Monthly Archives: October 2019

The six-member Expedition 61 has officially started as NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin along with UAE astronaut Hazza Ali AlMansoori undocked from the International Space Station on Thursday.

Expedition 61 astronauts now aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are preparing for a record-breaking 10 spacewalks to be conducted in three months, an unprecedented feat since the assembly of the space station was completed in 2011. Their tasks include replacing batteries on the solar arrays and repairing an important science instrument exploring the universe.

SEE ALSO: Watch: International Space Station Astronauts Parachute Down The Kazakhstan Steppes!

According to NASA, veteran spacewalkers Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan exited the stations Quest airlock in their U.S. spacesuits on Sunday, 5 PM IST for a six-and-a-half hour spacewalk during which, they installed new lithium-ion batteries on Port-6 truss structure which is an attachment point of the solar arrays.

.@Astro_Christina and @AstroDrewMorgan successfully wrapped up a seven-hour and one minute spacewalk today beginning the work to upgrade the station's power systems this month. Read more... https://t.co/J1ZplaY8Ex pic.twitter.com/r6M9Zm8zEw

Here's the upcoming spacewalk schedule for the ISS crew:

October 11: Andrew Morgan and Christina Koch

October 16: Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir

October 21: Christina Koch and Jessica Meir

October 25: Jessica Meir and Luca Parmitano

October 31: Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Skvortsov

The second half of this sequence of spacewalk will focus on the repairs to the space stations Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Dates for these rest five spacewalks in the month of November and December are still being discussed.

Till date, the ISS crew members have conducted 219 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting lab. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 57 days 6 hours and 27 minutes working outside the station.

SEE ALSO: Here's A List of Everything UAE Astronaut Hazza AlMansoori Did On The International Space Station

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Expedition 61 Begins: A Series Of Spacewalks Await the International Space Station Crew This Month! - Mashable India

The criteria for determining who has achieved human spaceflight varies. The Fdration Aronautique Internationale defines the cosmic threshold as any flight above the Krmn line 62 miles (100km), a definition recognised by every country, except the US Department of Defense in the 1960s. As of September 26, 2019, 565 people from 38 countries have boldly gone to space.

The last half-century has witnessed the death of about 30 astronauts and cosmonauts while training or attempting dangerous space missions.

However, the overwhelming majority of these deaths occurred either on the ground or technically within Earths atmosphere.

Of the 550 people who have ventured into space, only three have actually died there.

The first space station to park itself above Earths atmosphere was the (then) USSRs Salyut 1, which launched without a crew on April 19, 1971.

SEE HERE:NASAs best pictures of Earth from the International Space Station

Only a few days later, a crew of three Soviets launched aboard Soyuz 10 intent on entering the space station and remaining in orbit for a month.

Though the Soyuz 10 crew managed to safely dock with Salyut 1, issues with the entry hatch prevented them from entering the space station.

The USSR made another attempt at accessing the space station a few months later, on June 6, on the Soyuz 11 mission.

Unlike the previous crew, the three Soyuz 11 cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev successfully entered Salyut 1.

Once orbiting Earth, the trio spent the following three weeks not only setting a new record for the longest time spent in space, but conducting many of scientific experiments focused on how the body deals with extended periods of weightlessness.

On June 29, the three cosmonauts returned to Soyuz 11 to began their descent to Earth.

To those on the ground, everything about Soyuz 11s reentry seemed to go off without a hitch.

The spacecraft appeared to make it through the atmosphere just fine, ultimately landing in Kazakhstan as planned.

However, it was not until recovery crews reached the spacecraft they discovered all three crew members were dead.

On opening the hatch, they found all three men in their couches, motionless, with dark-blue patches on their faces and trails of blood from their noses and ears.

They removed them from the descent module. Dobrovolski was still warm.

Based on the doctors reports, the cause of death was suffocation.

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How many astronauts have died in space? Who were the first astronauts to fly in space? - Express.co.uk

Takeoff of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo for a suborbital test flight. Virgin Galactic's spaceship is carried to high altitude by plane before turning on its rocket engine to go to space.

On Tuesday morning, Boeing announced that it intends to invest $20 million in Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by Richard Branson.

Virgin Galactic is currently in the process of finalizing an $800 million deal to merge with with Social Capital Hedosophia, which will result in it becoming a publicly traded company. Thats expected to happen before the end of 2019. Boeings investment will come as a result of buying shares in the publicly traded entity.

In a statement, the two companies hinted they would be working on projects together, but only said that information about them would be shared in the future.

Both companies are readying to put humans in space within the next few months. Virgin Galactic has successfully taken astronauts into suborbital space and is preparing for its first commercial flights. In August, the company revealed the interiors of its new spaceport. To date, the company has sold 603 tickets to fly on its spacecraft and said it will resume selling tickets once it has begun commercial operations.

Boeing is currently working on its Starliner crewed capsule, which its developing under a contract with NASA. (Elon Musks SpaceX is also developing a crewed space capsule for NASA under the same program.) Once completed, the capsule is intended to take astronauts to the International Space Station, ending the space agencys reliance on Russian spacecraft to ferry astronauts back and forth. The company is expected to make its first orbital test flight for Starliner shortly, though the exact timing has yet to be announced.

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Boeing Plans To Invest $20 Million In Space Tourism Company Virgin Galactic - Forbes

If you like volcanoes, eastern Russia is the place to be. The Kamchatka peninsula and environs are loaded with active volcanoes that erupt quite often.

South of the peninsula is a long archipelago called the Kuril Islands, dropping as far south as Japan (in fact Russia and Japan dispute the sovereignty of some of the volcanoes in the southern part). All of these islands are the tops of volcanoes, created as the Pacific tectonic plate slips beneath the Okhotsk plate to the west. There are over 100 volcanoes there, and nearly half of them are active.

One, which you'd easily miss on a map, is called Raikoke. It's only a couple of kilometers across, and has a crater in the middle 700 meters across and 200 deep. As volcanoes go it's a fair-to-middlin' one. It erupted a couple of times in the 18th century (one of which destroyed the upper third of the island!) and again in 1924. After that, it lay quiet for nearly a century.

Then, on June 22, 2019, it blew its lid off again. Now mind you, this is not a heavily inhabited region of the world (fewer than 20,000 people live in the whole archipelago), so getting close-up pictures of the event isn't likely.

unless you happen to include a thousand or so kilometers away as "close-up". Maybe not, but if most of that is across the vacuum of space, you still get incredible photos, like this one taken by an astronaut on board the International Space Station:

Whoaaaaaa. That's phenomenal. It was taken a few hours after the eruption, as the ISS passed over that part of the world. You can see the ash cloud rising, punching its way through the troposphere and right up into the stratosphere. The hot gas and ash plume rises due to convection (like a hot air balloon rising), and stops when the density of the air around it is the same as the density inside the plume. At that altitude it won't rise any more, but stuff still keeps coming up from underneath, so the plume flattens and spreads outward, creating the anvil shape you also see with really strong cumulonimbus storm clouds (and for the same reason).

It was also seen by NASA's Earth-observing Terra satellite, this time from nearly straight above it:

You can get a sense of the anvil, and see the prevailing winds taking the ash to the east. Some parts of the plume may have reached heights of about 17 kilometers. The plume has a lot of sulfur dioxide (SO2) in it, which got injected into the stratosphere.

Interestingly, once up there SO2 can be converted by sunlight into a sulfate aerosol, small particles that have a lot of sulfur in them. These are efficient at reflecting sunlight, so can actually cool the planet a wee bit. After huge eruptions the average temperature of the planet can drop a little but not much, not nearly enough to keep up with how much we're warming it. The effect is temporary anyway, since these wash out of the sky in rain. And that's bad too since when dissolved in water it creates weak sulfuric acid acid rain.

I was initially surprised to find out that the overwhelming majority of sulfur dioxide in our air is created by humans. But after thinking about it and putting it in context, this makes sense: For example, humans emit 100 times as much carbon dioxide into the air annually than volcanoes do!

A volcanic eruption is a titanic event, sowing chaos and seemingly dwarfing our own endeavors. But it's short lived, and as powerful as it may be, humans wield far more destructive forces. It's really far past time we learned better how to wield them or sheathe them.

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A volcano blows its top, seen from space - SYFY WIRE

A safe conclusion to the latest long-duration spaceflight Calling on industry to help us accelerate our return to the Moon And practice makes perfect beforethe real thing a few of the stories to tell you about This Week at NASA!

Expedition 60 Crew Returns Safely from International Space Station

The International Space Stations Expedition 60 crew including our Nick Hague is back on Earth, after landing safely in Kazakhstan Oct. 3. The landing capped off a 203-day mission on the orbital complex for Hague and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, while Visiting Astronaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori of the United Arab Emirates spent 8 days on the station. Meanwhile, our Christina Koch, Andrew Morgan, Jessica Meir, and others still aboard the station plan to conduct what may become a record pace of 10 spacewalks during the next three months. The series of spacewalks, which could kick off as soon as Oct. 6 will be used to replace some batteries for the solar arrays and to refurbish a scientific instrument that explores the fundamental nature of the universe.

Fast-Track to the Moon: NASA Opens Call for Artemis Lunar Landers

The Sept. 30 call out to American companies for proposals to design and develop human lunar landing systems for our Artemis program is expected to be our final solicitation for these systems that will send the first woman and next man to the surface of the Moon by 2024. Based on industry feedback to earlier draft solicitations, NASA adjusted some requirements to help fast-track our return to the Moon, while preserving all the agencys human safety measures. We expect to make multiple awards from the solicitation. The first company to complete its lander will carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon in 2024, and the second company will land in 2025.

NASA Seeks Industry Input on Hardware Production for Lunar Spacesuit

We are currently designing and developing a new spacesuit system, called the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit or xEMU, for use during Artemis missions at the Moon and adaptable for missions to other destinations. To that end, weve sent out a request for information seeking input from industry on a strategy for production of lunar spacesuits that will support a steady stream of Artemis missions over the next decade and beyond.

SLS Pathfinder Hardware Will Help Teams Prepare for Artemis Moon Mission

The core stage pathfinder for ourSpace Launch System or SLSrocket was delivered recently by our Pegasus barge to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Thecore stage pathfinderis one of three full-scale mockups of SLS flight hardware that will be used to train crews on best practices for moving, handling and lifting the various parts of the rocket in preparation forArtemis I, an uncrewed flight test that is the first lunar mission of SLS and our Orion spacecraft.

Cassini Data Finds New Organic Compounds on Saturns Moon

Data from our Cassini mission to Saturn which ended in Sept. 2017 have discovered molecules of organic compounds on Saturns moon Enceladus that are similar to compounds involved in the production of amino acids the building blocks of life here on Earth. The newly-discovered molecules of nitrogen and oxygen-bearing compounds were detected on material ejected from the moons core into space by powerful hydrothermal vents.

Thats whats up this week @NASA

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This Week @ NASA: Expedition 60 Crew Returns Safely from the Space Station - SCVTV

Cancer cells are to be transported into space to see if weightlessness can stop their growth, in one of nine research projects destined for the new China Space Station (CSS) in 2022.

Upon completion, the CSS will include a cancer research project called Tumours in Space, headed by a Canadian researcher based in Norway. The project will examine the roles of both microgravity and cosmic radiation in tumour growth and development. The project is one of just nine selected by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) under their programme to provide scientists from all over the world with the opportunity to fly experiments on the CSS.

The plan is to send three-dimensional stem cell organoids from both healthy and cancer tissue from the same person into space. Here we will study mutations and look at how the cells DNA is affected by weightlessness and cosmic radiation, said the projects principal investigator Tricia L. Larose.

The experiment will rely on three-dimensional cancerous tumours, called organoids. These organoids are grown from adult human stem cells, which are a kind of cell that can divide indefinitely and create different types of cells in doing so. Researchers have perfected their ability to grow organoids so they actually form tiny structures that mimic different organs. Larose theorises that the cancer organoid growth will slow or stop when they are not affected by Earths gravity. Previous research on two-dimensional cells has shown that weightlessness has an influence on gene expression linked to tumour development.

When we look at mutational signatures in cancer cells, there is a lot of noise. The noise is something we simply do not know a lot about, she said. Part of my experimental process is identifying new causes of that noise, and some of that might be gravity

Her theory is that some of the unknown noise in the cancer cells is there as a result of gravity. Since both healthy cells and cells with cancer are affected by gravity, the researchers should be able to detect this in the fingerprints in all our cells.

Im looking for the molecular fingerprint for the gravitational force, she said; this could help explain the meaning of some of the noise in the cancer cells.

She added that the mutational signature of gravity has never been studied or even proposed as a concept. The experiment will also test how cosmic radiation affects the DNA of the healthy organoids and whether this leads to mutations and cancer. The various causes of cancer, such as smoking, UV radiation and ionizing radiation, also leave mutational signatures. Identifying mutational signatures from cancer-causing exposures can be used for risk prediction, eventually leading to better diagnostics and therapeutics.

My ground-based research with ionising radiation will also help us understand the side effects of radiation therapy for cancer patients on Earth, she said.

The studies of cosmic radiation will also help with understanding the cancer risk for astronauts on long-duration missions in the space station, or longer journeys, such as to Mars.

The biggest challenge with human spaceflight and exploration for long-duration missions to Mars and beyond, is the cancer risk for crew due to exposure of cosmic radiation. By identifying the mutational signature of cosmic radiation and comparing that to the known signature of ionising radiation, we may be better able to predict risk and protect crew on a long-duration space mission Larose said.

It is thought that astronauts on a mission to Mars would be exposed to at least 60 per cent of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their career during the journey alone to and from the Red Planet.

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Cancer cells to be tested in zero gravity on Chinese Space Station - E&T Magazine

Images courtesy of NASA and heavens-above.com

Per a recent update from the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS), the International Space Station (ISS) will be flying over Cape Hatteras on Thursday night starting at 7:57 p.m. Assuming skies are clear, the ISS will look like a bright star arriving from the West-Northwest before disappearing in the Southeastern sky at 8:02 p.m.

Per the CHNS, there are currently two cosmonauts from Russia and four astronauts from the U.S. and Italy on board the ISS, and they are conducting a variety of science experiments ranging from the 3-D printing of human organs to studying the structure of car tires. Among the U.S. group is North Carolina State graduate Christina Koch who, upon her return to Earth in February of 2020, will set the record for the longest spaceflight for a woman providing NASA with information about how the body reacts in space for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

For more information on the ISSs current location, visit https://heavens-above.com/

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International Space Station flying over Cape Hatteras Thursday Night - Island Free Press

October 8, 2019Posted in: Research

The National Science Foundation, Divisions of Chemical, Bioengineering and Environmental Transport (CBET) and Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Infrastructure (CMMI) in the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation (NSF) under solicitation NSF 20-500, are partnering with The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to solicit research projects in the general fields of tissue engineering and mechanobiology that can utilize the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab to conduct research that will benefit life on Earth. Only U.S. entities including academic investigators, non-profit independent research laboratories and academic-commercial teams are eligible to apply.

If you are interesting in applying for this funding opportunity, please start a routing sheet as soon as possible. As a reminder, proposals must be completed and submitted to OSRP at least 2 business days prior January 10, 2020. If you should have any questions, please contact OSRP.Please be aware that while the submission deadline for the proposal is March 2020, the feasibilityreview form is due by January 10, 2020.

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NSF/CASIS Collaboration on Tissue Engineering and Mechanobiology on the International Space Station (ISS) to Benefit Life on Earth - IIT Today

MONCTON Mylne Desprs, the founder of La Station Support, has teamed up with Dan Gillis, co-founder of Porpoise and owner of the Botsford Station, to gather community-minded entrepreneurs and organizations in a co-working space.

La Station is renting space on the second floor of the former hat factory on 232 Botsford St. This is a new offering by the company, which was launched last year to support entrepreneurs with administrative and operational services.

Theres going to be the support piece but also the work space piece because I find it goes hand in hand, Desprs said. Its not just for me to support and get clients, but its for everybody to support each other and create a community.

La Station is looking for non-profit organizations, solo entrepreneurs, artists, and small business owners that want to make a positive impact in the community to be its members.

I realize that theres so many people in Moncton doing good things and everybodys just kind of siloed. This new adventure for me is just a way to get all these people together, helping each other, collaborating and growing together, Desprs said. It doesnt matter what theyre doing and in which capacity theyre bettering our comunnity. I think thats what differentiates us.

Currently, there are about 10 members working in the space, including Branch Graphic Design, The Garden Cities Project, and an art collective.

Desprs has rooms available for workshops. Bigger classrooms will be added as the buildings renovation moves forward and the third floor opens up in the second and third phases of the project.

The space has a kitchen, call rooms, meeting rooms with Smart TVs, high speed internet, coffee and an espresso machine for use by members, community tables, and standing desks. Its also available for event rentals on weekends.

Desprs wants the space to feel like a restaurant or coffee shop, and for people to move around and interact. But she also plans to have some dedicated desks in the future in response to market demand.

And we are going as eco-friendly as we can, repurposing the space but also the furniture. Everything is recycled, she said.

Currently, the second floor is being shared with the staff of Porpoise and Alongside. The La Station portion of the space can accommodate 45 seats and has standing space for 90 people.

Desprs plans to host networking events that allow deeper conversations to happen.

I really feel like a community that learns together stays together, she said.

Gillis, who has owned the building for 10 years, is helping Desprs get the project up and running. He said the idea resonates with how the building, constructed between 1910 and 1913, was preserved with the help of community volunteers when he bought it in 2009.

When we first moved in, it was a community project and we wanted to transform this building with the power of community and this volunteer-driven initiative, he said. Our original vision was that it would be a place for people and ideas to come to life. So through that whole process, we actually hosted a number of different businesses.

Desprs and Gillis had known each other through their involvement in the community. But a Huddle article about La Station sparked an idea for Gillis to collaborate with Desprs. The move finally happened when Amanda Hachey, co-director of social innovation lab NouLAB, heard about Desprs plan and told her to connect with Gillis.

We have the start of something. We have essentially 6,600 square feet that we can grow into and a whole third floor above us for the expansion of this idea and the project. But what we didnt have was really the capacity to lead this project, Gillis said.

Having visited various co-working spaces around the world through Porpoise, Gillis noticed that those that are run well have good community managers.

What I saw inMylne was shes really entrenched herself in community for these past several years and has really established the network that I think is going to make a project like this possible.

Co-working spaces also generally have a theme and a focus area, he said. La Station focuses on creativity, innovation and a community spirit. Desprs hopes it will be a complementary addition to the larger co-working community.

Collaboration over competition, thats always been my motto, she said.

For now, members have access to the building only during working hours and would have to contact Desprs for access outside of those times. But La Station plans to use an app-based security system in the future.

Once signed up, members also have access to an online community on Slack.

Memberships cost between $125 and $250 a month. The daily rate for a desk is $20 and meeting room rentals range between $25 and $150.Community members can also sign up for a $200/year membership to get discounted access to events, workshops, meeting rooms, and online community.

An launch event is planned on November 13, from 5-7 p.m.

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Moncton's La Station Is A Co-Working Space For Everyone From Artists To Solo Entrepreneurs - Huddle Today