn't an all-NA final like it could have been, the region was by far the strongest during the 2020 world championship, with three of its teams finishing in the top six and the only team that failed to make it out of the group stages, Team Reciprocity, was more unlucky than unskilled. With up-and-comers like eUnited, an old guard in Evil Geniuses and the four teams that impressed in Montreal, the newfound offline North American Proleague could become the new standard.

"I'd like to think that North America has always had the potential to rise to the top and that 2019 was just an outlier stumble for NA teams," Che Chou, the senior director of esports at Ubisoft, said to ESPN. "I don't know that anything we've done structurally in NA has affected the success of the NA teams here at SI, but what I do know is that the reason SSG, TSM and DarkZero have done so well through groups is because they're great organizations who invest in their players, all of whom are hungry to win."

North America, often ridiculed, has been redeemed. A bright future on the horizon, an offline league only enhancing the strength of the region as a whole.

Canadian, liberated from his past failures and now changing not only as a player but as a person, will now take his rightful place among the greats as a two-time winner and three-time finalist. One of, if not the best, in-game leader in Rainbow Six Siege history until someone steals the title from him.

It's Feb. 16, 2020, and it has been 0 days since a North American team won a major tournament in Rainbow Six Siege.

See original here:

Spacestation Gaming break the NA Rainbow Six Siege tourney drought - ESPN

WASHINGTON A Cygnus cargo spacecraft launched Feb. 15 carrying more than three tons of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station.

A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket lifted off from Pad 0-A the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at 3:21 p.m. Eastern, carrying a Cygnus spacecraft on a mission designated NG-13. The Cygnus, now in orbit, is scheduled to be captured by the stations robotic arm at about 4:05 a.m. Eastern Feb. 18.

The launch was scheduled for Feb. 9 but scrubbed minutes before liftoff because of off-nominal data from ground support equipment. NASA and Northrop Grumman postponed a second launch attempt Feb. 14 because of strong upper-level winds.

The Cygnus is named S.S. Robert Lawrence Jr. after the first African-American astronaut, who died in a 1967 aircraft crash. It is carrying 3,337 kilograms of cargo, including about 1,600 kilograms of vehicle hardware and nearly 1,000 kilograms of science payloads. Crew supplies and other equipment constitute the rest of the cargo on the spacecraft.

Among the payloads on the Cygnus are science experiments to study the effects of microgravity on bacteriophages, which are viruses that attack bacteria, as well as research on the growth of bone cells. The spacecraft is carrying the first scanning electron microscope for use in space, called Mochii and developed by Seattle-based company Voxa, to support station research.

Were really excited for a lot of the science that Cygnus is bringing up. Cygnus is a huge enabler of continuing the science on ISS, said Heidi Parris, assistant program scientist for the ISS program at NASA, during a Feb. 8 pre-launch briefing at the Wallops Flight Facility here.

The vehicle hardware on Cygnus includes a new communications system called ColKa for the Columbus module on the station that will provide increased bandwidth by communicating through the European Data Relay System satellites. A new external high-definition camera is on board that will replace a similar, failed camera during a spacewalk tentatively scheduled for the spring.

The Cygnus will remain at the station until May, departing with about 3,700 kilograms of trash for disposal. After departing from the station, Cygnus will carry out the latest in a series of combustion experiments, called Saffire-4, to test how materials burn in microgravity with varying amounts of oxygen before the spacecraft reenters.

This launch comes only three and a half months after the previous Cygnus cargo mission, NG-12, which launched Nov. 2. That is the shortest time between Cygnus missions, which in the last few years have been spaced, on average, about six months apart.

Thats a little more compressed than weve been doing, so weve been working hard, said Kurt Eberly, Antares vice president at Northrop Grumman, at the pre-launch briefing. He said the company tapped into other resources, such as technicians who work on other vehicles at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, to accelerate the preparations for this launch.

Were happy to be able to respond to whatever our customer has needed, said Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager of tactical space systems at Northrop Grumman, who said that NASA had asked Northrop to move up the launch a couple of months.

The next Cygnus mission to the ISS is currently scheduled for October, but could change depending on the schedule of commercial crew missions. After April, the station will have only a three-person crew, including just one American astronaut, Chris Cassidy, until SpaceXs Crew Dragon or Boeings CST-100 Starliner starts flying astronauts to the station.

We are discussing the best cadence on which to launch the cargo missions, and one factor is when well have crewmembers on board, said Ven Feng, manager of NASAs ISS Transportation Integration Office. The schedule of commercial crew vehicles as well as plans to complete science investigations on the station are key factors in that planning.

Feng said that Northrop has done a tremendous job demonstrating its ability to fly earlier than planned for the NG-13 mission. We may pull on that again in the near future, he added.

Read more from the original source:

Cygnus launches to space station - SpaceNews

NASA has unambiguously confirmed that SpaceX with its Crew Dragon spacecraft will soon become the first private company in history to launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), both an unexpected twist from the usually tight-lipped space agency and a major upset for Boeing.

Shortly after revealing that the first astronaut-rated Crew Dragon capsule had been completed and shipped eastward, SpaceX and NASA confirmed that the historic spacecraft arrived at SpaceXs Florida processing facilities on Thursday, February 13th. With that milestone out of the way, its now believed that all the hardware needed for SpaceXs Demo-2 astronaut launch debut Falcon 9 booster B1058, a Falcon 9 upper stage, Crew Dragon capsule C206, and a Crew Dragon trunk is finished, acceptance-tested, and preparing for flight in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Extremely out of character for NASA given that Crew Dragon Demo-2 is expected to launch no earlier than two or three months from now, the space agencys public statement that SpaceX will launch astronauts first simultaneously implies bad news for Boeing and its Starliner spacecraft. Contracted under the Commercial Crew Program in 2014, Boeing awarded $5.1B and SpaceX awarded $3.1B have been working to build two separate crew launch vehicles (Starliner and Crew Dragon) with the intention of ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). While both providers have had their own challenges, Boeing has been beset by numerous software failures born out during Starliners December 2019 orbital launch debut.

The Commercial Crew account has since deleted its tweet and NASAs accompanying blog post linked in said tweet was tweaked to reflect a slightly different interpretation, but the original text unequivocally stated that the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft [assigned to] the first crew launch from American soil since 2011 has arrived at the launch site. Given that both the tweet and blog post contained that exact same phrase, the fact that NASA retroactively censored and corrected itself strongly suggests that SpaceX will, in fact, become the first private company in history to launch astronauts into orbit.

NASA has a fairly notorious and years-long history of going well out of its way to avoid saying or implying anything that could be perceived as even slightly critical of Boeing. A prime contractor dating back to the first stage of the Saturn V rocket, Boeing has effectively secured billions of dollars of NASAs annual budget and possesses deep political sway thanks in large part to the revolving doors between industry and government and the hundreds of millions of dollars it has spent on lobbying over the last two decades.

More recently, Boeings Starliner spacecraft suffered several major software-related failures during its December 2019 Orbital Flight Test, narrowly avoiding a second catastrophic failure mode solely because a separate software failure 48 hours prior forced the company to reexamine its code. In simple terms, both software failures probably should and could have been caught and fixed before launch if even a semblance of routine digital simulations and integrated vehicle testing had been performed by Boeing.

Unsurprisingly, NASA at least after the fact is now extremely concerned by the lack of such a basic and commonsense level of quality control in Boeings Starliner software pipeline. Even NASA, arguably, could and should have been attentive enough to catch some of Boeings shortcomings before Starliners launch debut. Adding to the embarrassment, NASA performed a pretty invasive $5M review of SpaceXs safety practices and general engineering culture last year, triggered (not a joke) after CEO Elon Musk was seen very briefly smoking on a recorded interview. As part of regulations for the Commercial Crew Program, NASA was obligated to perform a similar review of Boeings safety culture, but the contractor demanded that NASA pay five times more $25M for the same thing.

NASA unsurprisingly balked at Boeings demands and wound up performing a more or less symbolic paper review that typically involves auditing paperwork supplied by the company itself. Despite the fact that Boeing would soon find itself mired in two fatal 737 Max crashes, killing 346 people as a result of shoddy software, an unreliable design, and bad internal communication, NASA still never pursued a similar safety review with Boeing. Now, only after a nearly-catastrophic in-space failure, NASA has finally decided that that safety review is necessary, while both NASA and Boeing will also have to extensively review all Starliner software and fix the flawed practices used to create and qualify it.

Perhaps most importantly, NASA and Boeing need to determine whether Starliners software failures were a one-off fluke or something symptomatic of deeper problems. Due to that uncertainty and the massive amount of work that will be required to answer those questions, its almost certain that Boeing will have to perform a second uncrewed Starliner test flight for NASA to verify that its problems have been rectified. A second OFT would almost certainly delay Boeings astronaut launch debut by 6-12 months. SpaceXs astronaut launch debut, for example, was delayed at least 9 months after a Crew Dragon capsule exploded during thruster testing after a flawless orbital launch and recovery.

As a result, even though SpaceXs Crew Dragon Demo-2 astronaut launch debut is likely more than two months away, even some part of NASA famous for incredibly neutral and conservative public statements appears to be all but certain that SpaceX will launch astronauts first. As of February 13th, 2020, all Demo-2 Falcon 9 and Dragon hardware is likely finished and awaiting integration in Florida. If things go as planned over the next several weeks, Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon could launch astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley as early as late-April or May 2020.

Check out Teslaratis newslettersfor prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceXs rocket launch and recovery processes.

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NASA confirms SpaceX will become the first private company to send astronauts to the space station - Teslarati

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - Two freshman students in Fayette County have been selected for a once in a lifetime opportunity.

They have designed a research project deemed worthy of being sent to the International Space Station.

It's a dream come true for any space enthusiast, but for Rosalie Huff, of Fredrick Douglass High School, and Kiera Fehr, of Henry Clay High School, they're over the moon after their research project was selected to launch to the International Space Station.

"It's so exciting to think that even being a freshman, I could still put something on the International Space Station that may make a difference," Fehr said.

Their project is just as exciting, they plan to send termites to space, which after researching, seems to be a first.

"They produce methane, which you know is a greenhouse gas, so we're trying to measure if microgravity affects the production of methane," Huff said.

They're also hoping to even relate the research back to the impacts it brings here on Earth.

"With the readings that we get, we may be able to apply it to our atmosphere and t could possibly give us insight on solutions or things like that," Fehr said.

To make sure Kiera and Rosalie's project is successful aboard the International Space Station, local company Space Tango is designing a cube lab, which will house everything needed for research inside of it.

"We have to take all of those components, all of the cameras, all of the imaging capabilities and condense that down to really miniaturized and automate the entire process," said Gentry Barnett, Tango Lab Program Manager at Space Tango.

While it will be about a six-month process before launch day, this opportunity is nevertheless a big step for these girls.

What's to come could launch these girls' dreams for the future.

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Project of Fayette County students being sent to International Space Station - WKYT

As far as romantic nights out go, you can barely go past a night gazing at the stars.

Tonight, just in time for Valentines Day, West Australians will be treated to a spectacle in the night sky.

The International Space Station will fly over tonight and, according to the experts at the Perth Observatory it will be glow particularly bright for the most romantic night of the year.

It will be visible over WA between 8.37pm and 8.41pm.

Matt Woods told PerthNow the space station flew over WA monthly but rarely is it so bright.

Play Video

NASA and the European Space Agency

It happens to be that because its about 450km above Earth, its still receiving light from the sun and were in the right place at the right time to see it so bright, Mr Woods said.

Valentines Day night is proving to be popular for Perth stargazers, so much so, that loved-up couples had been put on to a waiting list for a special event at the observatory tonight.

I think even if theyre not thinking it all the time, people really are pretty amazed by whats in the universe, he said.

It also gets you massive brownie points.

If youll be too busy gazing into your lovers eyes to look at the stars tonight, the space station will also make two appearances at 7.50pm tomorrow and at 7.51pm on Monday.

But, stargazers will have to keep their fingers crossed for clear skies with stormy conditions and showers forecast tonight and partly cloudy conditions over the weekend. The clouds are forecast to clear in time for Monday.

Space enthusiasts will gather at Curtin University on February 29 for Astrofest, which is one of their biggest events of the year.

See more here:

International Space Station flyover to light up Valentines sky over WA - PerthNow

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch are taking their third spacewalk outside the International Space Station today (Jan. 20) to replace the orbiting laboratories aging batteries and you can catch the epic action live online.

The spacewalk began at 6:35 a.m. EST (1335 GMT) today, marking the third time an all-woman team has worked together outside the station. You can watch the spacewalk live here and on Space.com's homepage, courtesy of NASA TV.

Meir and Koch are wrapping up work that began in October 2019, to upgrade the batteries that store power generated by the space station's solar array. Their first spacewalk (which was the first all-woman spacewalk ever) took place Oct. 18. A second spacewalk successfully wrapped up Jan. 15.

Related: The amazing spacewalks of Expedition 61 in photos

Astronauts use power in space for everything from lighting rooms to conducting experiments. The upgraded batteries are lithium-ion batteries, which are expected to last longer and to generate more power than the previous generation nickel-hydrogen batteries that were installed several years ago.

If Koch and Meir finish the last battery spacewalk as expected, there's another spacewalk by other astronauts coming shortly. NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan and Italian ISS commander Luca Parmitano are expected to exit the ISS Saturday (Jan. 25), but for a different task.

Parmitano and Morgan spent much of the end of 2019 working on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), which is an aging dark matter experiment on the ISS. The astronauts, in concert with teams on the ground, are doing a complex repair that NASA says is the toughest work the agency has done in space since the last Hubble Space Telescope upgrade in 2009.

The duo completed three of four planned AMS spacewalks in 2019. In December, NASA warned that the battery spacewalks (which are more urgent than the AMS spacewalks) and a busy schedule of visiting space vehicles could delay the last AMS spacewalk.

As of this week, however, NASA is projecting all spacewalks will be finished before half of the six-person Expedition 61 crew returns to Earth in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Three astronauts will remain in space as NASA works out the sequence of future missions, which is under discussion as final tests are being run for American commercial crew vehicles to fly astronauts. (Currently, all astronauts fly to the ISS using the Soyuz, but NASA is seeking to shift most of their astronauts to commercial crew vehicles.)

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Spacewalking astronauts are upgrading the space station today. Here's how to watch it live. - Space.com

Does this have anything to do with cars? Not at all, but we like Lego, space is cool, and what the heck, it's Sunday. Lego is celebrating 10 years since it launched Lego Ideas, a platform for fans to concoct new creations that otherwise didn't already exist. To mark the occasion, Lego took one of the community's ideas, a small-scale model of the International Space Station and turned it into a real, for-sale product. The design comes from Christophe Ruge, and it will be available to buy on February 1, 2020.

Lego already offers numerous space-themed kits and toys. There's a lunar space station, a deep space rocket with a launch control building, a NASA Apollo 11 lunar lander, a shuttle transporter, a Mars research shuttle, a space research and development people pack, and many more. This is the first time, however, a replica of the International Space Station will be available.

The new kit includes a 148-page instruction booklet that explains how to put together 864 pieces. When assembled, it measures 7 inches high, 12 inches long, and 19 inches wide. It sits on a black pedestal stand and also comes with its own space shuttle (unlike the real I.S.S.). Several detailed features make the kit as realistic as possible, including a dock for the space shuttle, a poseable Canadarm2, two rotating joints, and eight adjustable solar panels.

Technically, the idea is not new. Ruge, a 42-year-old Germany native, submitted the kit, along with several other space kits, roughly three years ago. It gained thousands of votes of support from the Lego Ideas family, but it never made it to home base.

"We decided to dive into the archives of Lego Ideas projects that had gathered 10,000 supporters but hadnt quite made it into production," the Lego Group Engagement Manager Hasan Jensen said in an online announcement. "We decided that one of these great ideas should have a second chance, so we thought we would turn the Lego Ideas process upside down. This time we started the internal review and came up with four exciting projects that we thought showed the greatest potential and then it was up to the Lego Ideas community to decide which of the four would be made into Lego Ideas set number 29."

The initial project was built on a larger scale and took Ruge, a computer engineer who works for a company that builds trains, more than three years to design. This time around, however, the kit was much smaller, so it only took him about four days to create (Read more about Ruge and his process at Lego Ideas).

The official kit will be available online and at Lego retailers on February 1 for $69.99, plus tax. Or, if technology, global collaboration, and the search for the meaning of the universe is of no interest to you, Lego is also selling a Flintstones kit with the Flintstones car for $59.99.

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A Lego International Space Station kit is on the way - Autoblog

Riding high but not that high the International Space Station will pass over and within sight of Central Virginians on Wednesday from 6:35 to 6:40 p.m. (It will do so again Thursday night, but the weather is likelier to be cloudy, so Wednesday is the night to get your view.) The space station will be 260 miles above Earth, traveling from southwest to northeast.

The ISS looks like a very bright star moving slowly across the sky, University of Virginia astronomy professor Ed Murphy said Friday in a newsletter to members of the Friends of the McCormick Observatory. It is visible when the sun has set for us on the ground, but the sun is still shining at the altitude of the ISS.

What viewers will see is sunlight reflecting off the solar panels of the space station.

Murphy said the space stations orbit is oriented in a way that makes it visible to Central Virginians every few months as the craft travels southwest to northeast, with six astronauts currently aboard. A few weeks later, it passes over again, traveling northwest to southeast. Those next passes will occur in early February.

Murphy recommends that space station-gazers go outside this evening a few minutes before the pass to allow time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Face the southwest. Then, a minute or two after 6:35, if the sky is reasonably clear of clouds, you will see the space station appear like a particularly bright star moving fairly slowly upward across the sky. After a few minutes, as it glides toward the northeast, it will pass into the shadow of the Earth and quickly fade from view. The craft is traveling at 17,100 miles per hour, but appears to move slowly because of its distance from Earth.

Aboard the space station are NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch, who on Monday Martin Luther King Jr. Day replaced some batteries on the craft, and thereby completed historys third-ever all-woman spacewalk. (They accomplished the first all-female spacewalk last October.)

This has really been an amazing experience, Meir is quoted by media as having said after Mondays expedition outside the ship. Today is also Martin Luther King Day, a personal hero for both me and Christina. I will borrow his wise words for this moment: We may have all come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now. When one has as spectacular a view as we had today looking down on our one common home, planet Earth, his words resonate loudly.

Tonight, Central Virginians have an opportunity to look up to the astronauts, as they sail overhead looking at us.

For more information about ISS tracking, click here. For information about the Friends of the McCormick Observatory, click here.

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International Space Station to Pass Within View Wednesday Evening - UVA Today

ESA and Airbus have signed a contract for the Bartolomeo platform on the International Space Station.

The Bartolomeo platform from Airbus opens new opportunities for research on the International Space Station (ISS). The European Space Agency ESA has now booked a payload slot for a Norwegian instrument to monitor plasma density in the Earths atmosphere.

The Bartolomeo platform named after Christopher Columbus younger brother is currently in the final stage of launch preparation at Airbus in Bremen, Germany, and is scheduled for launch to the ISS in March 2020. Bartolomeo is developed on a commercial basis by Airbus using its own investment funds and will be operated in cooperation with ESA.

The platform can accommodate up to 12 different experiment modules, supplying them with power and providing data transmission to Earth. Bartolomeo is suitable for many different experiments. Due to the unique position of the platform with a direct view of Earth from 400 kilometres, Earth observation including trace gas measurements or CO2 monitoring of the atmosphere are possible, with data useful for climate protection or for use by private data service providers.

The Multi-Needle Langmuir Probe (m-NLP) is an instrument from the University of Oslo and the Norwegian company Eidsvoll Electronics to measure ionospheric plasma densities. With its relatively low orbit, the ISS passes near the peak plasma density of the ionosphere. The m-NLP is currently the only instrument in the world capable of resolving ionospheric plasma density variations at spatial scales below one metre. It will gather valuable data from the equatorial and mid-latitude ionosphere, enabling study of the dynamic processes in this region in unprecedented detail. The Langmuir Probe will map plasma characteristics around the globe.

The mission is financed through the ESA PRODEX programme and supported by ESAs Directorate Human & Robotic Exploration. The payload is scheduled to launch on ISS resupply flight NG-14 in October 2020 and will be the first payload to be installed on the Bartolomeo Platform outside the European Columbus Module.

Together with UNOOSA (United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs), Airbus is currently inviting tenders for further research opportunities on the platform, in particular to enable research institutions from developing countries to participate in scientific space research.

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ESA, Airbus join forces on the Space Station - Spatial Source

SpaceX launched one of its Falcon 9 rockets on Sunday, only to watch it erupt in a ball of fire.

But the explosion was intentional and went exactly as planned. It was the final step in a long process of testing the company's Crew Dragon capsule a spaceship designed to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Boeing has designed a similar spacecraft, and the two companies are racing to fly NASA astronauts on US-made spacecraft for the first time in nearly a decade.

Since NASA ended its space-shuttle program in 2011, the agency has relied exclusively on Russia to ferry its astronauts to and from orbit in Soyuz spacecraft. But those seats have gotten increasingly expensive: A single round-trip seat now costs NASA about $85 million. So the space agency launched its Commercial Crew program to spur the development of new American-made spacecraft.

The program put private companies in competition for billions of dollars' worth of government contracts. SpaceX and Boeing came out on top.

SpaceX's latest test has teed Elon Musk's rocket company up to launch its first-ever human passengers this spring.

"This critical test puts us on the cusp of once again launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil," Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, tweeted shortly after the mission.

Here's how SpaceX and Boeing became NASA's best shot at resurrecting American spaceflight.

Read the original here:

How SpaceX and Boeing became NASA's best shot to revive US spaceflight - Business Insider

SpaceX is poised to launch its first astronauts into space this spring: Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

Their flight on the company's Crew Dragon spaceship will mark the first time an American spacecraft has carried NASA astronauts since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

Behnken and Hurley's liftoff is expected to launch a new era of US spaceflight, since it will allow NASA to stop relying on Russian launch systems to get astronauts into space. It will probably also make the two astronauts the first to ever fly a commercial spacecraft.

"Bob and I were lucky enough to be selected together," Hurley told The Atlantic in September. "As we get closer to launch, things in the last year have actually been pretty hectic. We've been spending increasing amounts of time in California, because that's where most of the work is being done for Dragon."

In preparation, they've run through emergency procedures, undergone extensive training the Crew Dragon's mechanisms, worn their new spacesuits, and met with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

"People to a degree think it's pretty glamorous to be able to go into space, but it's actually like a messy camping trip," Hurley told Reuters in June.

Here's how the astronauts were selected and how they're preparing to fly Crew Dragon to the space station.

More:

NASA astronauts to fly SpaceX Crew Dragon in spring how they prepare - Business Insider

Cape Town-based Xinabox R&D, a developer of modular electronics and IoT kits for rapid prototyping and STEM education, is partnering with U.S-based Quest for Space to launch experiments to the International Space Station (ISS).

The XinaBox experiment alongside 17 other experiments affiliated with the Quest for Space Program will be launched to the ISS on 7 February 2020, onboard a Northrop Grumman NG-13 Launch Vehicle on a resupply mission from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia. Fourteen of these experiment modules are being developed by Partner Schools as part of the Quest for Space Program, one by Texas A & M University, and two Quest Improved Design Qualification Units.

San Jose-based Valley Christian High School, started the Space Lab Program in 2009 to enable students to research, design and build unique science experiments that operate aboard the ISS for a minimum of 30 days. Quest for Space is a non-profit focused on making these and other programs available to schools globally.

In an email chat with Space in Africa, Dan Saldana, Director of ISS and Satellite Programs at Valley Christian Schools, notes that the Space Lab Program was developed to help students identify and enhance their passion by applying their technical and managerial skills in the development of their unique science experiment. The goal is for the students to develop, launch and perform a post-flight analysis on their experiment within the school year.

Since the first launch to the ISS in January 2010 onboard a Japanese HIV-3 ISS Service Vehicle carrying a student plant growth experiment, Quest for Space has expanded its program beyond the shores of the United States, to include partner schools from Finland, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia. As of today, Quest for Space and its Partner Schools have launched a total of 138 student experiments to the ISS.

The launch in February will include the XinaBox experiment as a pilot to demonstrate cutting-edge technology of the XK92 xChips Xinaboxs latest kit developed for the ISS mission. Schools across the globe will be engaged to concurrently collect data, with their XK92 kit, for data analysis and interpretation on Earth. Student teams will compare their data with that recovered from the ISS XK92, upon its return to Earth on the SpaceX 20 mission.

While onboard the ISS, the XinaBox payload will collect various datasets ranging from temperature to humidity, pressure, volatile organic compounds, g-force and acceleration. The datasets will be stored on a SD card to be assessed once the experiments return to Earth after some weeks.

The XinaBox payload, just as other Quest for Space experiments, will independently carry out its research after it is unpacked, without requiring assistance from the astronauts on the ISS.

During the mission, schools and engineering clubs within the XinaBox ecosystem will develop and run mirror experiments using the XK92 xChips to collect and analyze data to be compared with the dataset on the SD card from the ISS.

Schools can record more data at the same time, which means that they are not only able to record their data and compare it with the data from the International Space Station, but they can also look at the data from other institutions that have conducted the experiment anywhere in the world, Bjarke Gotfredsen, the inventor and co-founder of XinaBox told Space in Africa.

The idea is to have students in a classroom mirror science experiments conducted on the International Space Station and experience the dream of collecting space data for scientific research, Judi Sandrock, co-founder of XinaBox, said, pointing out that they intend making available the ISS mission payload as a learning kit for schools to build upon.

We would like the students to come up with different ideas of what they could learn from the large selection of valuable data sets collected on the SD card while onboard the ISS. We are looking at the mission from a scientific inquiry perspective. This will spur students curiosity and enable schools to expand the outcomes of the research.

Commenting on how the mission aligns with the goals of the Quest for Space Program, Saldana said the program takes the student from the concept of their idea to the shipping of their final product through analyzing the experimental results upon its return. Students have hands-on experience specifying, designing, and building their one of a kind experiment by meeting defined milestones and presenting their design to NASA Safety for review.

Three things make the XinaBox xChips viable for many more schools around the world. One is that they dont need a lab to put it together. Two, the kit itself is not expensive compared to what people normally send to the International Space Station. Three, because it takes up so little space, it can be easily packaged together with the Quest for Space program. These three factors help to expand or open up space for many more schools, Gotfredsen said.

While the launch in February 2020 is a proof of concept for what Judi Sandrock believes is the first of many in the companys partnership with Quest for Space, it is important to point out that this is not XinaBoxs first orbit experience.

On 17 April 2019, the ThinSat Programme launched a constellation of 55 student picosatellites into space, using XinaBox as the payload to study weather conditions and carry out scientific experiments in Extreme Low Earth Orbits. XinaBox supplied the kits and content for building the picosatellites and supported sixteen schools in the Western Cape of South Africa that collectively developed one of the picosatellites.

Xinabox co-founders believe the new partnership between Quest for Space and XinaBox will broaden opportunities for schools in emerging regions, particularly in Africa, to send experiments to the ISS through the Quest for Space Program.

Judi said the Quest for Space Program is comparatively attractive to schools across the world, adding that the introduction of Xinabox will further lower the cost considerably because the XinaBox xChips take less space and energy.

We look forward to having Partner Schools from Africa and other parts of the world join our Quest for Space Programs, Saldana said.

All of the Quest for Space Lab Partner Schools are invited to attend and compete in the annual American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR) Conference student poster competition. The students prepare and present a poster on their experiment to the NASA Research Scientists, and the winners get cash prizes and an opportunity to present to and network with NASAs top research scientists.

The Quest for Space Lab educational research flight opportunity was made available to Valley Christian High School of San Jose, California, via a partnership with the Quest Institute for Quality Education, and by Space Tango who provides both the payload architecture and in-flight operations on the International Space Station.

Read the original here:

XinaBox, Quest for Space To Send Experiments To The International Space Station - Space in Africa

EL PASO, Texas -- Biomedical research scientists from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso and The University of Texas at El Paso are partnering up to send "artificial mini-hearts" to the International Space Station to better understand how microgravity affects the function of the human heart.

The three-year project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the space station's U.S. National Laboratory, brings together TTUHSC El Paso faculty scientist Munmun Chattopadhyay, Ph.D., and UTEP biomedical engineer Binata Joddar, Ph.D. The researchers will collaborate in their Earth-bound labs to create tiny (less than 1 millimeter thick) heart-tissue structures, known as cardiac organoids, using human stem cells and 3D bioprinting technology.

By exposing the organoids to the near-weightless environment of the orbiting space station, the researchers hope to gain a better understanding of a health condition known as cardiac atrophy, which is a reduction and weakening of heart tissue. Cardiac atrophy often affects astronauts who spend long periods of time in microgravity. A weakened heart muscle has difficulty pumping blood to the body, and can lead to problems such as fainting, irregular heartbeat, heart valve problems and even heart failure. Cardiac atrophy is also associated with chronic disease.

The first year of the project, which began in September, will focus on research design. During this phase, Dr. Joddar will use 3D printing to fabricate the cardiac organoids by coupling cardiac cells in physiological ratios to mimic heart tissue. The second year will be centered on preparing the organoid payload for a rocket launch and mission in space. The third and final year of the research will involve analyzing data from the experiment after the organoids are returned to Earth.

The project will also provide an educational opportunity for the El Paso community, with a workshop for K-12 students to learn about tissue engineering projects on the space station. It will also include a seminar for medical students, interns and residents about the benefits and challenges of transitioning research from Earth-based laboratories into space.

View original post here:

El Paso scientists team up for heart research project at the International Space Station - KVIA El Paso

Fallout 76s upcoming Wastelanders expansion will add two new faction settlements: settlers and raiders. One of these looks like a Lincoln Log fort while the other is made out of a crashed space station. Can you guess which one players are already gravitating towards?

Yesterday, Bethesda shared some screenshots of the two new locations and more information about the people living there. The settlers, led by Paige (the former head of the D.C. Construction Workers Union), are a hard-working, salt of the earth lot who have taken up refuge in Spruce Knob toward the southeastern part of the map. The raiders, meanwhile, have come back to Appalachia to take back territory theyve claimed for themselves before it falls into the hands of the settlers.

Their leader, Meg, looks like shes seen some shit out in the wasteland and probably isnt one for negotiating mutually beneficial deals. The crashed space station she and her gang call home is up in the northern edge of the map, and frankly it looks way more fun. Most raider camps tend to look like if your friend of a friends screamo band played their basement show inside of a scrapyard barbeque pit, but Megs looks like a sci-fi arcade.

In Wastelanders Im going to check out the settlers, wrote one person on Reddit. If they are blowing glass, making electronic components, making their own ceramics...Ill stay. But if its an entire camp of Sturges hammering at the same section of wall for months I think I have to go raider.

Sturges was a synth repairman from Fallout 4 who never did jack shit. Understandably, some players are worried that the big NPC update many are expecting to finally make Fallout 76 good will only repeat some of the last games more uninspired moments. Nothing beats protecting the innocent, but I do envy the raiders and their space station town, wrote another player.

The new characters, dialogue trees, quests, and romance options coming in the Wastelanders update will all be based in one of the two new settlements, with Bethesda heavily implying that a players reputation with one will hurt their reputation with the other, forcing them to choose one over the other.

Based on their sense of style and interior design, Im gonna have to go raiders on this one, despite my deep-rooted commitment to labor solidarity.

See original here:

Which Fallout 76 Faction Is Cooler, The Crashed Space Station Or The Log Cabin? - Kotaku

Gaganyaan, the first Indian human space flight set for 2022, and a subsequent space station would pave the way for continuous Indian presence in space, K. Sivan, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space, said here on Wednesday.

The crewed space mission would also help to build a framework for long-term global partnerships that benefit society in many ways, he said at the inaugural of a three-day international symposium on human space flight.

Gaganyaan was not just an ISRO project. It was a national endeavour that involved numerous agencies, laboratories, disciplines, industries and departments. It was expected that new science will emerge from Gaganyaan and enhance our science and technology capabilities, Dr..Sivan told an international gathering of space experts, decision-makers, associated industries, astronauts and students.

One ISS [International Space Station] put up by multiple countries may not be enough. Regional ecosystems will be needed and Gaganyaan will focus on regional needs: food, water and energy security, he said.

From employment to security [food, energy and so on], most countries have similar goals, and these partnerships can help meet those goals. Benefits from possible spin-offs are aplenty, he observed.

The target of realising Gaganyaan by August 2022, he admitted, was challenging. However, ISRO already has the GSLV-MarkIII as a working launch vehicle. It had proven systems for re-entry and recovery of the crew capsule, space-qualified parachutes for safe descent of crew and was working on a comprehensive emergency escape system for astronauts. The missing systems, namely human life science and support system, are being developed now, he stated.

ISRO is getting four candidate astronauts from the Air Force to train in Russia and taking French assistance for training in their health upkeep during space travel.

K. Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, referred to the challenges of climate change that warranted coordinated global efforts. Space collaborations, he said, had shown the world how to tackle such international issues.

As for the critical area of life sciences that is important in a human flight, he said that many more studies were needed for a full understanding in spite of numerous astronaut missions.

Key officials from eight space agencies and five astronauts from five countries are in Bengaluru for the event that focusses on the challenges and future trends of human flights.

The symposium is organised by ISRO, the International Astronautical Association (IAA) and the Aeronautical Society of India.

Among the key participants are Joel Montalbano from NASA's ISS Program Office, director of Russian ROSCOSMOS's department of manned spaceflight Alexander Bykov, IAA Secretary General Jean-Michel Contant, French agency CNES's head of the launch vehicle directorate Jean-Marc Astorg, European Space Agency's inter-agency Coordinator Thomas Reiter, Japan Exploration and Space Agency's Director-General of Space flight Technology Shizuo Yamamoto and Romanian Space Agency CEO Marius-Ioan Piso.

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Gaganyaan, space station will pave way for continuous Indian presence in space: ISRO chief - The Hindu