Daily Archives: February 14, 2015

An unmanned European space ship as big as a double-decker buswill leave the International Space Station tomorrow, signaling the end of a line of cargo ships that had delivered supplies to astronauts since 2008.

Packed with astronaut trash, the European Space Agency's (ESA) fifth and last Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-5) will undock from the orbiting outpost Saturday morning (Feb. 14) at 8:41 a.m. EST.

You canwatch the undocking live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. The space agency's coverage will begin at 8:15 a.m. EST. [Europe's ATV-5 Space Cargo Ship Mission in Pictures]

At first, ATV-5 will be steered to a safe distance from the space station. Then on Sunday (Feb. 15) the cargo ship will slip out of its orbit and make a steep dive into Earth's atmosphere over the South Pacific.

ATV-5 was originally supposed to test out a more daring, shallow dive back to Earth so that ESA and NASA officials could get a taste of what might happen when it comes time to retire the International Space Station and safely guide it to its deorbited demise. (NASA and the White House last year committed to keep thespace station operating through at least 2024.)

Entering the atmosphere at a shallower angle would result in a larger dispersion of debris and a longer reentry over Earth's surface, according toESA's ATV blog. But this plan was abandoned after one of the ATV-5's four power chains failed last week.

Instead, the ATV-5 will go ahead with the standard steep dive that's brought its predecessors safely out of orbit.

"While teams are sincerely disappointed not to conduct the planned shallow reentry, the revised plan doesnt alter the program's overall success," ATV-5 mission manager Massimo Cislaghi,said in a statement from ESA.

"The ATVs are large and complex spacecraft and they have achieved every goal," Cislaghi added.

ATV-5launched for its final missionon July 29, 2014, from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, atop an Ariane 5 rocket. It was carrying more than 7 tons of scientific experiments and other supplies, including food, drinking water, spare parts and clothing, for the astronauts living on board the space station. The spacecraft arrived at the space station in August and spent six months attached to the Zvezda Service Module.

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Europe's final cargo ship leaves Space Station on Valentine's Day

Kate Rubins will go where no Napan has gone before 268 miles above the Earth.

The biochemist-turned-astronaut, who joined the NASA ranks in 2009, has been chosen for a mission to the International Space Station set to begin in May 2016. On Monday, the U.S. space agency formally announced the mission, which had begun to emerge in news reportslast year.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft will boost Rubins, the Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, and Takuya Onishi of Japan from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the remote steppes of Kazakhstan, to the space station, where Rubins will oversee more than 100 scientific experiments during her six months in microgravity.

For the 36-year-old Napa native, the journey will be the fulfillment of a dream born in childhood, in a bedroom patterned with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. More than a year before her first space flight, Rubins already was hoping simply to latch on to as many memories as possible amid the hectic rounds of training and preparation.

People have said even though its only six months, it goes by incredibly quickly, so pay attention to all the small things, she said Thursday by telephone from Friendswood, Texas, where she and her husband, Michael, Magnani live outside NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. You can have so much work to do and you can get absorbed in it, so you have to stop every now and then and realize where you are.

Space and the stars held an early fascination for Rubins, through an upbringing that included stargazing events and a weeklong trip as a seventh-grader to the NASA Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. However, another scientific initiation would set her onto her early path: a visit at age 16 to a conference on recombinant DNA at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, which inspired her to study molecular biology at UC San Diego, after graduating from Vintage High School in 1996.

A career studying the genetics of viruses followed, starting with undergraduate work on finding HIV inhibitors for potential anti-AIDS treatments, and later studying the smallpox and Ebola viruses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She earned a doctorate at Stanford University in 2005, then spent the next four years with the Whitehead Medical Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, leading a 14-member infectious disease laboratory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Still, when NASA began recruiting another group of space travelers in 2008 more than 3,500 candidates pursuing nine slots Rubins, almost on a lark, gave her original dream one more chance, though with no real expectations. Despite feeling I didnt think I had a shot at all, she made the cut in 2009 after a year of evaluation and interviews.

It was one of those childhood dreams I couldnt let go of, she told Nature magazine in March 2013. I thought that NASA didnt take biologists and so nothing would come of it, but I knew I would regret it if I did not apply.

I really thought that was her career trajectory and knew she loved her work as a research virologist, Rubins mother L. Ann Hallisey, an Episcopal minister in Davis, said in an email. It seems, however, that the space bug never left her ... I think the message here is, hold on to your dreams.

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Napa astronauts journey leads to International Space Station

It is the last of 5 so-called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV) that ESA has contracted to provide for the US-led ISS project

SPACE STATION. This August 12, 2014 NASA image from video shows the International Space Station (R) above the eastern coast of South America as it orbits the Earth. Photo by AFP

PARIS, France Europe's last supply vessel to the International Space Station undocked on Saturday, February 14, at the end of a 6-month mission, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

The automated spaceship, the Georges Lemaitre, separated from the ISS ahead of an operation on Sunday, February 15, to burn it up in Earth's atmosphere, ESA said.

It is the last of 5 so-called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV) that ESA has contracted to provide for the US-led ISS project.

Each the size of a double-decker bus, the ships are designed to haul fuel, water, experiments and other essentials to the ISS crew.

After launch, they navigate their way by starlight and dock automatically technologies that are to be used in future US space missions.

During their mission, the pressurized units are used for storage and for living space, and are filled with human waste and rubbish before they are destroyed by re-entry.

Sunday's suicide plunge is scheduled for 1812 GMT.

See more here:
Europe space truck undocks from ISS

International Space Station-bound astronauts dressed as Jedi pose with lightsabers in their mission poster for NASA. Proud of them, Yoda would be.

Who knew astronauts had a high midi-chlorian count? NASA

The new NASA mission poster finally reveals the truth that many of us have suspected for a long time -- astronauts are actually Jedi masters. Well, at least they are for Expedition 45. Proud of these astronauts, Yoda would be.

In the latest promotional poster from NASA, astronauts and cosmonauts headed to the International Space Station for their next mission are dressed as Jedi masters complete with their own colored lightsabers. The poster, rendered in "Star Wars" font and design, also has the title "Space Station: Expedition XLV The Science Continues."

Included in the poster are NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly; Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and Mikhail Kornienko; and Japan's Kimiya Yui.

Past posters have parodied "Star Trek" for Expedition 21, The Beatles' "Abbey Road" album cover for Expedition 30, "Pirates of the Caribbean" for Expedition 30 and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for Expedition 42 -- 42 being "the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything." You can find all the parody posters on the NASA site.

If NASA is taking suggestions for the next parody poster, might we suggestion Doctor Who? We'd love to see the Tardis as its next form of space travel. Just no Daleks, please.

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Astronauts dress as Jedi for NASA Expedition 45 portrait