HOUSTON The second all-female spacewalk in history continued the work of the first, as the same two NASA astronauts upgraded batteries outside the International Space Station.

Jessica Meir and Christina Koch completed a 7-hour and 29-minute extravehicular activity (EVA, or spacewalk) on Wednesday (Jan. 15), replacing the batteries that store power for one pair of the space station's electricity-generating solar arrays. The excursion resumed the work that the two Expedition 61 flight engineers performed in October, which made headlines as the first spacewalk by two women.

"It was truly amazing for Christina and me to be back out here today," Meir said during a live broadcast of the spacewalk. "We have been talking about it a lot and it was really something we were looking forward to."

Related: The amazing spacewalks of Expedition 61 in photos

The spacewalk began at 6:35 a.m. EST (1135 GMT), when both Koch and Meir switched their spacesuits over to internal power.

"It's a beautiful view out here," said Meir, soon after exiting the Quest airlock.

The two spacewalkers removed three degraded nickel-hydrogen batteries and installed two more powerful lithium-ion batteries for the space station's port, or left side, outboard solar arrays. Meir and Koch stowed the older batteries, which had been in place for the past decade, on an external pallet for their later disposal and installed adapter plates to enable the new batteries to work with the orbiting laboratory's power system.

"Awesome job," radioed astronaut Stephanie Wilson from inside Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, from where she was helping to guide Meir and Koch through the spacewalk's tasks. "We made great progress toward upgrading the batteries on the 4B side. You're both awesome, nice work!"

Each battery measures about half the size of a refrigerator, or 40 inches long by 37 inches wide by 19 inches high (101 by 94 by 48 centimeters). The old nickel-hydrogen batteries weigh 365 lbs. (165 kilograms) each. The lithium-ion replacements weigh 428 lbs. (194 kg).

The work contributed to a larger, ongoing effort to replace all 48 of the station's degraded nickel-hydrogen batteries with the more capable lithium-ion units. One lithium-ion battery and one adapter plate can replace two nickel-hydrogen batteries. The work began with a series of spacewalks in January 2017 and has continued as Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicles (HTVs) have delivered the new batteries to the station.

Meir and Koch's spacewalk on Wednesday proceeded mostly to plan, with the exception of a minor issue with Koch's spacesuit early in the EVA.

"Christina's helmet lights are not attached," radioed Meir to Mission Control, as the assembly normally attached to the top of Koch's spacesuit helmet dangled from its power cable. "The cable is still attached, of course, but the camera and the helmet lights have been detached from her helmet."

Meir attempted to reattach the light assembly, but it would not lock into place. The two lights are used as an aid when the space station passes into Earth's shadow and is not lit by the sun.

"We think with the light locks installed you are not going to be able to get the helmet light seated onto the grooves. So instead, we would like to de-mate the power cable and completely remove the assembly," Wilson told the two spacewalkers.

The spacewalk continued with Koch staying close to Meir so that she was aided by the lights still attached to Meir's helmet.

Wednesday's EVA, which ended at 2:04 p.m. EST (1904 GMT), marked Koch's fifth and Meir's second career spacewalks.

Meir, who served as EV1 (or lead spacewalker) and wore the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit with red stripes, has logged a total of 14 hours and 46 minutes on her two EVAs. Koch, who as EV2 wore the suit with no identifiers, has a total of 35 hours and 17 minutes spanning her five spacewalks.

This was the 225th EVA devoted to the International Space Station since assembly of the orbiting outpost began in 1998.

Meir and Koch are scheduled to again venture outside together on Monday (Jan. 20) to complete the replacement of the batteries on the port P6 truss.

Robert Pearlman is a Space.com contributing writer and the editor of collectSPACE.com, a Space.com partner site and the leading space history news publication. Follow collectSPACE on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook.

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Astronauts upgrade space station batteries in second all-woman spacewalk - Space.com

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft that ferried musclebound mice to the International Space Station and back can be seen at the top of this picture taken from the station on Dec. 20, 2019. NASA hide caption

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft that ferried musclebound mice to the International Space Station and back can be seen at the top of this picture taken from the station on Dec. 20, 2019.

In early December at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, two anxious scientists were about to send 20 years of research into orbit.

"I feel like our heart and soul is going up in that thing," Dr. Emily Germain-Lee told her husband, Dr. Se-Jin Lee, as they waited arm-in-arm for a SpaceX rocket to launch.

A few seconds later the spacecraft took off, transporting some very unusual mice to the International Space Station, where they would spend more than a month in near zero gravity.

Ordinarily, that would cause the animals' bones to weaken and their muscles to atrophy. But Lee and Germain-Lee, a power couple in the research world, were hoping that wouldn't happen with these mice.

"It was worth waiting 20 years for," Lee said as the Falcon 9 rocket headed toward space. "And someday it may really help people," Germain-Lee added.

The couple hope that what they learn from these mice will lead to new treatments for millions of people with conditions that weaken muscles and bones. Among those who might eventually benefit: children with muscular dystrophy or brittle bone disease, cancer patients with muscle wasting, bedridden patients recovering from hip fractures, older people whose bones and muscles have become dangerously weak, and astronauts on long space voyages.

Dr. Emily Germain-Lee and Dr. Se-Jin Lee waited eagerly at Kennedy Space Center for a SpaceX rocket to launch their experimental mice into space in December. Courtesy of Jennifer Read hide caption

Dr. Emily Germain-Lee and Dr. Se-Jin Lee waited eagerly at Kennedy Space Center for a SpaceX rocket to launch their experimental mice into space in December.

For Lee and Germain-Lee, both professors at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, the launch represented a high point in a partnership that began in the late 1970s.

"We met when I was 18 and we were biochem majors in college together," Germain-Lee said.

The Harvard undergraduates clicked. And in those early years, Emily had a teenager's big dreams about what she and Se-Jin might accomplish.

"Wouldn't that be amazing if one day we worked on some project together that had incredible meaning and helped people," she recalled thinking. "All that stuff."

The couple went to medical school together at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

She went on to become a pediatric endocrinologist who treated children with rare bone disorders. He added a Ph.D. to his M.D. and started a lab that studied muscle growth.

Along the way, they got married and had a son. And in the late 1990s, Se-Jin Lee got kind of famous for helping to create some bulked-up rodents known as "mighty mice."

The mouse on the right has been engineered to have four times the muscle mass of a normal lab mouse.

Lee showed me one when I visited his lab in 2006. It had been genetically engineered to have about four times the muscle mass of a normal mouse.

Lee had altered the animal's genes so it wouldn't produce a protein called myostatin. Ordinarily, myostatin limits the growth of muscles. Without it, you get the mouse version of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"If you open up the mouse and actually look at the muscles it is really unbelievable," he told me. "These animals are almost getting to the point where they don't really look like mice." Lee thought his discovery might help people with diseases that weaken muscles. So he began looking for a drug that could block myostatin and duplicate the effects of genetic engineering.

Meanwhile, as Germain-Lee treated more and more children with bone diseases, she noticed that weak bones could lead to weak muscles.

"My bone patients don't escape muscle loss because they have long periods of time where they can't move or their whole lifetime where they're wheelchair bound," she said.

And because she also sees patients with diseases like muscular dystrophy, she realized it could work the other way. "Any muscle disease leads to weakness and any weakness leads to bone fragility eventually," Germain-Lee said.

At home, the couple spent many evenings discussing muscle, bone, her patients and his work on myostatin.

"Probably most people would think we're really odd," Germain-Lee said. "But it's given great meaning to our life."

Over the years, they realized that what many patients really needed was a way to simultaneously strengthen muscle and bone. And remarkably, they eventually identified a drug with the potential to do that.

It's a substance that affects not only myostatin, but also a protein called activin, which is involved in the growth of both muscle and bone. And it would bring together the parallel lines of research each scientist had been following for decades.

Germain-Lee wanted to test the drug on mice in her lab that developed a version of osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease. "I said, oh my gosh I really have to try this, and Se-Jin said sure," she said. "And those were the first set of experiments we did together."

The experiments, published in 2015, were successful. The mice developed both stronger bones and bigger muscles. And the results helped inspire Lee to revive an idea he'd been pursuing for two decades. It involved astronauts.

"Astronauts in space have lots of health things that they need to be thinking about," he said, "but certainly at the top of that list would be muscle loss and bone loss.

Without gravity, astronauts can lose up to 20 percent of their muscle mass in less than two weeks, according to research by NASA. And as muscles atrophy, bones begin to weaken too.

So starting in the late 1990s, Lee had approached NASA about funding an experiment to see whether his mighty mice maintained their muscles in space. But his efforts to interest the agency in the project "failed miserably," he said.

That changed after the couple had moved to Hartford, where, in addition to their faculty posts at the University of Connecticut, Germain Lee holds an appointment at Connecticut Children's Medical Center and Lee works at The Jackson Laboratory.

And it was through The Jackson Laboratory that Lee got a chance to send his mighty mice to the International Space Station.

In late 2018, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the International Space Station, contacted The Jackson Laboratory about potential science projects. And Lee's new employer suggested the mighty mice.

Lee and Germain-Lee quickly assembled an experiment that included not only the bulked up rodents, but normal mice that would receive the drug that (on earth) builds both muscle and bone.

The mice, which had gone into orbit in December, were brought back to earth in early January. And since then, Lee and Germain-Lee have been hard at work analyzing what happened to the animals' muscles and bones.

It will take months to know for sure whether any of the mice were able to defy the usual effects of weightlessness. Also scientists rarely discuss experiments before they're published.

But the couple says preliminary results look promising.

See the rest here:

Mighty Mice In Space May Help Disabled People On Earth : Shots - Health News - NPR

Following a ride home on a SpaceX Dragon capsule last week, the first food to be baked in space (a batch of cookies, of course) has landed back on Earth.

The space cookies began their journey as chocolate chip cookie dough that launched alongside the Zero G oven, the first oven designed to work in the microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The cookie dough and oven launched to the station in November on a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft and returned Jan. 7 on the SpaceX Dragon.

Just in time for Christmas, the astronauts aboard the space station baked the pre-made dough (which was provided by the hotel chain DoubleTree) one cookie at a time in their Zero G oven, making five cookies total, a DoubleTree representative confirmed to Space.com in an email.

Related: Space Food Evolution: How Astronaut Chow Has Changed (Photos)

"I can confirm that five DoubleTree by Hilton chocolate chip cookies were baked in space and the cookies are set to come back down to Earth today via the SpaceX Dragon return," the representative said.

"We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year," NASA astronaut Christina Koch tweeted from the space station last month as she posed with one of the baked cookies, which was wrapped up.

Related: DoubleTree Offers Limited Edition 'Cookies in Space' Tin

Before the dough and the oven launched, people wondered if the space station would smell like fresh-baked cookies and what the pastries would look like. Would they be puffy, spherical even? (And did any of the astronauts sneak a bite?)

From the image Koch shared on twitter, it's tough to tell exactly what shape the dough took once it was baked in space, but it does seem to have a unique shape. More information about the cookies a look that will be explained after they are analyzed following their return to Earth.

"Once we have confirmed that the cookies have indeed arrived home, we'll share full details, as well as a video and photos of the cookies being baked on the ISS," the DoubleTree representative added.

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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The first cookies baked in space are back on Earth! - Space.com

Astronauts are trained to handle dangerous situations and are prepared for emergencies that could occur in outer space.

"We're worried about fire. We're worried about toxic atmosphere," NASA astronaut Drew Morgan said in the latest instalment of Euronews' Ask Our Astronaut.

The astronaut was responding to one of your questions submitted on social media: "What is the biggest and most terrifying thing astronauts fear about being in space?"

Euronews space correspondent and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano picked his favourite questions from more than 100 submitted online.

"There is always the possibility that we could depressurise or that a hole could be punctured by a micrometeoroid or something and we could leak our atmosphere overboard," Morgan said, adding that they train for that regularly. But he said astronauts don't think about that on a daily basis.

"We know that our line of work is dangerous and we train for that and we're prepared for that," he said.

Instead, Parmitano and Morgan said they're focused on making sure they don't embarrass their space agencies and countries. They just want to do their job effectively.

"The only fear that we have is the unknown," Parmitano added. "So the things that we are ready for, that we are prepared for, don't scare us."

Watch the full report from the International Space Station in the video player above.

Read more from the original source:

Ask our Astronaut | What do astronauts living at the International Space Station fear most? - Euronews

Image 1 of 34

Expedition 61 Cmdr. Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency assists NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan (left) and Christina Koch (right) in their U.S. spacesuits before a spacewalk on Oct. 6, 2019. During their spacewalk, Morgan and Koch replaced some old batteries on the space station's solar arrays.

NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan (left) and Christina Koch (right) are suited up inside the Quest airlock before beginning a 7 hour-long spacewalk on Oct. 6, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan works to replace old nickel-hydrogen batteries with new lithium-ion batteries during his second spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Christina Koch on Oct. 11, 2019. During that spacewalk, Morgan and Koch paid tribute to cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the world's first spacewalker, who died that same day.

Christina Koch (left) and Andrew Morgan work while tethered on the Port 6 truss segment of the InternationalSpaceStation to replace older hydrogen-nickel batteries with newer, more powerful lithium-ion batteries during the six-hour and 45-minutespacewalk, on Oct. 11, 2019.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir prepare for their firstspacewalktogether on Oct. 18, 2019, to replace a failed power controller on the InternationalSpaceStation's P6 truss structure.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch (left) and Jessica Meir fist bump each other during a spacesuit fit check on Oct. 12, 2019.

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir (left) and Christina Koch pose together during a spacesuit fit check on Oct. 12, 2019, ahead of their historic first all-woman spacewalk.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir waves at the camera during her historic spacewalk with fellow NASA astronaut Christina Koch (out of frame), on Oct. 18, 2019.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir prepares to exit the crew lock portion of the Quest airlock to head out into the vacuum of space on Oct. 18, 2019.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir is pictured during aspacewalkwith fellow NASA astronaut Christina Koch (out of frame), on Oct. 18, 2019.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch takes a "space-selfie" with the Earth behind her and reflecting in her helmet during her spacewalk together with fellow NASA astronaut Jessica Meir (out of frame), on Oct. 18, 2019.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch prepares to exit the crew lock portion of the Quest airlock and head out into the vacuum ofspace for her spacewalk together with NASA astronaut Jessica Meir (not pictured) on Oct. 18, 2019.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir is pictured tethered to the outside of the InternationalSpaceStation during her spacewalk together with NASA astronaut Christina Koch (not pictured), on Oct. 18, 2019.

Look ma, no hands!NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan waves as he is photographed next to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (lower left) during his spacewalk on Nov. 15, 2019.

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano "stands" on the end of the International Space Station's Canadarm2 robotic arm duringthe first of four spacewalksto repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment together with NASA astronaut Drew Morgan, on Nov. 15, 2019.

"My first #SpacewalkForAMS task: install a special handling aid before attempting the removal of the debris shield," ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano tweeted along with this photo, on Nov. 20, 2019.

The debris shield that once protected NASA's Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer from micrometeoroid impacts floats away from the International Space Station after two astronauts removed it and flung it into space during aspacewalkon Nov. 15, 2019.

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano takes a "space-selfie" with his spacesuit's helmet visor down during the secondspacewalkto repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan is tethered to the Starboard-3 truss segment of the International Space Station during the secondspacewalkto repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan, whose spacesuit is outfitted with a variety of tools and cameras, holds on to a handrail during the secondspacewalkto repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan is tethered to the Starboard-3 truss segment of the International Space Station during the secondspacewalkto repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

EuropeanSpaceAgency astronaut Luca Parmitano holds a camera during the secondspacewalkto repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano is attached to a portable foot restraint at the end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm during the secondspacewalkto repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan points his camera toward himself to take a "space-selfie" on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan prepares to take a photograph with his special space camera, which is protected from the microgravity environment of space with special shielding, on Nov. 22, 2019.

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano takes a photo while attached to a portable foot restraint at the end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm during a spacewalk on Nov. 22, 2019.

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano takes a photograph during the secondspacewalkto repair the InternationalSpaceStation's cosmic particle detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan takes a "space-selfie" with his spacesuit's helmet visor down during the secondspacewalkto repair the InternationalSpaceStation's cosmic particle detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan (left) and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano suit up for their second spacewalk together on Nov. 22, 2019.

NASA astronaut and U.S. Army Colonel Andrew Morgan displays his Army pride ahead of the Army versus Navy football game on Dec. 12, 2019, during the third spacewalk together with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, on Dec. 2, 2019.

NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan is pictured outside the International Space Station on Dec. 2, 2019, during his third spacewalk to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer with ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano (not pictured).

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano carries the new thermal pump system that was installed on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer during the spacewalk on Dec. 2, 2019.

European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano snapped this shot of his feet inside of the foot restraint while "riding" the Canadarm2 robotic arm during a spacewalk on Dec. 2, 2019.

Continued here:

In photos: The amazing spacewalks of Expedition 61 - Space.com

Q&A: Rep. Pete Olson talks about Houstons space legacy and how Congress can help protect future missions from political upheaval.

Exclusive op-ed from retired Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast on why the Space Force must protect the American economy in space to counter China.

Story Continued Below

Tomorrow: SpaceX is expected to conduct its in-flight abort test of the Crew Dragon capsule the last major milestone before flying crew.

WELCOME TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. Email us at jklimas@politico.com, bbender@politico.com or dbrown@politico.com with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @jacqklimas, @bryandbender and @dave_brown24. And dont forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page here for articles, Q&As, opinion and more.

SPACE CITY, USA. The Johnson Space Center is the control hub for the International Space Station and the training ground for NASA astronauts. Rep. Pete Olson, a Texas Republican who represents the Houston suburbs, is trying to ensure what was officially dubbed Space City in 1967 retains its place for future projects, including the Gateway, a space station orbiting the moon that is set to launch in 2022.

Every single human being who has gone up on the space station or on the space shuttle, whether foreign or American, have trained for a couple years at Johnson Space Center," Olson, a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, told us."Johnson Space Center has a neutral buoyancy lab, a big massive pool to do spacewalking prior to going to the space station. Thats irreplaceable.... Thats why we should always be the heart and soul of American human space flight.

Olson also said providing some stability to Trumps 2024 moon goal is one of his top priorities before retiring at the end of the year by pushing for multi-year appropriations for NASAs signature projects. The main goal is to get this program going to the moon and make it happen.

Rep. Pete Olson with the crew of STS-130, a 2010 mission to the International Space Station. | Courtesy of Rep. Pete Olson.

AN EXPANDED MISSION FOR THE SPACE FORCE. The new space branch, which got its first officer this week when Gen. John Raymond was sworn in as its leader, must extend its reach beyond protecting military assets orbiting the Earth to defending the broader space economy, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast argues in a new POLITICO op-ed. For the Space Force to keep pace with China, it must separate from the Air Force and pursue new missions like establishing spacecraft fueling stations in orbit, protecting important travel corridors or lines of communication and deploying personnel to space.

The problem is that the Air Force is proposing a Space Force that will not protect the marketplace of space beyond Earths orbit. But China is, Kwast writes. China is building a navy in space, with the equivalent of battleships and destroyers that can move fast and kill. America's satellites will be helpless to win against the superior speed and firepower in Chinas force.

Defense officials met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday to lay out the path ahead for the Space Force, including the decisions that need to be made over the coming months. Those include administrative tasks like like assigning troops to the new service and paying them to figuring out which, if any, bases will be transferred to the new branch, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Thursday.

Vice President Mike Pence told us after Raymond's swearing-in as the services first chief of space operations on Tuesday that It's going to be a very busy year. We think it's going to be a process over the next 12 to 18 months.

BUDGET WATCH. Space watchers are eagerly awaiting the release of the fiscal 2021 budget request, which will provide the first public look at the full cost of the Artemis moon program through the expected first launch in 2024. The president's budget request, which will be released Feb. 10, typically includes a five-year estimate. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has previously estimated the full price tag between $20 and $30 billion.

The budget request will show how serious the Trump administration is about the 2024 goal, says Casey Dreier, a senior space policy adviser at the Planetary Society. I dont know what the request will be, but for me personally to take it seriously, I expect to see at least $4 billion per year added on to support Artemis," he said.

Other items to looking for in the new budget request? A funding commitment for the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission and a program to bring a sample of Martian soil back to Earth, says Dreier. Hes also waiting to see if the administration will once again cancel a number of Earth science and STEM education programs cuts that Congress has reversed before. Weve seen Congress reject those three times in a row now. It would be great to see the administration and Congress aligned, he said.

EUROPEAN SPACE MOGULS STRUGGLE TO LAUNCH. Difficulty fundraising coupled with a sluggish pace of innovation at the European Space Agency are grounding European space entrepreneurs, our colleague Joshua Posaner reports for POLITICO Europe ahead of the two-day European Space Conference that begins Tuesday in Brussels. In one case, Robert Boehme, the founder of PT Scientists, which seeks to transport payloads up to 300 kilograms to the lunar surface, said his company was effectively killed by NASAs Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which will pay companies for delivery services to the moon. "The moment they announced this, all the investment negotiations we had were basically dead in the water," said Boehme. Potential backers told him to pack up, take his best staff and set up shop in the U.S., Posaner writes.

European space tourism faces a similar uphill battle, in part because it is so difficult to gain political support for building spaceports, POLITICO Europes Charlie Duxbury writes. There have been too few politicians who can see the benefits from the many spinoff effects, such as local jobs, increased tourism and research possibilities, said Christer Fuglesang, Swedens first NASA astronaut, who now runs the Space Center at Stockholms Royal Institute of Technology.

TOP DOC: Balancing 5G and weather forecasting demands on spectrum. New 5G networks may offer better connectivity and faster download speeds, but the frequencys proximity to the bands of spectrum that satellites use to measure temperature and humidity could harm forecasters ability to predict the weather, according to a paper from the Center for Space Policy and Strategy published this week.

International and domestic regulators must issue regulations that provide adequate protection between weather forecasting data frequencies and other spectrum users in order to ensure forecasters access to the data, the paper says. This data is essential to delivery of trusted forecasts required for day-to-day use and protection of life and property from severe weather.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Congratulations to Benjamin Isaacoff at the State Department for being the first to correctly answer that there were six women in the eighth class of astronauts, the first to include females.

This weeks question: A class of astronauts graduated last week at the Johnson Space Center. Why was their class nickname the turtles? First person to email the answer to jklimas@politico.com gets bragging rights and a shoutout in next weeks newsletter!

How mice aboard the ISS can help improve healthcare on Earth.

Future Moon habitats could grow from fungus.

A critical test for NASAs SLS megarocket.

Sen. Ted Cruz on one new astronaut: He can kill you and then bring you back to life. And do it all in space.

The second all-female spacewalk happened this week with little fanfare.

NASA says 2019 was the second hottest year on record.

What should the Space Forces anthem be?

Why failure could be the best way for the space military industrial complex to profit.

Space companies raised a record $5.8 billion in private investment last year.

Space industry warms up to working with the government.

FCC may have broken environmental law in approving SpaceXs mega constellation.

SATURDAY: SpaceX is expected to conduct its in-flight abort test for the Crew Dragon capsule. A post-test news conference with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine follows.

MONDAY: Two ISS astronauts are expected to conduct a spacewalk to replace batteries.

TUESDAY: The two-day European Space Conference begins in Brussels.

WEDNESDAY: The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation holds a hearing on the 5G workforce and obstacles to broadband deployment.

WEDNESDAY: The International Academy of Astronautics, Indian Space Research Organisation and Astronautical Society of India host a conference on human space exploration in Bangalore.

WEDNESDAY: The GPS Innovation Alliance, the Congressional Tech Staff Association and CompTIA Space Enterprise Council hold an event on Capitol Hill about the role of satellites in emerging technologies.

WEDNESDAY: The National Symphony Orchestra plays The Planets by Gustav Holst at The Anthem.

THURSDAY: The board of the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center holds its second meeting in Washington.

Continue reading here:

How to shield the space program from changing political winds - Politico

Dots of orbital debris are visible in this image of the Lunar Module Challenger from the Apollo 17 spacecraft, after docking maneuvers. The debris is from the Saturn S-IVB stage separation. NASA hide caption

Dots of orbital debris are visible in this image of the Lunar Module Challenger from the Apollo 17 spacecraft, after docking maneuvers. The debris is from the Saturn S-IVB stage separation.

Since the dawn of Sputnik in 1957, space-faring nations have been filling Earth's orbital highways with satellites: GPS, weather forecasting, telecommunications.

Decades later, orbital debris is a growing problem.

Orbital debris, commonly known as "space junk," exists at all levels of orbit, but is especially concentrated in low Earth orbit. Space junk has the potential to damage working satellites and crewed spacecraft, including the International Space Station.

And, the population of space junk is projected to grow, as the commercial space economy continues to expand and more satellites are scheduled to launch.

Picture a band of debris, circling the earth. "[It's] everything from upper-stage rocket bodies, completely intact dead satellites, shards of stuff...flecks of paint, bolts, nuts," says Moriba Jah, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

The U.S. adopted Orbital Debris Mitigation Standards in 2001, but there has not been a concerted effort to fund clean-up operations. This worries those concerned about the sustainable use of space.

"This is a tragedy of the commons in near earth space because of a lack of holistic management of this finite resource," Jah tells NPR's Short Wave podcast.

How much space junk exists in Earth's orbit is unknown, but government agencies around the world have crafted estimates.

The U.S. Department of Defense is tracking on over 20,000 artificial satellites payloads, rocket bodies, and debris. Approximately 90 percent of these satellites are non-operational.

Moreover, their public catalog, Space-Track.org, only tracks objects that are 10 centimeters in diameter at minimum objects basically larger than a softball.

NASA estimates the population of debris between one and 10 centimeters is about 500,000 objects. The latest models from the European Space Agency estimates that figure is closer to 900,00 objects in space.

How is space junk created?

Satellites generate debris in a variety of ways.

After launch, spent rocket bodies are shed and pieces become unglued. They can cross flight paths and collide with one another. Satellites have been known to explode when unspent fuel is on board.

"Whenever a satellite sheds pieces, they tend to not shed one, but many, many pieces, hundreds of thousands of pieces depending on the type of collision," says Jah.

The movement of these debris clouds is difficult to predict.

At times, these collisions have destroyed satellites outright. In 2009, Iridium 33, an American communications satellite, collided with Cosmos 2251, a dead Russian communications satellite. Both shattered.

In 2007, the Chinese military intentionally destroyed one of their own weather satellites, Fengyun-1C, while testing anti-satellite technology.

Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation remembers tracking that explosion for the U.S. Air Force. "In the end, we ended up cataloging more than 3,000 objects. That one satellite turned into three thousand things," Weeden says.

Why is space junk such a problem?

Space junk has the daily potential to alter satellites' operations and movement. This translates into real-world costs, as satellite operators field alerts about potential collisions.

Satellites in low Earth orbit, such as those used for imaging and weather data collection, are especially vulnerable.

"That could mean our climate models are less accurate, or we don't have a good way to track emitters. That could have negative impacts down the road," Weeden says.

Space junk is also problematic for astronauts. The International Space Station is equipped with a tracker to monitor for collision risk. In the past, crews have performed avoidance maneuvers and hid in the Soyuz capsules when the risk for collision was too great.

That scenario provided the staging drama for the 2013 Alfonso Cuarn film, Gravity. The opening scene depicts earth's orbit rapidly filling with debris after a missile strike. That depiction does not capture reality. Space junk is a problem that unravels slowly.

"In the movie Gravity, orbital debris was portrayed as sort of a nuclear chain reaction. The reality is the opposite, where it's like climate change. It's this long, relatively slow accumulation of stuff over decades or longer that results in a really big negative impact down the road," says Weeden.

Mitigating the risk of space junk, Weeden says, involves convincing governments and companies launching satellites that they should change their behavior now, mindful of the future.

Some space junk naturally falls back to earth - one tracked object a day, on average - and either burns up or falls in the ocean. Space junk is very unlikely to fall on your head.

What's being done to reduce and clean-up space junk?

Globally, there are no international regulations for how satellites should operate in space. Each nation implements its own policies, which creates a lack of coordination and accountability in space traffic management.

In 2007, the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) revised their recommendations for mitigating the risk of debris. Space agencies and governments follow these guidelines voluntary.

As for cleaning up the junk? Remediation technologies have not yet been tested in space. There's been demonstrations with magnets in Japan and deployable nets in England, which took place on Earth.

In December, the European Space Agency (ESA) commissioned the very first orbital debris clean-up mission, called ClearSpace-1.

Their plan is to launch a multi-armed robot in 2025 to scoop up a chunk of old European rocket, a mission estimated to cost $130 million. The debris and the clean-up robot would self destruct upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

Meanwhile, each individual nation is managing the risk that space junk poses to hardware and to human life.

"This is absolutely something that NASA is keeping tabs on the Chinese space station, all the private space stations that are going up they're all going to have to deal with this. A fixture of human spaceflight is going to be avoiding debris that could collide with your space station," says Weeden.

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Space Junk Is Cluttering Up The Final Frontier - NPR

Made In Space, which makes technology that allows satellite construction in space, will expand and set up its corporate headquarters in Jacksonville.

Jacksonville takes a giant leap into orbit as Made In Space announced the relocation of its corporate headquarters to its existing operation at 8226 Philips Highway.

Gov. Ron DeSantis made the announcement Friday at the companys 19,000-square-foot office just south of Baymeadows Road, saying the current 75-plus member workforce who design and create orbiting satellite manufacturing systems and other space technology will expand.

The company works with NASA on manufacturing and assembly systems that build satellites in orbit. It was recently awarded a contract to develop whats called Archinaut to build a small satellite power system in orbit.

Now its joins the many companies in Florida that work with a reinvigorated NASA on the future in space.

"The amount of private sector involvement is just incredible. Made In Space is a great example of that," DeSantis said. "They have already flown eight different missions to the International Space Station, and last November they launched their latest space station facility using hardware developed and tested right here in Jacksonville."

Made In Space has room for about 150 employees in its newly designated Jacksonville headquarters and should have close to that within a year or two, CEO Andrew Rush said. It is also "keeping our options open" for possible expansion, possibly into the Jacksonville Aviation Authoritys Cecil Spaceport at the former Westside Navy base, he said.

"We do have ambitions of one day building a larger satellite facility and Cecil is definitely on the short list of places where we might do that," Rush said. "The facilities there and the infrastructure, especially with the runways, are really attractive from a hardware delivery perspective."

Made In Space was founded in 2010 in Californias Silicon Valley to enable space manufacturing and expanded to Jacksonville in 2015. It has flown eight different missions to the International Space Station and has several more slated to launch to there in 2020.

NASA awarded the company a $73.7 million contract to develop Archinaut One, an automated factory that will make components for a satellite in orbit. It will then use its robotic arms to arrange the data-transmitting nodes and struts it makes into a space-optimized "ULISSES" satellite structure," as video animation at bit.ly/30xvMJO shows.

This will be the worlds first self-assembling satellite, helping NASA with long-term goals for missions from the Moon to Mars as it builds huge lattice-type structures in space without the limitations of gravity, the company said.

The Philips Highway headquarters will include the capability to locally make, test and control spacecraft and 3D printing technology to build that in orbit. The expansion is part of a multi-year program that generated more than 50 new jobs in Jacksonville since early 2019, the company said.

The Jacksonville headquarters will also consolidate the administrative, engineering, operations and production teams for the companys major technology programs, including Archinaut One.

In conjunction with Cecil Spaceport, Made In Spaces relocation will make Jacksonville a leader in the new field of space manufacturing, said Frank DiBello, head of Space Florida, the principal state agency for aerospace-related economic development.

"With that relocation comes the addition of a number of high-paying jobs, but more importantly new and extremely innovative technology segment to Jacksonvilles already vibrant economy," he said. "... It helps turn Duval County into a space industry hub for the state."

DeSantis said the move will also give Made In Space easy access to the "No. 1 place in the world" for space exploration: the Kennedy Space Center and the countrys new Space Command.

"They are investing more than $3 million, and their footprint is increased from a 2-room facility to this 19,000-square-foot facility," the governor said. "... This thing is just going to blossom."

Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549

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Florida governor announces expansion of space manufacturing company in Jacksonville - The Florida Times-Union

Michael D. Shaw is a biochemist and freelance writer. A graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and a protg of the late Willard Libby, winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Shaw also did postgraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Based in Virginia, he covers technology, health care and entrepreneurship, among other topics.

Astronauts sometimes face the gravest threats after they return to Earth. Facing depression, alcoholism and substance abuse in general, astronauts are not immune from addiction.

As Buzz Aldrin has explained in his memoirs and interviews, addiction among NASA astronauts is real, prevalent and serious. In an interview with The Telegraph, Aldrin talked about his "lost decade" in the 1970s, when he went through two marriages and worked as a car salesman at a Cadillac dealership in the years following his historic Apollo 11 moon landing. He said he was marginalized and shunned by NASA and the Air Force when he revealed his struggles with alcoholism and depression.

It was not until 2007, when NASA reviewed allegations (since disproved) of "heavy use of alcohol" by two shuttle astronauts within 12 hours of flying, that things began to change. And yet, despite a 1991 law directing NASA to create a policy for alcohol and drug testing of its employees, no such policy was in place in 2007.

Related: 10 ways that astronauts are helping you stay healthy

NASA now has a Drug Free Workplace Program Employee & Supervisor Guide that consolidates several of our previous publications into a single booklet for both supervisors and employees, and is suitable for training. The guide has sections involving testing and privacy, employee rights, mental health services, and more.

More recently, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine ordered a workplace safety review at SpaceX and Boeing, two companies contracted to launch NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, after SpaceX founder Elon Musk smoked marijuana and drank whiskey publicly. Musk's activities happened on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast in September 2018.

"I will tell you, that was not helpful and that did not inspire confidence, and the leaders of these organizations need to take that as an example of what to do when you lead an organization that's going to launch American astronauts," Bridenstine told reporters during a news conference in Washington two months later, referring to Musk's actions. Bridenstine added that the workplace culture assessment would "ensure the companies are meeting NASA's requirements for workplace safety, including the adherence to a drug-free environment."

If NASA wants to be more proactive about workplace safety, the agency should also consider how astronauts deal with depression in space, not only how its workforce could be using drugs or alcohol on Earth. In a live broadcast from the International Space Station on Feb. 7, 2019, Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques said, "The problem you develop here is that everything is a little bit the same every day. It can be depressing sometimes if you're not careful."

Further increasing the risk of substance abuse disorders among astronauts, the medical treatment astronauts may receive for injuries sustained during spaceflight can also be addictive. For example, because back pain is common among astronauts, it is not uncommon for doctors to write an opioid prescription to treat this ailment.

Now, consider that more Americans die from opioid overdoses than car crashes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 47,600 overdose deaths, or 67.8% of all overdose deaths in 2017, were due to opioids.

How we treat opioid addiction or polysubstance abuse, then, is crucial. Take, for instance, the use of ibogaine: a naturally occurring, plant-based psychoactive substance, which, along with medical treatment in general, can help reduce opioid addiction. While not available in the U.S., which is a separate matter involving law and politics, ibogaine is, in my opinion, a credible way to lessen or eliminate opioid dependency.

"While ibogaine treatment is an extremely effective solution for interrupting polysubstance abuse disorders, the full continuum of care is required to maintain lasting abstinence," said Dr. Alberto Sol, an emergency medicine physician and medical director of Clear Sky Recovery in Cancn, Mexico.

As a biochemist, I agree with Sola's statement. I also think NASA needs to focus more on astronauts' vulnerability to injury and opioid dependency, as the physical demands of training for a mission may cause or worsen back pain.

Between acknowledging the existence of a problem and treating it, between screening for alcohol and drug abuse and having a plan to help people who recover from addiction, NASA has a lot to do. Society has a lot to do, too.

Rather than firing or ostracizing workers who have chemical dependencies, all of us can take a giant leap to improve humankind. We can be more candid about addiction, without letting fear of rejection or reprisals hold us back. We can save lives, and offer hope, to those who need it, now more than ever.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

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Astronauts and addiction: Ending the stigma (op-ed) - Space.com

Planned for 2022, The Indian Space Research Organisation is on its way to launch the country's first human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan.

According to The Economic Times , ISRO Chairman Dr K Sivan said that once the Gaganyaan mission has been successfully launched, the space agency plans to carry out more manned missions in the future and a space station has also been planned.

In an interview, Dr K Sivan said,

To carry a three-member crew to space, ISRO has designed an autonomous 3.7 tonnes of spacecraft, however, it is likely to have only one astronaut in its maiden human space flight.

Dr Sivan said that for this high-profile mission, four IAF pilots will head to Russia later this month to begin an intensive programme to train as astronauts. For this mission, Russia will train Indian astronauts and build the life support systems in the crew capsule.

Before sending astronauts into space, later this year, ISRO will send a humanoid into space using its most powerful rocket, Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle GSLV-MkIII. To make it suitable for a human, the rocket will be fine-tuned to be safe enough with zero to minimum errors to carry a human on board. This will be the first of the two unmanned missions.

For the human space flight mission, which has been in the works for nearly two decades, India has earmarked over10,000 crores.

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ISRO Is About To Make India Proud Again With India's First Orbital Space Station By 2022 - ScoopWhoop

Books on space evoke a sense of adventure: delving into the lives of astronauts spending months in space or running experiments aboard a space station that might help solve issues on Earth. And when it comes to India, you expect to read more about a space-faring nation that is aiming to launch its first manned mission this year, having narrowly missed the chance to soft-land on the Moons surface.

But away from all this excitement lies a serious, more decisive, area of focus: space security. Having covered land, water and air in their quest for military superiority, superpowers are now busy covering every inch of space around the planet to expand their influence. When India tested its anti-satellite weapon as part of Mission Shakti in March last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed we were now a space power. But where does India stand in terms of space security and militarization? How can India defend and expand its space assets? What options does it have to make it big in an area dominated by the US, Russia and China? Bharath Gopalaswamys Final Frontier: India And Space Security seeks to answer not only these questions but also pertinent ones on space governance and laws.

Final Frontier begins with a look at the genesis and early days of the Indian space programme in the 1950s, thanks to the efforts of atomic research scientists Vikram Sarabhai and Homi J. Bhabha. There are bits that cannot be overlooked for obvious reasons. These include the development and launch of our first sounding rockets at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station, now known as the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, in 1963. Or the way the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) took forward the work started by Incospar (Indian National Committee for Space Research) without losing the essence of using space as a tool for scientific and economic progress".

The early parts of the book also provide an answer to a crucial question: At what juncture did the Indian space programme add military objectives to its charter? After all, an exciting couple of decades had seen India develop a reputation of focusing its space assets on the civilian aspect: Aryabhata, the first satellite, in 1975 and the Indian National Satellite System (Insat) in the 1980s, which introduced the country to TV broadcasting, communications and meteorological observations, were prime examples. As Gopalaswamy writes, it was in the 1990s that India reformulated the major framework of the space programme, which included two experimental launches of the Agni intermediate-range ballistic missile, or IRBM. There was a setback in the late 1990s in the form of the Kargil war. Indias lack of space-based surveillance competence, the author writes, was severely highlighted during this incident" when the India-Pakistan border was breached by intruders. The loss of life and property during the war with Pakistan nudged India to the path of developing space-based military assets".

There is also a chapter on space situational awareness, or SSA, the ability to track, understand and predict" natural and man-made objects in space, including debris. According to the latest data, US space agency Nasa tracked a total of 19,524 artificial objects in space last year. Data from SSA networks can be useful in protecting space assets through monitoring, collision avoidance manoeuvres and timely alerts. But what exactly are Indias SSA capabilities? As of now, India tracks its own satellites through a series of ground-based radars" but it has not established a mechanism for monitoring space debris based on publicly available data, or for sharing this information on a real-time basis with other agencies", according to the book.

The authors analysis of the global arms race in space also takes a look at the different kinds of space weapons: everything from lasers (yes, those sci-fi stories of lasers being used to disable satellites are true) to kinetic energy weapons, or KEWs. The anti-satellite missile tested by India on one of its own active satellites in March last year was an example of a KEW. But as Gopalaswamy explains, these have certain drawbacks. They cause an increase in space debris (Isro claimed the debris generated by Mission Shakti would decay and fall back on to the Earth within weeks), which may lead to considerable collateral damage in crowded orbits, with the possibility of the created debris damaging the countrys own space assets". These weapons are also easy to analyse for forensic evidence and identify the weapons country of origin".

The latter parts of the book explain the global outlook and the international laws that govern space. The Outer Space Treaty, for instance, forms the foundation of international space laws, including the ones on space weaponization. India has supported various treaties on de-weaponizing space" but it remains to be seen what its stance will be after the recent anti-satellite test, notes Gopalaswamy.

A key takeaway from Final Frontier is that space is all about setbacks and recovering from them. All major space-faring countries, be it the US, Russia, China or India, for that matter, have faced plenty of them. In the 1980s, three of Indias Insat satellites failed to reach their designated orbits. Today, India is not only aiming to reach the Moon again with Chandrayaan-3 but also prepping for its first manned space mission.

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Space security is more than just rocket science - Livemint

File photo of the liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5-551 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: United Launch Alliance

The sixth and final satellite in the U.S. militarys network of ultra-secure, nuclear-hardened AEHF communications relay stations has arrived in Florida for final preparations for liftoff in March on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, the first of nearly 20 U.S. Space Force missions planned for launch in the first year of operations for the new military service.

A military C-5 transport plane flew the AEHF 6 satellite Saturday from Moffett Field, California near the crafts Lockheed Martin factory in Sunnyvale to the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Ground crews moved the satellite safely stored inside a climate-controlled shipping container to the nearby Astrotech payload processing facility for final pre-launch testing, inspections and fueling.

The launch of the sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite is scheduled for mid-March from pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard the most powerful version of ULAs Atlas 5 rocket, known as the 551 configuration, with five strap-on solid rocket boosters and a 5.4-meter (17.7-foot-diameter) payload fairing.

The March launch of the AEHF 6 satellite is next in line for ULA after the scheduled Feb. 5 liftoff of an Atlas 5 rocket with the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint U.S.- European science probe to study the physics of the sun.

The AEHF 6 satellite will be the first major U.S. Space Force payload to launch after the creation of the new military branch in December. It joins five previous AEHF satellites launched on Atlas 5 rockets since 2010, continuing and expanding secure communications services for U.S. military commanders and the president provided by the militarys earlier generation of Milstar spacecraft.

The Space Force is comprised of military units that previously operated under the umbrella of the now-defunct U.S. Air Force Space Command, including space wings that manage launch ranges at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The new Space Force military branch remains part of the Department of the Air Force, and also includes the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, which oversees launch and spacecraft procurement and development programs, such as AEHF, GPS and SBIRS satellites for communications, navigation and early warning missions.

Its an exciting time to be part of SMCs launch enterprise, a Space and Missile Systems Center spokesperson said. We expect eight to 10 National Security Space Launch missions and nine small launch missions in 2020.

The National Security Space Launch missions include flights with operational military and intelligence-gathering satellites on ULAs Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets, and SpaceXs Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launcher family. The small launch missions planned for liftoff this year will primarily loft experimental, scientific and technology demonstration payloads on light-class launch vehicles.

Heres a list of the publicly-disclosed Space Force missions scheduled for launch in 2020:

The first of the Space Forces small launch missions scheduled for flight this year will take off on a Northrop Grumman Minotaur 4 rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. The Minotaur 4, derived from the militarys decommissioned Peacekeeper ballistic missile, will fire into orbit with a top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the U.S. governments spy satellites.

The NROL-129 mission on the Minotaur 4 rocket is scheduled for launch from Virginia in March, according to a Space Force spokesperson.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch up to three GPS navigation satellites for the Space Force this year, all from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The first of the three GPS satellites is scheduled for liftoff in April, followed by another GPS mission in the August timeframe. If those two launches occur as scheduled, the Space Force says another GPS satellite could be ready for liftoff in late 2020.

Manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the newest generation of GPS satellites broadcast positioning and timing signals to U.S. military troops, airplanes and naval ships. The GPS network is also used worldwide by civilians for road navigation, commercial air travel, search-and-rescue, and banking transactions.

The first two GPS 3-series satellites launched in December 2018 and August 2019 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 and ULA Delta 4 rockets.

The sixth flight of the Space Forces X-37B space plane is scheduled for launch in May on an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral. The reusable Boeing-built space plane resembles a miniature space shuttle, taking off off on top of a conventional rocket and returning to a runway landing at the end of each mission.

The May launch of the next X-37B mission is officially designated as the AFSPC-7 mission. An Atlas 5-501 rocket with a five-meter payload shroud and no solid rocket boosters will deliver one of the two X-37B space planes in the Space Forces inventory to an orbit several hundred miles above Earth for a top secret mission expected to last months or years.

The largest rocket in ULAs fleet the Delta 4-Heavy is scheduled for launch in June from pad 37 at Cape Canaveral with a classified NRO spy satellite. The purpose of the spacecraft planned for liftoff on the Delta 4-Heavys NROL-44 mission has not been disclosed, but previous large NRO spy satellites launched on Delta 4-Heavys from Cape Canaveral have been designed to intercept radio and electronic signals for U.S. government intelligence analysts.

The Air Force last year announced new contracts procured through the militarys Rapid Agile Launch Initiative, or RALI, program aimed at securing relatively low-cost launch services with new commercial small satellite launchers.

At least two of the RALI missions are scheduled for launch in 2020.

The STP-27RM mission will carry the Air Force Research Laboratorys Monolith technology demonstration microsatellite into orbit on top of a Rocket Lab Electron booster. The mission is planned for liftoff in the spring timeframe, and will mark the first Rocket Lab launch from the companys new launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginias Eastern Shore.

A rideshare launch with multiple small satellites is planned for the summer on Virgin Orbits LauncherOne booster, which is scheduled for an inaugural test flight in the coming months. The air-launched rocket will fire into orbit from a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet after taking off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

Two additional orbital RALI missions are also scheduled this year, but their launch vehicles and launch schedules have not been announced. A rideshare launch with multiple experimental small satellites for the militarys Space Test Program is also planned for liftoff this year on an unidentified rocket.

The Space Forces small launch program also plans to perform a Minotaur 1 rocket launch in late 2020 from Wallops Island, Virginia. The Minotaur 1 mission for the National Reconnaissance is designated NROL-111, and no information has been disclosed about its payload.

There are two suborbital missions on the Space Forces small launch manifest this year.

Several more Space Force missions are being readied for launches in the second half of 2020.

ULA will launch an Atlas 5 rocket in the September timeframe with a classified payload for the NRO. The launch from Cape Canaveral, codenamed NROL-101, is scheduled after the departure of NASAs Mars 2020 rover mission on an Atlas 5 flight in July.

Another Space Force mission is also on ULAs Atlas 5 manifest in late 2020, according to a military spokesperson. The AFSPC-8 mission from Cape Canaveral will carry the fifth and sixth satellites for the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, or GSSAP, which is designed to help the military track and observe objects in geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above Earth.

The Space Forces launches on Atlas 5 rockets this year will be scheduled among several other critical Atlas 5 missions on ULAs 2020 manifest. Besides the Solar Orbiter and Mars 2020 launches for NASA, ULA is on contract with Boeing to launch the first piloted flight of the companys CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule with three astronauts heading for the International Space Station.

A launch date for the Starliners first crewed mission has not been announced.

Just one Space Force launch is planned this year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the usual launch site for military surveillance satellites heading into polar orbit.

ULA is planning to launch a Delta 4-Heavy rocket some time between October and the end of the year from Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg with the National Reconnaissance Offices NROL-82 mission.

The fourth flight of SpaceXs Falcon Heavy rocket the most powerful launcher in the world currently in operation is also scheduled before the end of 2020 with the Space Forces AFSPC-44 mission. Little is known about the purpose of the payloads on the AFSPC-44 launch, but officials have indicated the mission will loft at least two satellites into a high-altitude geosynchronous orbit.

The Falcon Heavy will lift off from pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the only SpaceX launch site configured to launch the heavy-lifter.

SpaceX is building three new boosters for the triple-body Falcon Heavy rockets AFSPC-44 mission.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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AEHF satellite arrives in Florida for first of nearly 20 Space Force launches this year - Spaceflight Now

Most of us see birds every day. Go look outside your nearest window and chances are youre not going to have to wait long before you spot a feathered friend cruising by. Despite that, scientists have long struggled with replicating the flight mechanics that birds are naturally blessed with.

Building a bird robot that flies with fixed wings is easy enough, but creating something that bends and flaps its wings like a real animal is surprisingly difficult. Now, a team of researchers has taken a huge step toward achieving that lofty goal with a new artificial avian aptly named PigeonBot.

So, how do you go about replicating the wings of a pigeon? You use real pigeon wings, of course! The researchers, who describe their work in a new paper published in Science Robotics, took an if it aint broke, dont fix it approach to constructing the PigeonBot.

They built wings that bend in two places, closely resembling the wings of actual birds, carefully noting the angles at which real bird wings move during flight. Then, rather than trying to beat nature at its own game, they used real, actual pigeon feathers (taken from deceased birds, of course) to fill in the wings.

The aim of the project wasnt to just create lifelike bird bots that scientists could send into the skies for fun, but rather to give researchers an easier way to study how the wings of a pigeon work to keep it aloft. That plan has apparently worked splendidly, as a second study using the robotic wings revealed one of the secrets of how pigeon wings move during flight.

The researchers in that study, published in Science, explain that the feathers themselves have hooks that latch on to neighboring feathers as the bird flaps its wings. These hooks are so small that you cant see them with the naked eye, but they were revealed using microscope technology.

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Scientists built a robot pigeon that flaps just like the real thing, and its mesmerizing - BGR

SpaceX has reportedly been tapped by a company called Front Range Biosciences to smuggle some drugs from Earth to the International Space Station in a mission set to launch in March.

Just when I think Elon Musk cannot possibly be more irresponsible and idiotic, he goes and pulls a stunt like this and totally redeems himself.

Okay, maybe not totally. Abusing the court systems to make calling someone a pedo guy okay isnt exactly a good use of anyones time. And I still maintain that naming Teslas driver-assistance feature Autopilot is criminally misleading. But, all that being said, studying how space affects cannabis and coffee is something that could benefit all humankind. Well call it a step in the right direction.

According to a press release from Front Range Biosciences:

The experiment, being targeted for transportation to the space station aboard the SpaceX CRS-20 cargo flight scheduled for March 2020, will look at how plant cells undergo gene expression changes or genetic mutations while in space. Front Range Biosciences is providing the plant cultures, while SpaceCells will provide expertise, management and funding for the project.

If youre imagining a bunch of astronauts getting high in zero gravity, Im sorry to have to burst your bubble but the cannabis plants and seeds thatll make their way into space next year are hemp strains. Hemps great for a lot of things, but getting high isnt one of them.

Still, were on the cusp of a great new space age thatll involve sending humans deeper into space than weve ever gone and for longer periods of time. Well need to figure out how to grow plants in space and on alien soil, especially if the climate crisis changes the rules for plant life on Earth.

Musk, the CEO and founder of SpaceX, probably isnt involved at an intimate level. And, to be clear, Front Range Biosciences and its partners SpaceCells USA Inc. and the University of Colorado are the bodies responsible for the mission.

But, for all his faults, its hard to imagine NASA using a government-owned craft to mule Schedule 1 narcotics across all the borders. Musks boyhood vision of building his own rockets is paying off for the scientific community at large and, to a small degree, the pro-cannabis one as well.

Associating hemp and coffee with science in the same breath is a means of normalizing marijuana. Either that, or demonizing coffee. I prefer to see the dime bag as half full.

For more information about Front Range Biosciences research, check out its website.

Read next: Instagram influencers can no longer promote vaping, guns, or cigarettes

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Elon Musk becomes the International Space Station's weed guy in March - The Next Web

Astronaut Christina Koch unloads new hardware for the Cold Atom Lab aboard the International Space Station the week of December 9, 2020. Credit: NASA

Astronaut Christina Koch recently gave a warm welcome to a very cool arrival to the International Space Station: a new piece of hardware for the Cold Atom Lab, an experimental physics facility that chills atoms to almost absolute zero, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273 degrees Celsius). Thats colder than any known place in the universe.

The Cold Atom Lab has been up and running in the space stations science module since July 2018 and is operated remotely from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Five groups of scientists on Earth are using the Cold Atom Lab to conduct a variety of experiments to help answer questions about how our world works at the smallest scales.

The new hardware includes an instrument called an atom interferometer that will allow scientists to make subtle measurements of gravity and probe fundamental theories of gravity. Further development of this technology in space could lead to improved inertial-force sensors, which could be used to design tools for enhanced spacecraft navigation, to probe the composition and topology of planets and other celestial bodies, and to study Earths climate.

The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) consists of two standardized containers that will be installed on the International Space Station. The larger container is called a quad locker, and the smaller container is called a single locker. The quad locker contains CALs physics package, or the compartment where CAL will produce clouds of ultra-cold atoms. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Tyler Winn

Chilling atoms to such low temperatures slows them down significantly, enabling scientists to study them more easily. (Room-temperature atoms move faster than the speed of sound, while ultracold atoms move slower than a garden snail.) Ultracold atom physics has led to breakthroughs such as the discovery of superfluidity and superconductivity, as well as the production of a fifth state of matter, called a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). First predicted in the 1920s, BECs allow scientists to observe quantum behaviors of atoms on a macroscopic scale.

Physicists have been using ultracold atom facilities in Earth-bound labs for more than 20 years. But CAL is the first such facility in Earth orbit, where the microgravity environment provides scientists longer observing times for individual bunches of atoms and may allow for colder temperatures than what can be achieved on the ground.

Ultracold atoms also provide a window into quantum mechanics, where particles can behave in strange ways, such as spontaneously passing through physical barriers or communicating instantaneously over long distances. The study of quantum mechanics has led to the development of such ubiquitous technologies as lasers, semiconductors and transistors. By making the leap into Earth orbit, the Cold Atom Lab may open the door for the development of quantum technologies in space.

About the size of a mini refrigerator, the Cold Atom Lab will be equipped with the newly arrived hardware in 2020. Designed and built at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the Cold Atom Lab was is sponsored by the International Space Station Program at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications (SLPSRA) Division of NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

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Cool New Hardware Welcomed Aboard Space Station Heres What They Got - SciTechDaily

San Francisco: Elon Musk smoking weed live on air is still fresh in mind and now, an agri-tech company named Front Range Biosciences is planning to send marijuana to the International Space Station (ISS) onboard a SpaceX cargo flight in March next year to understand the impact of gravity on weed.

The plant cell cultures of hemp (a form of cannabis) and coffee will be shipped off in the SpaceX "CRS-20" cargo flight set for launch in March, reports Digitaltrends.

To send the tissue cultures to space, Front Range Biosciences has partnered with tech startup Space Cells and BioServe, a research institute in the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"This is one of the first times anyone is researching the effects of microgravity and spaceflight on hemp and coffee cell cultures. This is an opportunity to see whether those mutations hold up once brought back to earth and if there are new commercial applications," Dr Jonathan Vaught, Co-Founder and CEO of Front Range Biosciences, was quoted as saying.

The cultures will remain in an ISS incubator for 30 days while BioServe Space Technologies monitors those remotely from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

After 30 days, the cells will be sent back to Earth so that the researchers can see how the DNA has been affected by fluctuating gravity levels and cosmic radiation.

The aim is to check how microgravity affects plants and if the exposure of space radiation can affect their genes.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine last year said that SpaceX founder Musk will not be smoking weed in public again.

Speaking on Musk's infamous marijuana consumption during "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, the NASA chief said "that was not appropriate behaviour" and people will not be seeing that again.

Bridenstine said he spoke with Musk that he does not want NASA contractors engaging in questionable behaviour.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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Elon Musk's SpaceX to send marijuana to International Space Station next year - Livemint

Two astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station Friday for the first of four spacewalks to repair a $2 billion cosmic ray detector, breezing through difficult work to prep the device for invasive surgery to splice in new coolant pumps and extend the instrument's life probing the composition of the universe.

"We're going to perform what could be considered open heart surgery on this amazing experiment," said Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, the current space station commander.

The 7.5-ton patient in this case is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, the most expensive science instrument aboard the space station and one that was not designed to be serviced in orbit. As such, the "operation" is considered one of the most challenging since work to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

"It's definitely towards the top of the list, if not on the top," said Tara Jochim, the AMS repair manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Floating in the station's Quest airlock, Parmitano and NASA astronaut Drew Morgan switched their spacesuits to battery power at 6:39 a.m. EST to officially kick off the year's ninth spacewalk.

The last time Parmitano walked in space in July 2013 his suit malfunctioned, flooding his helmet with water and forcing an emergency return to the station's airlock. NASA developed procedures to prevent a recurrence and no similar problems have occurred since then.

The major objectives of Friday's spacewalk were to prep the AMS for its planned surgery, setting out tools and equipment before removing a protective debris shield, giving them access to the instrument's thermal control system.

After carefully tossing the debris shield overboard, the spacewalkers attached two handrails to help them move about the device and, reaching into the AMS, snipped a half dozen zip ties and cut a cord to fold back insulation blankets.

The work went much faster than expected and the astronauts were able to work through several items originally planned for their second spacewalk next Friday. That's when the actual repair work will begin. The third and fourth spacewalks will be officially scheduled after managers assess the results of the first two outings.

Parmitano and Morgan returned to the airlock, closed the hatch and began repressurizing at 1:18 p.m. to wrap up a six-hour 39-minute spacewalk, the 222nd since the station assembly began in 1998, the ninth so far this year, the third for Parmitano and the fourth for Morgan.

"I've got to tell you, you made the ground team awfully happy and proud of you guys today, just some excellent, excellent work," Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed from mission control. "We are very, very pleased with where we stand moving forward, getting the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer back up and running. So congratulations to all of you."

It took engineers and astronauts four years to come up with a workable repair plan, developing some two-dozen custom tools and testing procedures during multiple underwater training runs. Parmitano and Morgan completed seven full-duration training exercises before launching to the station in July.

"We had to go off and figure out how to create a work site, we had to build new handrails to install on existing hardware, we had to deal with existing sharp edges and in a lot of cases, we're creating new sharp edges using tools that have sharp edges on them," said Jochim.

"We did as much as we could to minimize that risk to the crew member and then, of course, to the (repair) of the payload itself," she said. "But they are certainly very challenging and technically difficult EVAs."

Launched in 2011 on the next-to-last space shuttle mission, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, is one of the most expensive science instruments ever launched into space.

It is built around a powerful electromagnet that bends the trajectories of electrically charged cosmic ray particles created in supernova explosions and other extreme-energy events, allowing researchers studying the trajectories to characterize their velocities and energies.

The goal is to learn what happened to the antimatter thought to have been created in the big bang birth of the cosmos, to learn more about the unseen dark matter that permeates space and, possibly, gain insights into the nature of dark energy, the mysterious repulsive force that is speeding up the expansion of the universe.

Designed to operate for just three years, the AMS proved longer lived than expected, detecting more than 145 billion cosmic rays during eight-and-a-half years of operation. But the instrument has been hobbled in recent months by the staggered failures of four small pumps needed to circulate carbon dioxide coolant through its sensitive detectors.

To repair the AMS, Parmitano and Morgan will have to cut through eight small coolant lines and splice in, or "swage," new lines leading to a custom-built replacement pump module launched to the station earlier this month. The pump module will be installed during the third spacewalk.

"We're going to cut tubes, and then fuse them with other tubes (launched) from Earth and install a completely new pump to help the refrigeration work, keeping the magnet cold so the the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer can work," Parmitano said. "This is really the first time any of these actions have been attempted."

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Spacewalk today: Astronauts at International Space Station take on one of the most complex spacewalks ever - CBS News

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is in the process of developing Dream Chaser, a reusable spacecraft designed to ferry cargo to the International Space Station, and bring it back to Earth, landing on a runway like the Space Shuttle. Today, the company revealed more about the Dream Chaser at a press event at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It literally showed off a new cargo component of the Dream Chaser, with a full-scale model on site the Shooting Star is an ejectable, disposable secondary cargo vehicle that can itself dock with the ISS while in orbit, take on waste cargo from the station, and then do a controlled de-orbit to burn up in the atmosphere, leaving nothing behind. This expendable component adds a lot of versatility to the Dream Chasers design, and extends the vehicles mission capabilities with safe disposal of materials that otherwise wouldnt be suitable for loading aboard the Dream Chaser for its return journey to Earth.

So its got a nested cargo craft that can itself autonomously dock with the ISS and take out the trash, but thats not the only trick up the Dream Chasers sleeve: The spacecraft will also be able to reach and resupply the Lunar Gateway, a Moon-orbiting space station that NASA plans to deploy to act as a staging point for its lunar surface missions. The Dream Chaser will have to have its satellite bus attached to make that trip, but it means itll be able to participate much more in NASAs Artemis program. Probably not coincidentally, SNC was named as one of the new approved vendors that can bid on NASAs Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts (basically deliveries to the Moons surface).

Dream Chaser can also actually become an orbital satellite itself its design allows for an inflatable module to be attached that can essentially convert it into an orbital platform with a very high payload and power capacity. Multipurpose is the name of the game when it comes to making multi-planetary space-based operations a viable, recurring long-term thing that we can actually accomplish, so Dream Chaser is looking like quite the high-value package if all of this comes together.

Already, Dream Chaser has been tapped by NASA to run commercial resupply services (via the CRS-2 contract youve probably heard the CRS term because both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences (now part of Northrop) won the first batch and have been providing those over the course of the last several years. The Dream Chaser spacecraft is currently under construction, and is aiming for 2021 for its first mission on behalf of NASA.

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SNCs Dream Chaser spacecraft can supply NASAs lunar space station and become its own orbital platform - TechCrunch

A new space shuttle is being readied for liftoff from the Space Coast in about two years.Steve Lindsey flew the space shuttle five times back in the day.He's back at the Kennedy Space Center helping to develop a privately-owned mini shuttle called Dream Chaser."It's an exciting time for us," Lindsey said.Dream Chaser's job, at first, will be to fly without astronauts, towing a big cargo pod called the Shooting Star.A test version of the Shooting Star is newly arrived at the Kennedy Space Center.The Dream Chaser is about one-third the size of the original NASA shuttle and will fit inside a rocket's nose cone with the shooting star cargo carrier attached to the back.After delivering 12,000 pounds of supplies to the space station, the Shooting Star will burn up spectacularly in the atmosphere.The Dream Chaser min shuttle will return home for another flight.It looks similar to the Air Force's crewless min shuttle called the X-37."We're going to have a large presence down here for years to come," Lindsey said.The Dream Chaser was originally conceived to carry astronauts, and Lindsey, who now works for the mini shuttle's builder, Sierra Nevada, said eventually astronauts could be launching on shuttles again - mini shuttles - from the Space Coast.The first crewless cargo mission is planned for 2021.

A new space shuttle is being readied for liftoff from the Space Coast in about two years.

Steve Lindsey flew the space shuttle five times back in the day.He's back at the Kennedy Space Center helping to develop a privately-owned mini shuttle called Dream Chaser.

"It's an exciting time for us," Lindsey said.

Dream Chaser's job, at first, will be to fly without astronauts, towing a big cargo pod called the Shooting Star.A test version of the Shooting Star is newly arrived at the Kennedy Space Center.

The Dream Chaser is about one-third the size of the original NASA shuttle and will fit inside a rocket's nose cone with the shooting star cargo carrier attached to the back.

After delivering 12,000 pounds of supplies to the space station, the Shooting Star will burn up spectacularly in the atmosphere.The Dream Chaser min shuttle will return home for another flight.

It looks similar to the Air Force's crewless min shuttle called the X-37.

"We're going to have a large presence down here for years to come," Lindsey said.

The Dream Chaser was originally conceived to carry astronauts, and Lindsey, who now works for the mini shuttle's builder, Sierra Nevada, said eventually astronauts could be launching on shuttles again - mini shuttles - from the Space Coast.

The first crewless cargo mission is planned for 2021.

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Crewless mini shuttle to carry 12,000 pounds of supplies to space station - WESH 2 Orlando

The report blames commercial crew delays from Boeing and SpaceX, neither of whom are likely to be certified for regular flights to the ISS by the summer.SpaceX will have a certification review in January while Boeing will have to wait until the following month. The report concludes final vehicle certification for both contractors will likely be delayed at least until summer 2020 based on the number of ISS and CCP [commercial crew programme] certification requirements that remain to be verified and validated.

Space News report launch abort systems and parachutes are the biggest issues for both companies.

Only in April, a parachute test failure by SpaceX contributed to at least a 3-month delay in SpaceXs crewed test flight.

Boeing saw one of their three parachutes fail to open in a test earlier this month.

In the spring, the ISS crew will half from six to three with just one, Chris Cassidy from NASA.

NASA and non-Russian parters will be less able to work on the US On-Orbit Segment (USOS).

The report explains: Any reduction in the number of crew aboard the USOS would limit astronaut tasks primarily to operations and maintenance, leaving little time for scientific research.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has made a formal request for seats on a Roscosmos spacecraft.

The Russian agency is yet to respond.

READ MORE:'God of Chaos Apophis asteroid may set world back to prehistoric times

The station has two sections, the Russian Orbital Segment operated by Russia and USOS.

The station is expected to operate until at least 2030.

236 people have been on board from 18 countries.

Major Tim Peake is the only Briton to have done so.

Currently on board are Italian commander Luca Parmiitano, Russian flight engineers Aleksandr Skvortsov and Oleg Skripockhka as well as American flight engineers Andrew Morgan, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.

All the Americans on board are on their first spaceflight.

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NASA terrified it could be shut out from the International Space Station next year - Express.co.uk