Monthly Archives: August 2017

A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station early Wednesday (Aug. 16), delivering 3 tons of supplies, experiments and even some ice cream for the orbiting lab's crew.

The uncrewed Dragon spacecraft was captured by astronauts using the station's robotic arm at 6:52 a.m. EDT (1052 GMT) as the two spacecraft were flying over the Pacific Ocean, just north of New Zealand.

"Congratulations on a job well done," astronaut Andreas Morgenson of the European Space Agency radioed the station's crew from NASA's Mission Control in Houston. "You've just earned yourself some food." [Watch SpaceX Launch Dragon, then Land a Rocket]

The Dragon cargo ship is filled with more than 6,400 lbs. (2,900 kilograms) of supplies, science experiments and food - and yes, ice cream - for the space station's Expedition 52 crew. SpaceX launched delivery mission Monday (Aug. 14) on a Falcon 9 rocket, which then returned its first stage to Earth in a smooth landing.

Called SpaceX-12 or CRS-12, this flight is SpaceX's 12th cargo flight for NASA under the Commercial Resupply Service program. NASA initially agreed to buy 12 delivery flights from SpaceX, but has extended the agreement to include 20 flights. SpaceX did lose one mission in 2015 when a Falcon 9 rocket failed during liftoff, but the rest have been a success.

"Today has special significance because SpaceX-12 is the last flight on the original cargo resupply contract," NASA astronaut Jack Fischer said from the station. "And this, the 36th flight of a Dragon, stands as a testament to a burgeoning commercial industry that has become a pillar of support to NASA's and really all of humanity's quest to explore the universe."

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship flies over Italy (the country's boot shape can be seen upside in the background) while delivering vital NASA supplies to the International Space Station on Aug. 16, 2017.

Fischer and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli captured the Dragon using the station's robotic arm. At one point, cameras on the space station captured Dragon as it soared high over Italy, Nespoli's home country.

Most of the cargo riding on Dragon is science gear, a massive haul that includes a protein crystal experiment to research a new treatment for Parkinson's disease, an experiment to grow lung tissue from stem cells and 20 live mice to help scientists study the effects of long space missions. The U.S. Department of Defense also has a small microsatellite prototype on board, and the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass for the International Space Station (which has the tasty acronym ISS-CREAM) will study cosmic rays.

The Dragon spacecraft will stay docked to the space station for about a month, after which it will be filled with science experiment results and other items for the return to Earth.

NASA has used SpaceX and another spaceflight company, the Virginia-based Orbital ATK, to make commercial resupply flights the space station since 2012. The space agency has since picked SpaceX, Orbital ATK and a third company Sierra Nevada Corp. to make future deliveries under a new agreement.

In addition to cargo delivery flights, SpaceX will fly NASA astronauts to the space station on a crewed version of the Dragon spacecraft. (NASA has also picked Boeing for astronaut trips to space using that company's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.)

The first crewed flights on Dragon and the Starliner are expected in mid-2018, NASA has said.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him@tariqjmalikandGoogle+.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookorGoogle+. Original story onSpace.com.

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SpaceX Dragon Delivers Supplies (and Science) to Space Station - Space.com

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NASA Astronauts Set To Get Sweet Treat With Next Delivery To International Space Station NPR This week, a rocket bound for the International Space Station lifted off with 6,400 pounds of supplies. Along with the provisions, medical supplies and experiments, NASA astronauts will be getting a special care package with ice cream. Facebook; Twitter. Astronauts On The International Space Station Just Got A Big DeliveryNewsy Unpiloted Dragon Cargo Ship Lands on International Space StationYahoo News all 20 news articles »

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NASA Astronauts Set To Get Sweet Treat With Next Delivery To International Space Station - NPR

While millions of Americans gather across the country to catch a glimpse of Monday's total solar eclipse, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station will view the event from a much different vantage point.

The ISS crew members are predicted to view both a partial eclipse and the moon's shadow cast on the North American continent as they make three tracks around the planet 400 km above Earth's surface, according to NASA.

"Observing a total solar eclipse from manned spacecraft is difficult though not impossible," NASA reported.

NASA said the different rates of speed and intersecting paths are the main challenge to viewing an eclipse from space.

At minimum, ISS spends less than 15 seconds traversing the 100-km-wide lunar shadow even when the paths align in space and time, according to NASA. However, Earths horizon extends nearly 2,300 km from the ISS, allowing astronauts to see the lunar shadow if they are close enough during the event.

NASA

The International Space Station (ISS) was in position to view the umbral (ground) shadow cast by the moon as it moved between Earth and the sun during a solar eclipse on March 29, 2006. This astronaut image captures the umbral shadow across southern Turkey, northern Cyprus and the Mediterranean Sea. (Photo/NASA)

The total eclipse will begin on the Oregon coast at 17:15 UT (10:15 a.m. PDT) and will end along the South Carolina coast at 18:49 UT (2:49 p.m. EDT).

As the space station makes its first pass during the eclipse, the crew members will be able to view a partial solar eclipse with approximately 37 percent of the sun covered up, NASA reports.

However, at this point in time, the ISS will not be able to see the umbra, or the darkest part of the moon's shadow on the Earth's surface. The space station will pass over the western United States and southeastern Canada in the first pass. The total portion of the eclipse will not have started yet for the Earth.

As the station makes its second pass through the moon's shadow, the partial eclipse will be visible to the astronauts with 44 percent of the sun covered.

"ISS will witness the moons umbra moving from southwestern Kentucky to northern Tennessee during a portion of this pass," NASA reports.

RELATED: Solar eclipse viewing conditions: Clouds could spoil views in coastal Northwest, Southeast Total eclipse towns stock toilet paper, add cell towers ahead of unprecedented crowds 5 solar eclipse viewing parties you can't miss

"The moons umbra is visible on the Earth from ISSs viewpoint while ISS traverses from southern Canada just north of the Montana-Canada border to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence."

At its closest approach, the space station will be making its way south of the Hudson Bay, far removed from the moon's umbra, which will be passing over southwestern Kentucky nearly 1,700 km away.

However, despite the distance, crew members aboard the ISS should still be able to view the shadow near the horizon.

The third pass for the ISS will bring another view of a partial solar eclipse with 85 percent coverage just minutes before orbital sunset. At this point, the darkest part of the lunar shadow will no longer be visible to crew as the umbra will have lifted from the Earth's surface as it makes its transit.

"Because of atmospheric friction and other ISS activities, the orbits undergo small changes from week to week," NASA reports.

The most precise timing will be available on NASA's ISS observations website.

Click on the banner above to visit AccuWeather's center for the Great American Eclipse.

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International Space Station astronauts to view the solar eclipse 3 times - AccuWeather.com

August 15, 2017 10:46 AM By Bernie Tafoya

CHICAGO (CBS) A Boy Scout troop from the northwest suburbs got a chance to see their dreams and more lift-off into space on Monday.

Andrew Frank, 16, and several other scouts from Troop 209 in Palatine were at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and other members of their troop were at a watch-party in Arlington Heights, as a Space X Falcon 9 rocket took off, carrying the scouts science experiment to the International Space Station.

We were all counting down with the clock as it launched off. It was really a big sense of excitement with the whole team, Frank said minutes after the rocket headed into orbit. Everyone kind of cheered and threw their arms up in the air when it actually launched. It was really cool.

Adult project lead Norm McFarland said the experiment was designed to see whether an organism in this case, E. coli mutates at a different rate in low gravity.

We think there could be implications here for either tissue growth or maybe something in cancer research, McFarland said.

Frank and his team of about a dozen scouts put in more than 5,000 hours of work on the experiment before launching it into space.

When we get our data back, were going to have to go through all the pictures, all the data. Were going to have to analyze it, and put together our report, he said.

McFarland said it will take at least three months to analyze all the data once the 24-day experiment on the station has been completed. He said the experiment will result in 6,200 pictures, each containing 70 pieces of biological information.

Frank said he and his fellow scouts likely have checked off a number of requirements for several merit badges by working on the experiment.

McFarland said the project began two years ago, with leaders suggesting the idea of trying to get an experiment in space. He said 84 suggested experiments were whittled down to two that were merged into the experiment that is now up in space.

Im a lifelong Chicagoan and could never see myself living anywhere else (except maybe Hawaii!). I was born on the North Side in 1958 but have lived all but the first three months of my life on the South Side. That said, thank (or is that curse?)...

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Boy Scouts Launch Science Project To International Space Station - CBS Chicago

Hewlett Packard Enterprise's unassuming Spaceborne Computer will test supercomputing reliability with NASA's help on the International Space Station.

HAL seemed to have little trouble in "2001: A Space Odyssey," but here's the problem with computers in space: a constant stream of cosmic rays seriously disrupt electronics.

That's why Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NASA are testing how well supercomputing technology works on the International Space Station. A SpaceX rocket scheduled to lift off Monday will carry a machine called the Spaceborne Computer that will see whether software techniques can catch and correct errors induced by the radiation from our sun and galaxy that reaches low Earth orbit. HPE announced the work Friday.

The research ultimately could improve computers here on Earth -- but also get humans to Mars.

"Mars is the next frontier, and we need supercomputing to get there. Mars astronauts won't have near-instant access to high-performance computing (HPC) like those in low-Earth orbit do -- the red planet is 26 light minutes round-trip away," said Mark Fernandez, Americas technology officer at HPE's SGI business unit. Supercomputers can be used for tasks like figuring out what to do if a spacecraft or Mars habitation has a system failure.

The Spaceborne Computer is nothing like the mammoth supercomputers on Earth, which take up rooms the size of basketball courts to tackle complex challenges like simulating the planet's weather or the effects of aging on nuclear weapons. But it uses the same basic technology, including Intel processors and a high-speed interconnect to join the system's independent computing nodes.

In this case, the computer employs a 56Gbps optical interconnect to link its different nodes. That's fast enough data-transfer speed to transfer three episodes of "Game of Thrones" from one machine to another in less than a second.

Space is a tough environment, but it has its perks. One of them is that the machine's water cooling system can poke out into space, keeping the machine from overheating for free. On Earth, cooling data centers is a major expense for companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft that operate thousands upon thousands of machine.

The challenge for the Spaceborne Computer is to get it all working despite cosmic rays. The Earth's magnetic field protects the planet's surface from these electrically charged particles -- protons and other particles that stream in from our sun, elsewhere in the galaxy and sometimes even other galaxies. They carry so much energy they can blast electronics out of whack, corrupting memory and messing up calculations.

Some computers destined for space have special shielding and other protection, but not this one. Instead of hardware changes, the computer employs software layers to for detection, correction and protection, Fernandez said. "Success would be ... correct results for a year," he said.

And that's the kind of reliability that could benefit us even here on Earth.

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Space station to test supercomputer bathed in cosmic rays - CNET