Monthly Archives: June 2022

Set phasers to stunned: A photographer on the ground spotted a spacecraft 250 miles (400 kilometers) overhead, just about to meet up with the International Space Station (ISS).

Szabolcs Nagy, a space station tracker and photographerin London, captured Boeing's Starliner just 650 feet (200 meters) from the orbiting complex as the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) made a historic docking on May 20.

"I was listening to the conversation between Mission Control and ISS crew whilst taking photos with my telescope in the garden," Nagy, who also created SpaceStationGuys.com (opens in new tab), told Space.com.

In photos: Boeing's Starliner OFT-2 mission in picturesLive updates: Starliner's OFT-2 mission

"It felt like no other ISS imaging session before," added Nagy, who enhanced his camera's view using a 14-inch Dobsonian telescope with manual tracking, along with a 3x Barlow lens to increase the system's focal length.

OFT-2 successfully met all major objectives as Starliner is seeking to ship astronauts to the space station on future flights. While the spacecraft's mission results are still being judged against metrics with NASA officials, indications so far point to a crew going aboard Starliner later in the year.

Nagy described his photography session as "a totally surreal experience, really." In the moment, he wasn't sure if the two vehicles could fit in a single field of view, but everything was bright enough and close enough to capture a few thousand frames of the encounter, he said.

As you can see below, this image wasn't the only one he produced during the mission. And in between photography sessions, he was uploading Starliner mission content on his YouTube channel (opens in new tab).

Geraint Jones, a professor and head of the Planetary Science Group at University College London, photographed the spacecraft and station during docking procedures from his location in Guildford, Surrey. Jones snapped his image (opens in new tab) with a handheld camera only an hour's drive southwest from where Nagy stood.

As for Nagy, he was back at his camera during the reentry of Starliner five days later, as the Boeing spacecraft zoomed through the atmosphere en route to a safe parachute landing atWhite Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

"Check out the full video of the event; it was spectacular," Nagy said on Twitter (opens in new tab) May 25, adding, "As I tweet, Starliner is deploying the heat shield. Sooo cool."

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Wow! International Space Station and Boeing Starliner captured in the same incredible image - Space.com

Visitors to The Infinite walk around an exhibit space at the Tacoma Armory that contains a full-scale VR version of the International Space Station. In the foreground, Lesley Kilp and Kyle Byram are sitting down to watch a VR spacewalk. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

TACOMA, Wash. One tour of the International Space Station is not enough, even if you do the tour in virtual reality.

I found that out when I explored The Infinite, a cleverly conceived VR presentation that draws upon more than 250 hours worth of 3-D video shot aboard (and outside) the space station over the course of nearly three years.

After months-long runs in Montreal and Houston, the show or exhibit or whatever you want to call it landed at the Tacoma Armory late last month and is open to visitors through July 31.

The best way to describe The Infinite is to call it an immersive experience an entertainment genre of relatively recent vintage that would also include the immersive Van Gogh exhibits that are making their way around the world. (One such exhibit recently wrapped up its Tacoma run, and another is still playing in Seattle.)

Even by the standards of immersive experience, The Infinite is in a class by itself.

People dont necessarily realize that this is the largest virtual-reality experience that has ever been created, in terms of size and in terms of capacity of people, Felix Lajeunesse, co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios and chief creative officer for The Infinite, told me after my first encounter with the experience. We can have up to 150 people sharing that collective experience at the same time, walking inside a 7,000-square-foot open space.

So what do they experience?

Imagine putting on a VR headset, walking through outer space with the Northern Lights above you, and floating right through the hull of the ISS to peek in on what the astronauts are doing. You might be gathering with the crew around their makeshift dinner table for a birthday party, or watching them get ready for a spacewalk, or looking over their shoulders as they gaze through the stations giant picture window while the Earth spins below.

Youre not just watching a movie. Its as if youre in the movie.

The VR system tracks your movements as you walk around a full-scale skeletal model of the space station thats peppered with glowing virtual spheres. When you push your hand through one of the spheres, the view morphs into a 3-D video scene. You can hear the dialogue between the astronauts, or off-camera commentary from an astronaut.

Its a bit like walking into a movie set, NASA astronaut Christina Koch says in one of the mini-scenes. She was talking about what its like to arrive at the International Space Station, but she just as well could have been talking about The Infinite.

The experience is organized into four chapters, focusing on adapting to the space environment, doing the work of space exploration, cooperating with international partners and looking ahead to the future. You have only about 35 minutes in all to explore the station, so theres no way you can plow through more than 60 3-D scenes during a single tour.

At the end of Chapter 4, a sparkly path directs you through the VR space to a lounge chair where you can sit down and watch the presentationspice de rsistance: a spacewalk filmed in 3-D last September by a camera mounted on the space stations robotic arm.

Jonathan Woods, executive producer at Time Studios, said the VR spacewalk fulfilled a years-long dream of his.

To watch those astronauts working in front of you, I have to say, was a moment that on at least two or three occasions moved me to tears, he told me. One, because of the magnitude of having played some small part in creating that. But also [because of] the power that this has to transform people and allow them to experience the Overview Effect without the tremendous cost of leaving the planet on a rocket.

The Infinite came about because Time Studios (the multimedia arm of Time magazine) and Felix & Paul Studios (a Montreal-based production company specializing in immersive entertainment) were both exploring the possibilities for doing VR on the space station.

Felix & Paul Studios had already been following astronauts through their on-the-ground training for a documentary series, while Time Studios had produced an Emmy-winning digital video series about NASA astronaut Scott Kellys record-setting year in space. In 2017, the two teams decided to join forces with NASA and PHI Studio to boldly go where no media project had gone before.

The project involved building a specialized kind of 360-degree camera that could withstand the rigors of spaceflight, persuading NASA to set aside a significant chunk of the stations precious crew time, and training the astronauts to serve as cinematographers, producers and actors in orbit.

The thing that makes me the most excited to this day is the fact that the astronauts brought a lot of their own creative contributions to the project, Lajeunesse said. For instance, in many circumstances, while we were filming inside the space station with them, they would let the camera roll after they finished recording what was scheduled to be recorded. A lot of the content that you see there was captured that way, in those completely genuine moments.

In one classic 3-D moment, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques lets his running shoes float in zero-G toward the camera. (Try to catch a shoe and see what happens.) In another scene, NASA astronaut Anne McClain shows Christina Koch around her new quarters and gives a piece of zero-G advice: If you happen to kick something, I would say, turn around and see what you kicked.

The VR environment for The Infinite is structured in such a way that you should be able to avoid kicking something or someone. When strangers come within a range of about 12 feet, they materialize in your virtual space station as sparkly, Star Trek-like avatars with a glowing blue light in their chests. And you can always spot people in your own group as avatars with a golden light, no matter how far away they are.

If youre worried about your kid, you will always see your kid, Lajeunesse said.

Here are some tips to maximize your Infinite experience, based on my tours:

Woods said The Infinite came together at a fortunate moment in time, with the International Space Station at its peak. Its an open question whether a project like The Infinite could get done if its creators had to start from square one today.

With the experiences that Ive had working with the Russian space program, I do not believe that it would be tenable to begin a partnership right now, given the tensions between the two countries, Woods said.

At the same time, NASA is ramping up its Artemis program to send astronauts to the moon. Will that be the next frontier for immersive experiences? Are people already thinking about doing virtual-reality moonshots?

I can neither confirm nor deny, Woods said with a laugh.

Timed-entry reservations for The Infinite at the Tacoma Armory (presented by Tacoma Arts Live) can be made via the Fever online ticketing service. Ticket prices range from $15 to $48. Age requirement: 8 or older. The experience is wheelchair-accessible, and lasts about 60 minutes.

Want to bring the virtual space station into your home? The 3-D VR scenes from the station can be seen not only in The Infinite, but also in Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, an immersive series available for Oculus headsets.

See more here:
Immerse yourself in life aboard the International Space Station at 'The Infinite' VR experience - GeekWire

European aerospace company Airbus will send a metal-crafting 3D printer to the International Space Station next year as a first step in its plans to set up an orbital satellite factory.

The printer, called Metal3D, can work with metals that melt at temperatures of up to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius). It will be the first metal 3D printer on the space station, Airbus said in a statement (opens in new tab), and will enable astronauts to print parts such as radiation shields and various tools. (American company Made In Space, now a subsidiary of Redwire, has sent several 3D printers to the space station, but none of them can print metal.)

Future versions of the 3D printer, the company added, will be able to make objects using lunar soil and also recycle parts from old satellites.

Related: 3D printed satellite antennas can be made in space with help of sunlight

The Metal3D printer is only one component in a range of technologies developed by Airbus with the goal of setting up a space factory. In a series of videos, Airbus showed off a robotic manipulator designed to assemble spacecraft.

"Airbus' solution is to launch kit parts that will be assembled in space by the robotic arms from our space factory," the company said in the statement.

The robotic arms will be able to build each other in orbit, Airbus said, but could also be used to repair and refuel spacecraft.

The company said it would like to be able to manufacture entire satellites in space in the "next three to four years."

"Since there is enough space in space, it will be possible to build bigger structures such as huge reflectors, allowing telecom satellites to cover the entire planet," Airbus said in the statement.

Moreover, producing satellites in space will also be kinder to the environment, the company said, as fewer polluting rocket launches will be needed.

"The material for production can be sourced from the space debris floating around," Airbus said. "So with the space factory, Airbus is also helping to clean up space and ensure a sustainable future for the industry."

When it comes to the Metal3D printer, the space station is only its first destination. By the end of this decade, Airbus said, a similar device might be churning out parts of lunar rovers and habitats directly on the surface of the moon.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Airbus sending 3D printer to space station next year to pave way for off-Earth factories - Space.com

A lot of science gear will go up to the International Space Station this week on SpaceX's 25th cargo resupply service mission to the orbital lab.

The uncrewed flight, known as CRS-25, will kick off on Friday (June 10), when a Falcon 9 rocket launches a Dragon capsule from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Dragon is packed with a variety of cargo and supplies, including a trove of science experiments.

Ranging broadly in their focus, the science headed to the International Space Station (ISS) includes investigations into immune system aging and recovery, global dust composition and its effect on the climate, how communities of microorganisms in soil are affected by microgravity, and more.

Related: Building the International Space Station (photos)

In a call with reporters on Thursday (June 2), NASA officials voiced excitement about the number of experiments headed to the orbital laboratory, as well as the increased ability of astronauts to conduct them.

For nearly a decade after the 2011 retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet, the agency was dependent on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to carry its astronauts to and from the ISS. The three-person Soyuz is always commanded by a cosmonaut and therefore can carry a maximum of two spaceflyers to the U.S. section of the station.

But more people NASA, European and Japanese astronauts can get to and from the U.S. section now, thanks to the success of SpaceX's astronaut missions for NASA. The crewed version of Dragon is outfitted to carry four astronauts at a time, and SpaceX has now launched four operational crewed missions to the ISS.

And that boost in crew numbers has allowed greater research opportunities, NASA officials said.

"Since we've had four crew, and not too long ago five crew onboard ISS we've been flush with crew time," Kirt Costello, NASA's chief scientist for the ISS program, said during Thursday's briefing. "We've seen our ISS researcher sponsors respond and utilize all the time that's available."

Here's a rundown of some of the experiments headed to orbit next week. You can learn more about them and other research flying on CRS-25 via NASA here (opens in new tab).

The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, known as EMIT, will spend the next year measuring mineral composition of dust in Earth's driest landscapes. During Thursday's briefing, Robert Green, EMIT's principal investigator, explained what he referred to as the planet's "mineral dust cycle."

Dust blown into Earth's atmosphere by high desert winds travels thousands of miles. The mineral content of this atmospheric dust affects the interconnected global climate system, and the composition of these minerals is key to discovering how. Depending on the minerals present, for example, atmospheric dust will absorb and reflect sunlight in different ways, heating or cooling areas, affecting cloud formation and atmospheric chemistry. This type of dust can also serve as a rich nutrient deposit when it settles in the ocean or on land.

Right now, according to Green, there are only a total of 5,000 mineral samples from Earth's global dust cycle in scientists' hands. EMIT aims to leave that number in the dust. The EMIT module is loaded in Dragon's trunk on CRS-25, and it's the mission's largest payload. Once Dragon reaches the ISS, EMIT will be attached to the station's External Logistics Module 1, where it will spend the next year spectroscopically analyzing over a billion dust samples from across the planet. Scientists hope to use this data to update global systems models for things like weather prediction and climate research.

Climate change: causes and effects

NASA's Artemis program aims to establish a permanent human presence on and around the moon. However, the question of how to best build sustainable habitats from locally sourced resources remains unanswered. Building materials like steel and concrete are heavy and extremely cost-ineffective to launch to orbit, let alone the moon.

Students at Stanford University are investigating how microgravity affects the formation of a concrete alternative that mixes an organic compound with water and "in situ" resources, like lunar regolith or Martian dust, to create a biopolymer soil composite (BPC). Rather than utilizing a chemical reaction, heat or pressure, the compounds used in BPCs allow the mixture to dry with "about half the strength of Portland cement," according to Stanford student Jocelyn Huang Thai, one of the team leads for the Biopolymer Research for In-Situ Capabilities investigation.

This experiment will use a compound called bovine serum albumin (BSA) to create six bricks aboard the space station, each about 0.3 inches (7 millimeters) long. On Earth, BSA forms protein bridges connecting dirt particles during the drying process. Researchers hope to compare bricks mixed in space with counterparts made on Earth to determine the influence of microgravity on the drying process and protein bridge formation, and how that affects the density and strength of the bricks.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the University of Florence in Italy are sending skin samples to the space station on CRS-25. But these aren't just small flakes in a test tube. A set of tissue chips, containers designed to store human cells for study in microgravity, will hold samples of human skin and blood vessels, ethically derived, which have been wounded and then sutured to study the mechanical forces of stitches on the healing process in microgravity.

It stands to reason that, as the pace of human spaceflight increases, someone at some point will be inadvertently injured. Monica Monici of the University of Florence, principal investigator of the Suture in Space study, highlighted the benefits of studying sutures in space during Thursday's call.

"Previous experiments on cell cultures and animal models have shown that wound closure is delayed in microgravity conditions," Monici explained. "Since evacuation time from space to Earth [on future missions] might be very long, the need for implementing trauma care and surgeries increases Wound healing should be regarded as a major problem for investigation since it is critical for crew survival."

Immunosenescence, the aging of immune cells, occurs at a higher rate in microgravity, and that aging can inhibit cells' ability to repair tissues. Like the sutures experiment, the Immunosenescence investigation also uses tissue chips, but this time to study immunocellular aging.

You know the phrase, "You're only as old as you feel?" Well, according to Sonja Schrepfer, principal investigator for the project, you're only as old as your immune system. "An aged immune system is not necessarily correlating with the age of the patient but rather with the status of the immune system," Schrepfer, a professor of surgery at the University of California San Francisco, said during Thursday's call.

Researchers for the project will get to observe these cells in flight and back on the ground, too. A similar experiment flew on a cargo mission in December of 2018, but its mission parameters did not plan for a return. Scientists will get to observe the immune tissue's reaction post-flight, after Immunosenescence samples are returned to Earth in September.

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Moon bricks, space sutures and more: Meet the science SpaceX is flying to the space station this week - Space.com

A Russian scientist has expressed concerns that the country's planned space station could end up being contaminated with germs already on the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia's plans for its Russian Orbital Space Station (ROSS) are ongoing amid the country's continued invasion of Ukraine, which has been internationally condemned. One possible option for the creation of the ROSS station would be to use existing Russian modules attached to the ISS. These modules could be detached and then operated independently.

However, Oleg Orlov, director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), has reportedly said that creating the ROSS station in this way could lead to "potentially pathogenic bacteria" spreading through and destroying parts of the station, according to Russia's state-run TASS news agency.

During a Russian space council meeting, Orlov was cited by the RAS as saying: "The option of creating the ROSS using the ISS modules will lead to the transfer of the microbiota to the new modules [and] will accelerate the process of their biocontamination which will result in potentially pathogenic bacteria and technophiles participating in the process of the biodestruction of materials emerging at the ROSS."

Orlov added that germ contamination had interfered with space tech once before when equipment was damaged by microorganisms during a mission on Russia's former Mir space station.

"Cumulative results show that microorganisms in numbers exceeding normative requirements were detected in 65 [percent] of samples," Orlov added according to TASS, noting that the amount had been increasing. Germs reportedly included those from the staphylococcus and streptococcus groups.

Space agencies have measures in place to prevent microbial contamination in spaceNASA uses clean rooms that thoroughly clean payloads destined for the ISSbut research has shown that space stations can host bacteria and fungi that could harm astronauts and equipment.

It's unclear what Orlov's comments will mean for Russia's ROSS plans. Experts have told Newsweek in the past that they doubt Russia will be able to get its space station operational in the foreseeable future due in part to financial issues, suggesting that microbes could be the least of their concerns.

Still, Russia's space industry chief Dmitry Rogozin has repeatedly threatened that the country could stop participating in the ISS project in which it has been a major partner for decades, working alongside the U.S. and several other countries.

Amid an international backlash against the war in Ukraine, Rogozin said in April that a decision on whether or not to pull out of the ISS had already been made and that partners would be informed of that decision with a year's notice. The Russian government has committed to continue working on the ISS until 2024.

Continue reading here:
Russia Warns of Potentially Pathogenic Space Germs on ISS - Newsweek

Back in 2012, researchers exploring the thermal springs of Yellowstone National Park happened upon a hearty new microbe called Fusarium strain flavolapis. Having survived the acidic volcano springs of Yellowstone meant the microbe, a fungus, might just survive in a challenging environment like outer space.

That was the theory, but researchers will soon know how Fusarium flavolapis performs 254 miles above earth as the fungi heads to the International Space Station aboard SpaceXs 25th cargo mission for NASA on Friday, June 10th. The fungi will go to space as part of NASAs EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), under a project where Montana State University, BioServe Space Technologies,and a startup called Natures Fynd will test how it performs and see if it could be used as a source of food for astronauts.

The fungi, now better known by its commercial name of Fy, was initially isolated by Dr. Mark Kozubal under a research program funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. Kozubal would go on to found Natures Fynd as part of an effort to commercialize Fy as a complete protein that could be used in plant-based meat and dairy substitutes. Earlier this year, Fy made its way to market as part of a series of consumer products that includes meatless breakfast sausage and dairy-free cream cheese

As Natures Fynd worked to develop Fy into new consumer-facing products, the company continued to work with NASA under their Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, which had opened a call for microbial biomanufacturing technologies in space. Natures Fynd worked with researchers from Montana State University to build a bioreactor prototype that could grow FY in microgravity environments like the International Space Station (ISS). And earlier this year, Natures Fynd, MSU, and Bioserve Space Technology, a Center within the University of Colorado Bouldertechnologies, received a grant under NASAs EPSCoR to test the bioreactor in space.

One of the reasons Fy is so attractive as a potential food source for astronauts is its a source of complete protein, meaning it has all nine of the necessary amino acids humans need as part of their diet. Its also a source of net new protein, meaning unlike pea or animal protein it isnt simply a protein thats been converted from one source to another. In space, efficiency is the name of the game, and Fys ability to create protein without an intermediary makes it a promising new candidate to feed long-term space travelers. Starting this Friday, researchers will soon know whether Fy will live up to that promise.

This project is one of many being funded by NASA as part of its effort to develop sources of food for long-term space travel. Earlier this year, the space agency announced $1 million in prize money for Phase 2 of its Deep Space Food Challenge, a NASA Centennial challenge that aims to foster innovation around sustainable food production technologies or systems that require minimal resources and produce minimal waste. The space agency has also experimented with baking cookies and printing pizzas in microgravity environments.

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Fungi Protein Heading to Space Station Aboard SpaceX to Test Viability as Astronaut Food - The Spoon