Monthly Archives: January 2013

MOSCOW, January 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russian astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) have transferred scientific data using a laser communication channel for the first time in international practice, the Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Tuesday.

The information was transferred through the earths atmosphere at a rate of 125 megabytes per second from an onboard laser terminal, the agency said.

The total of 400 megabytes of data included earth imagery and telemetric information.

The transfer operation was part of the Laser Communication System project to exchange data between the ISS and the ground station Arkhyz in the North Caucasus.

Flight engineers Oleg Novitsky, Yevgeny Tarelkin and Roman Romanenko are Russian team members of ISS Expedition 34. NASA astronaut Kevin Ford is the commander, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn are also flight engineers.

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Space Station Crew Uses Laser Channel to Beam Data

Jan. 29, 2013 In a clever reuse of hardware originally built to test parts of NASA's QuikScat satellite, the agency will launch the ISS-RapidScat instrument to the International Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction.

The ISS-RapidScat instrument will help improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring, and understanding of how ocean-atmosphere interactions influence Earth's climate.

"The ability for NASA to quickly reuse this hardware and launch it to the space station is a great example of a low-cost approach that will have high benefits to science and life here on Earth," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's International Space Station program manager.

ISS-RapidScat will help fill the data gap created when QuikScat, which was designed to last two years but operated for 10, stopped collecting ocean wind data in late 2009. A scatterometer is a microwave radar sensor used to measure the reflection or scattering effect produced while scanning the surface of Earth from an aircraft or a satellite.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have studied next-generation replacements for QuikScat, but a successor will not be available soon. To meet this challenge cost-effectively, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the agency's station program proposed adapting leftover QuikScat hardware in combination with new hardware for use on the space station.

"ISS-RapidScat represents a low-cost approach to acquiring valuable wind vector data for improving global monitoring of hurricanes and other high-intensity storms," said Howard Eisen, ISS-RapidScat project manager at JPL. "By leveraging the capabilities of the International Space Station and recycling leftover hardware, we will acquire good science data at a fraction of the investment needed to launch a new satellite."

ISS-RapidScat will have measurement accuracy similar to QuikScat's and will survey all regions of Earth accessible from the space station's orbit. The instrument will be launched to the space station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. It will be installed on the end of the station's Columbus laboratory as an autonomous payload requiring no interaction by station crew members. It is expected to operate aboard the station for two years.

ISS-RapidScat will take advantage of the space station's unique characteristics to advance understanding of Earth's winds. Current scatterometer orbits pass the same point on Earth at approximately the same time every day. Since the space station's orbit intersects the orbits of each of these satellites about once every hour, ISS-RapidScat can serve as a calibration standard and help scientists stitch together the data from multiple sources into a long-term record.

ISS-RapidScat also will collect measurements of Earth's global wind field at all times of day for all locations. Variations in winds caused by the sun can play a significant role in the formation of tropical clouds and tropical systems that play a dominant role in Earth's water and energy cycles. ISS-RapidScat observations will help scientists understand these phenomena better and improve weather and climate models.

The ISS-RapidScat project is a joint partnership of JPL and NASA's International Space Station Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, with support from the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

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NASA to launch ocean wind monitor to space station

January 29, 2013

Image Caption: Tracy Caldwell Dyson in the Cupola module of the International Space Station observing the Earth below during Expedition 24. Credit: NASA

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

NASA is opening up the floor for suggestions, asking for proposals about how the International Space Station (ISS) can be used as a technological test tube.

The space agency said it is asking for proposals on how the space station may be used to develop advanced or improved exploration technologies. NASA is looking for proposals as to how new approaches, technologies and capabilities could utilize the unique research environment provided by the space laboratory.

The space station is a world-class facility and critical to NASAs plan to extend humanitys presence beyond low-Earth orbit, Andrew Clem of the Technology Demonstration Office in the International Space Station Program at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston said in a statement. This is an opportunity for researchers, inventors and designers to demonstrate a technology needed for future human spaceflights or to improve an existing space station capability.

NASA said it will be reviewing submissions throughout the year as they are received, and will cover launch and integration costs for selected proposals.

Proposed technologies could help advance exploration and research capabilities aboard the space station. NASA said concepts must fit within its standards for mass and volume to meet requirements for current launch vehicles.

Suggested areas include in-space propulsion; space power and energy storage; components of highly reliable, closed-loop, human health, life support and habitation systems; thermal systems; robotics, telerobotics, and autonomous systems; and human exploration destination systems, the space agency wrote.

According to NASA, the proposals for new exploration technologies could include strategies to reduce mass, maintenance and power requirements for the space station, or to help improve existing space hardware. Acceptable proposals may also have the potential to produce benefits for humanity, such as testing valuable new materials or stimulating economic growth.

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NASA Seeks Ideas For Repurposing The International Space Station