Category Archives: Space Station

China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts have been busy testing a new space station module, conducting spacewalks and carrying out experiments but they've also found time to take some spectacular photos.

China's human spaceflight agency, CMSA, released the photographs taken by the astronauts aboard the Tiangong space station during their ongoing mission, which launched June 3.

Images taken by Cmdr. Chen Dong show one of the station's flexible solar arrays against a backdrop of nighttime cities shining from Earth below, and another photo captures the airglow above our planet that results when sunlight interacts with atoms and molecules in Earth's atmosphere.

Related: China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts mark busy 1st month aboard Tiangong space station

Liu Yang, whose previous mission to space back in 2012 made her China's first woman in orbit, also snapped some pictures, including one of a full moon above Earth. Photos taken by Cai Xuzhe on his first trip to space include an image of Hainan island, just off the Chinese mainland, from where the Tiangong modules launched, and a tomato plant sprouting aboard the station.

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Shenzhou 14 is the third crewed mission to Tiangong. During the first, Shenzhou 12, astronauts also returned stunning images.

The Shenzhou 14 crew is scheduled to receive a new visitor later this month, when the third and final module for Tiangong is launched. The Mengtian module will complete the planned T-shaped orbital outpost.

The crewmembers are expected to stay in orbit until sometime in December, when they will welcome the incoming Shenzhou 15 mission astronauts and carry out China's first-ever crew handover.

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China's Shenzhou 14 astronauts snap stunning photos of Earth, the moon and more - Space.com

European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer on a spacewalk outside theInternational Space Station Courtesy of NASA

Astronauts spend years undergoing rigorous training before they maketheir first trip into space. And before becoming astronauts, they usually already have years of experience in related fields, such as engineering, geology, aeronautics, physics, medicine and biology; many have doctorates or have seen military combat.

But for actor Tom Cruise, a trip to space might just be another day at the office. Cruise hopes to shoot scenes for an as-yet-untitled action film at the International Space Station (ISS) in the near future. If he succeeds, hed become the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station, according to Donna Langley, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

In a lengthy interview with the BBCs Katie Razzall, Langley reveals a few more details about the proposed movie, which is still an aspiration at this stage, per the BBC.

Tom Cruise is taking us to space, hes taking the world to space, Langley tells the BBC. Thats the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom.

Cruise and director Doug Liman, who worked together on the 2014 movie Edge of Tomorrow, pitched the idea for the new film to Langley on a Zoom call during the pandemic. Though she didnt share too many specific details about the plot, the general gist is that the storyline actually takes place on earth, and then the character needs to go up to space to save the day.

Cruise is already known for doing many of his own stunts, including some potentially dangerous ones, so it comes as no surprise that hes willing to take a rocket to the space station for the sake of cinema. As Daniel Kreps writes for Rolling Stone, its unclear whether Cruise would actually go inside the ISS or just walk around outside of the orbiting laboratory.

NASA, for its part, seems willing to collaborate on the movie. Though he has since deleted the tweet, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote in May 2020 that the agency is looking forward to working with Cruise. We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make NASAs ambitious plans a reality, he wrote. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, which is working with NASA on a number of projects, replied that the project should be a lot of fun! As Deadlines Mike Fleming Jr. reported at the time, Musk, Cruise and NASA were all reportedly working together to make the film a reality.

Despite his lack of official astronaut training, Cruise does have some cinematic experience with space and aviation. In 2013, he played a futuristic drone technician who must defend Earth against alien invaders in Oblivion. He also narrated the 2002 Imax documentary Space Station 3D. One of his most popular air-and-space-related films, of course, is Top Gun, the 1986 flick about Navy fighter pilots. Cruise also recently starred in the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick.

Since the space stations launch nearly 24 years ago in 1998, ISS crewmembers have made just 253 spacewalksin other words, theyre not something NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos or any of the other major space station partners take lightly. Spacewalks are inherently dangerous and, as such, NASA has a whole slew of rules and guidelines around them. As Paola Rosa-Aquino writes for Space.com, theyre also expensive and time-consumingwhenever possible, crewmembers try to use robotic arms to work outside the ISS.

Sometimes, though, astronauts (and Russian cosmonauts) have to go on spacewalks as a last resort. They typically have very specific reasons for leaving the space station, such as performing maintenance or installing new equipment. NASA calls these adventures extravehicular activities.

Wearing highly specialized suits outfitted with life support gear, crewmembers depart the space station through a special set of airlock doors. They remain attached to the space station via tethers, and they usually spend five to eight hours in space while completing their objectives.

Astronauts must complete special training before they undertake spacewalks. They spend a lot of time at NASAs Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, theypractice spacewalks in a6.2-million-gallon poolin which they neither sink nor float. For every hour a crewmember will spend on an ISS spacewalk, they must spend seven hours in the pool, per NASA. They also train via virtual reality technologies that simulate extravehicular activities.

If Cruise ever does make it into orbit, there is another thing hell have to keep in mind: remembering to focus in the face of the vast cosmos. And thats not necessarily an easy feat, as NASA astronaut Mike Fincke told CNNs Ashley Strickland last year.

Its really truly breathtaking, he told the publication. The only thing between you and the rest of the universe, seeing the whole cosmos of creation, is the glass faceplate of your visor on your helmet, and its just awe-inspiring.

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Tom Cruise Might Become the First Civilian to Spacewalk at the ISS - Smithsonian Magazine

NASA astronauts on the International Space Station are eyeing the moon, and what it would take to get there.

SpaceX's Crew-4 astronauts spoke from the orbiting lab about how their work is linking up with NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission, which could launch in November, and with other lunar sorties in the coming years.

"A really exciting part of what we're able to do up here [is] using the International Space Station [ISS] as a testbed for future exploration," NASA's Jessica Watkins told Space.com during a live press conference on Tuesday (Oct. 11), two days before Crew-4's scheduled return to Earth. (The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying Watkins and her three crewmates is scheduled to splash down Thursday, Oct. 13, at 5:41 p.m. EDT, or 2141 GMT.)

Related: The Artemis plan: Why NASA sees the moon as a stepping stone to Mars

ISS research is gearing up for a big spaceflight leap: sending humans back to the moon for the first time since 1972.

Providing the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission to lunar orbit launches and lands as planned, NASA plans to send Artemis 2 around the moon with astronauts as soon as 2024. Following that, Artemis 3 is scheduled to land on the surface in 2025 or so. Watkins, a Black geologist, may be one of the people making the first lunar bootprints since Apollo 17, for NASA aims to land a woman and a person of color on Artemis 3.

A large chunk of space station research is devoted to human health, and to advancing technologies like life support or growing plants to make sure they are robust enough to take on the demanding lunar environment, Watkins explained.

"We are looking into ways to protect against some of the hazards that are associated with some of this exploration," Watkins said. Plants will need to contend with very different soil and weaker gravity, for example, while plants and machinery alike will need to deal with intense radiation at the moon's surface.

"Radiation is one of the biggest factors that needs to be mitigated as we move forward," Watkins added, which is why Artemis 1 will have so many sensors in the spacecraft to test and assess the environment.

Crew-5 members are testing out a radiation vest, AstroRad, that will also fly around the moon on an Artemis 1 mannequin. With the sun rapidly entering an active phase in its 11-year activity cycle, space radiation is reaching a high point around the solar system.

Putting AstroRad in Earth and lunar orbit at about the same time will allow scientists to compare ISS astronaut radiation exposure with the mannequin's to see how radiation is percolating across Earth's neighborhood and beyond, Watkins explained.

"The ISS is really enabling us to further technologies and understanding that will enable us to go further into the solar system," added Watkins, whose own research about Mars geology was published in a peer-reviewed journal shortly after she blasted into orbit. The topic: rocks studied by NASA's Curiosity rover.

Related: Amazing launch photos of SpaceX's Crew-4 astronaut mission

A typical space station crew looks at 200 or so investigations with the aim of banking reams of data for future crews to draw upon, no matter where they're located. Both Watkins and Crew-4 commander and fellow NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren pointed to the human body's reactions to space as a key frame of their research.

One project on immune system science was "really looking at the aging process of immune cells, to better understand the immune dysfunction that we see in astronauts here on orbit," Lindgren said, adding that a shorter-term benefit will be creating better treatments for patients on Earth. "Truly understanding that at the cellular level that was a lot of fun to participate in."

Crew-4 crewmate Samantha Cristoforetti, who last visited the ISS nearly seven years ago, pointed to big changes in science since she last undocked: a scanning electron microscope, two 3D printers and "all kinds of facilities" to gather information for future crews, she said.

"There is a whole slew of life support technological technology demos that are running on space station, again, something new," said Cristoforetti, a European Space Agency astronaut. "It's an even busier space station."

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SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts say their space station work will help get NASA to the moon - Space.com

A New Zealand research institute and U.S. commercial firm Nanoracks are combining to send a superconducting magnet technology demonstrator to the International Space Station to test a novel type of space propulsion.

The PaihauRobinson Research Institute intends to test a type of electric space thruster known as applied-field magneto plasma dynamic (AF-MPD) thrusters which uses high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology developed by the institute.

Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with zero resistance and therefore with much greater efficiency than conventional conductive materials. Most of these superconductors, however, require temperatures close to the absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius or - 460 degrees Fahrenheit), which complicates their use. High-temperature superconductors (HTS) can operate at somewhat friendlier temperatures of 321.1 degrees F (196.2 degrees C), which makes their operations cheaper. On top of that, HTS can generate stronger fields than low temperature superconductors, have a larger operational range and can be more compact, the PaihauRobinson Research Institute wrote in a statement (opens in new tab).

Related: Nanoracks tests tech to slice up space junk in orbit for 1st time

The AF-MPD thrusters, based on the HTS technology, use a combination of magnetic and electric fields to generate thrust. The researchers believe they could potentially provide propulsion solutions for large spacecraft instead of electric thrusters.

Superconducting magnets could have a number of other important roles to play in space exploration. The Earth's magnetic field protects life on the planet from harmful solar radiation and cosmic rays. A strong magnetic field generated aboard a spacecraft could provide protection in the same way for astronauts in deep space.

The mass and power requirements of magnetic components have been a key technological barrier to using this kind of equipment in space. This is where PaihauRobinson aims to make advances using their HTS magnet technology.

The tech demonstrator will be installed onto the Nanoracks External Platform by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. A team on the ground will then operate the magnet over several months to demonstrate the ability to generate a magnetic field thousands of times stronger than that of Earth.

The operation of the demonstrator in a relevant space environment is an important step toward the validation and commercialization of this key enabling technology, project manager Avinash Rao said in the statement.

Nanoracks' Maggie Ahern says the payload is currently expected to launch no earlier than the first quarter of 2024. The Houston-based firm Nanoracks hosts payloads on the orbital outpost through an agreement with NASA, providing power, telemetry and other services.

PaihauRobinson is leading the project with support from the University of Auckland, the University of Canterbury, IDS Consulting, and Asteria Engineering Consulting.

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A couple of ground rules for living on the International Space Station: You never wear shoes (socks are just fine), and there is no shame in existing among clutter.

From my perspective, as viewed through immersive virtual reality goggles and headphones while inside a warehouse in the East Bay, the astronauts who float above Earth inside the space station are shoeless and messy.

I saw hallways crammed with boxes like ice cubes at the bottom of a glass, and there were floating wires sprouting out from the walls. The casual atmosphere helped to acculturate me to an otherwise out-of-world experience.

SFGATE travel editor Silas Valentino wears a VR headset as part of "The Infinite," an immersive space experience currently housedinside the Craneway Pavilion on the Richmond waterfront.

Like a ghost of the space station, I watched as astronauts floated between their regular duties growing greens in space, pumping iron to keep their muscles active and gazing over continents on the nearby blue planet relying on a calculated schedule to keep them, well, grounded.

The space station makes 16 orbits of Earth in a 24-hour period. Meaning, the astronauts are traveling through 16 sunrises and sunsets a day. To keep their sanity and busy workload, they abide by a constant schedule. Sometimes they need a reminder to return to their sleep chamber, which is attached to the ceiling and straps them in.

At 254 miles above us, the astronauts are no longer earthlings, but that doesnt mean theyve sacrificed their humanity. And drawing this connection is exactly the goal of the exhibit. Dubbed Space Explorers: The Infinite,the VR experience occupies part of the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, which was once a Ford assembly plant located along the Richmond shoreline.

Astronaut Joseph R. Tanner, STS-115 mission specialist, waves toward the digital still camera of his spacewalk colleague, astronaut Heidemarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper as the two share extravehicular activity (EVA) duties during the first of three scheduled spacewalks. The STS-115 astronauts and the Expedition 13 crewmembers are joining efforts this week to resume construction of the International Space Station.

Customers of The Infinite try out there headsets at Craneway Pavilion in Richmond on Thursday Oct. 13, 2022.

SFGATE culture editor Dan Gentile wears a VR headset as part of The Infinite, an immersive space experience currently housedinside the Craneway Pavilion on the Richmond waterfront, on Thursday Oct. 13, 2022.

A scene from VR scenes of The Infinite, an immersive space experience currently on display at Craneway Pavilion.

Footage from the International Space Station, upper left and lower right, is showcased in "The Infinite," which attendees view through a VR headset. (Images courtesy of The Infinite & by Charles Russo/SFGATE) Footage from the International Space Station, upper left and lower right, is showcased in "The Infinite," which attendees view through a VR headset. (Images courtesy of The Infinite & by Charles Russo/SFGATE)

The exhibition opened last week and will run until the end of the year, with the possibility of an extension. A joint venture of PHI Studio and Felix & Paul Studios, Space Explorers: The Infinite is a traveling circus that uses state-of-the-art technology (in particular, the Oculus Quest 2 headset) to place attendees inside the space station.

Each person is given a headset, and after a bit of fun initiation including a voiceover explaining how we are all a tribute to light and space you enter a large room with lightly padded flooring. After settling into your digital visuals, youre taught to avoid the red lines that indicate the barrier and to avoid stepping too close to other humans.

Jenna Starkey of San Francisco tries on the VR headset at "The Infinite," an immersive space experience currently housedinside the Craneway Pavilion on the Richmond waterfront.

The experience is broken up into four sections that softly guide you along to experiencing everyday life on the International Space Station. The finale has you seated in a theaterlike chair to sit back and view a spacewalk outside the station and above Earth.

The experience ends up becoming one part Neil Armstrong and one part P.T. Barnum. It is a dazzling outing and even brought a member of my group to tears by the time we returned to Earth.

Tickets for adults range from $44 on weekdays to $54 on weekends, and for children ages 8-12, its $24 on weekdays and $29 on weekends. The experience is wheelchair accessible and lasts for about an hour.

An advertisement on the exterior of the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond advertises "The Infinite," an immersive space experience currently housed inside.

Compared to Jeff Bezos Blue Origin (where a seat on a 2021 space flight was auctioned off for $28 million) or Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo (for which tickets are $450,000), the $54 ticket price for The Infinite feels manageable for the rest of us.

The experience is based on the series Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, which is billed as the largest production ever filmed in space, and its producers are not hyperbolic. Felix & Paul Studios worked with Time Studios to collaborate with the U.S. International Space Station National Laboratory, NASA and five other international space agencies.

The footage you see was shot over three years to compile more than 250 hours of virtual reality footage. The visual insights into life in space are parsed down into 60 mini clips that attendees activate by slapping at a glowing orb. To watch all 60 orbs would take at least two hours, and you really only have 35 minutes to spend inside the experience a wise marketing move by the producers to lure visitors back.

Attendees explore virtual space inside the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond as part of "The Infinite" on Oct. 13.

The show was designed and constructed in Montreal. For footage, the producers communicated with NASA in Houston to send directives to the astronauts on the space station. This was perhaps the most elaborate movie shoot of all time, and to top it off, the Canadarm contributed to some of the exterior shots from outside the space station.

Once the exhibit was finalized, it premiered in Montreal in July 2021, staying until November 2021. The plan is to stop in three cities per year until 2026. Prior to the Bay Area, the tour stopped in Houston and Tacoma, Washington.

Co-CEO Eric Albert told me it takes three weeks to set up each installation, and they hire about 50 people from each city to help put on the show. He added that the show is continuously evolving and adding or subtracting video clips for the orbs.

The Bay Area is the first to see a new clip from September 2019 of the astronauts gathering around the dinner table on the space station to celebrate one of the International Space Station crew members. Astronaut Hazza Al Mansouri from the United Arab Emirates was gifted a harmonica by one of his crewmates.

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Hazza, I know its not your birthday, he begins to say before another astronaut cuts him off.

Every day is your birthday in space! she says, as the crew continues floating in the most peculiar way.

A scene from "The Infinite," an immersive space experience currently on display at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond.

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A deep-space mission is celebrating the first anniversary of its launch from Earth by zipping closer to the planet than the International Space Station's orbit.

NASA's Lucy mission launched on Oct. 16, 2021, bound on a 12-year journey to explore the Trojan asteroids, which no spacecraft has ever visited. These asteroids are found at the same distance from the sun as Jupiter, with one phalanx orbiting ahead of the planet and one behind it. All told, Lucy will whiz past nine different asteroids.

But in order to keep those appointments, Lucy first needs to fly past Earth to pick up speed and adjust its trajectory. The first such flyby comes Sunday (Oct. 16) at 7:04 a.m. EDT (1104 GMT); at its closest, Lucy will be just 220 miles (350 kilometers) above Earth's surface, lower than the orbit of the International Space Station, according to a NASA statement. That's close enough that some skywatchers will be able to spot the spacecraft.

"The last time we saw the spacecraft, it was being enclosed in the payload fairing in Florida," Hal Levison, Lucy principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, said in the statement. "It is exciting that we will be able to stand here in Colorado and see the spacecraft again. And this time Lucy will be in the sky."

Related: Meet the 8 asteroids NASA's Lucy spacecraft will visit

The maneuver might make for thrilling skywatching, but such a close approach is complicated.

First, Lucy must navigate the swarm of satellites orbiting Earth, more than 47,000 in total; according to a NASA statement, the spacecraft must fly through the layer in which the most satellites orbit. To tackle that challenge, mission personnel began assessing potential collisions a week in advance, as early as is helpful.

"The further you're predicting into the future, the more uncertain you are about where an object is going to be," Dolan Highsmith, chief engineer for the Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, which evaluates potential collisions for NASA's uncrewed spacecraft, said in a statement.

Mission operators had designed a plan which allowed them to conduct a small engine burn yesterday evening that would move the spacecraft's closest approach by either two or four seconds to prevent a collision.

"That's enough to avoid any one thing that could be in the way," Kevin E. Berry, Lucy's flight dynamics team lead at Goddard, said in the statement.

Satellites aren't the only threat Lucy must navigate; the spacecraft will dip far enough into Earth's atmosphere to begin experiencing drag, especially given the surface area of its two solar arrays, which each span 24 feet (7 meters).

And those arrays are more vulnerable than expected because a glitch in the system that deployed those arrays shortly after launch kept one from fully unfolding, leaving the array resembling a pie with a particularly narrow slice missing. As of NASA's latest update, in June, mission personnel were still considering attempting additional fixes after the flyby. As a protective measure, the mission team arranged for Lucy to pass Earth about 30 miles (50 km) higher than originally planned to reduce the amount of drag the spacecraft experiences.

Although Lucy is flying past Earth out of necessity, scientists are also taking the opportunity to snap a few photos of the moon as the spacecraft heads back into space. The images will help them calibrate the spacecraft's instruments on known terrain before the crucial Trojan flybys.

"I'm especially excited by the final few images that Lucy will take of the moon," John Spencer, acting deputy project scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, said in a statement. "Counting craters to understand the collisional history of the Trojan asteroids is key to the science that Lucy will carry out, and this will be the first opportunity to calibrate Lucy's ability to detect craters by comparing it to previous observations of the moon by other space missions."

Once past the moon, Lucy will continue trekking out into deep space, farther from Earth than it's ever been.

Lucy will fly past Earth again in 2024 before trekking out to the Trojan asteroids; a third flyby in 2030 will prepare the spacecraft for its final target, a binary asteroid called Patroclus and Menoetius.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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NASA's asteroid scout zips past Earth today on 1st launch anniversary - Space.com

Anyone who has ever seen Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise hanging off jet airplanes, scaling skyscrapers, or zooming through traffic on a motorcycle in countless action blockbusters knows he's truly a man without fear.

But his signature daredevil DNA doing his own insane stunts might be put to the test for one of his next film projects as he experiences a zero-gravity spacewalk that could jangle his steadfast nerves in unimaginable ways.

Donna Langley, Chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, wants to send international leading man Tom Cruise up into Earth orbit for a space-based action thriller that was originally pitched to her back in 2020 by Cruise and director Doug Liman.

Per the BBC (opens in new tab), the basic story outline begins on terra firma, with the "Top Gun: Maverick" star then ascending into the heavens via a rocket to the International Space Station where the down-on-his-luck character's arc requires him to complete a dangerous spacewalk to save the planet.

Video: Tom Cruise talks space with NASA astronaut Victor Glover

According to a BBC News (opens in new tab)interview, this movie is still in the development stages but if it does get a green light by Universal, Cruise will add the distinction of being "the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station" to his storied career.

Cruise, who narrated the 2002 IMAX documentary "Space Station 3D," has ventured into the realm of science fiction several times in his lifetime, the most notable titles being director Cameron Crowes "Vanilla Sky," "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds" for director Steven Spielberg, "Oblivion," directed by "Top Gun: Maverick's" Joseph Kosinski, and "Edge of Tomorrow" on which he worked with Liman, the same filmmaker who boldly proposed sending Cruise up into space.

Although delivering Cruise beyond the bounds of gravity outside the space station is a risky proposition that would require some pricey insurance bonds put up by Universal, Elon Musk's SpaceX and NASA (who worked together on private spaceflights to the International Space Station on Axiom Space's Ax-1 mission earlier this year) seem to be onboard the ambitious idea so we'll keep you informed on any new developments as they're announced.

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The International Space Station will be visible in the WLKY region this month. In the video player above: International Space Station gets new commanderIt'll be visible on Thursday for seven minutes in the Louisville. You can look to the northwest in the sky around 7:57 p.m. It will end its path in the southeast just after 8 p.m.It'll also be visible on Oct. 8 for four minutes and Oct. 18 for five minutes.Click here for more information and to see about another area.The ISS is said to look like a quickly moving star, so keep your eyes peeled. More on the ISS (per NASA)The International Space Station is a large spacecraft in orbit around Earth. It serves as a home where crews of astronauts and cosmonauts live. The space station is also a unique science laboratory.

The International Space Station will be visible in the WLKY region this month.

In the video player above: International Space Station gets new commander

It'll be visible on Thursday for seven minutes in the Louisville.

You can look to the northwest in the sky around 7:57 p.m. It will end its path in the southeast just after 8 p.m.

It'll also be visible on Oct. 8 for four minutes and Oct. 18 for five minutes.

Click here for more information and to see about another area.

The ISS is said to look like a quickly moving star, so keep your eyes peeled.

The International Space Station is a large spacecraft in orbit around Earth. It serves as a home where crews of astronauts and cosmonauts live. The space station is also a unique science laboratory.

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When you can see the International Space Station fly over Louisville - WLKY Louisville

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: The race to reinvent the space station

Sonja HutsonGood morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, October 3rd, and this is your FT News Briefing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The UKs prime minister faces a growing backlash inside her own party. Meanwhile, Brits are taking to the streets to protest high energy bills. Plus, the International Space Station is being decommissioned and the US space agency Nasa is funding private companies to help continue its work.

Peggy HollingerIts not like were gonna start building another space station with Russia right now, are we?

Sonja HutsonIm Sonja Hutson, in for Marc Filippino, and heres the news you need to start your day.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Today, UK chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng will defend his controversial tax plan to members of his party at their annual conference. His plan unleashed havoc across financial markets. It would scrap the top tax rate of 45 per cent and take on a lot of debt. Many fear it would make inflation worse. The plan is stoking a rebellion inside the Tory party as prominent members speak out against the tax cuts and other measures. The UK prime minister, Liz Truss, is also not budging on the plan, even though shes been warned she could face defeat in the House of Commons.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As Tory party members gathered in Birmingham this weekend, protesters gathered around the country to show their frustration with skyrocketing energy prices.

[AUDIO CLIP FROM DONT PAY PROTEST PLAYING]

Dont Pay protests like this one in central London are encouraging people to not pay their power bills.

Unnamed protesterWere still here because our prices are still double from last year. What are you gonna do with your bills?

CrowdBurn them!

Unnamed protesterWhat are you gonna do with your bills?

CrowdBurn them!

Sonja HutsonOne protester stepped forward and threw a mock electricity bill into a fire that was blazing out of a metal trash bin.

Cameron JoshiMy name is Cameron Joshi. Im 27. Ive been periodically disabled with a chronic illness since I was 18, so I cancelled mine last month because I couldnt afford to pay it.

Sonja HutsonThe government began capping energy bills this weekend, but protesters say its not enough.

Unnamed protester Its absolutely ludicrous that our energy bill price cap is double what it was last winter and theyre offering us only 400, 66 a month to try and help us with that.

Unnamed protester And I know many people that are working, but they cant afford the rent. They cannot afford a normal life.

Sonja HutsonDont Pay protests werent the only demonstration this weekend against the soaring cost of living in the UK. Train drivers and postal workers were on strike, and so were nurses, teachers and public defence lawyers.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As much of the world struggles with high energy prices, Opec and its oil-producing allies plan to prop up prices with a substantial cut in production. The group meets on Wednesday and could cut more than a million barrels a day. Thats the largest cut since the early days of the pandemic. The group is led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, and sources told the FT that the Saudis are eager to lower output, not just to prop up prices but also to keep some production capacity in reserve. Theyre nervous about a sharp drop in Russian oil output later this year when western powers tighten sanctions.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The greatest global collaboration in the history of technology has been the International Space Station, and the ISS is on its way out. After 22 years, hundreds of astronauts from 20 different countries and countless scientific advances, the ISS will be decommissioned by the end of the decade. The US space agency Nasa has already started awarding contracts to private companies to come up with a replacement. To talk more about this, Im joined by the FTs Peggy Hollinger. Hey, Peggy.

Peggy HollingerHi, how are you?

Sonja HutsonIm doing well. Thanks for asking. So, Peggy, can you remind us why the International Space Station is so important to begin with? You know, whats its value and whats its purpose?

Peggy Hollinger Thats a complicated question. Its value is not just in the fact that unique experiments can be conducted in microgravity, a sort of environment thats very difficult to replicate here on Earth, but its also in the international collaboration. In the space station, 450-80km above the earth, weve got Russians working with Europeans, working with Americans, working with Japanese. It truly is a sort of a properly working United Nations in space.

Sonja HutsonSo why is it being decommissioned then?

Peggy HollingerThe space station is already flying long beyond its expected life. Its life has been extended a few times. And really, there comes a point when technology has moved on and what youve got in the space station, you know, can be much better designed. The big question is because it costs so much to keep flying, it costs so much to build, it really did require international co-operation to build how do you replace it? Its not like were gonna start building another space station with Russia right now, are we? So whos gonna fund this?

Sonja HutsonWhy is Nasa moving towards privatisation and what would that actually look like?

Peggy Hollinger So, if youre not going to partner up with Russia again, how are you gonna fund it? And really the answer seems to be, in Nasas playbook, seems to be the private sector. So Nasa needs a low-Earth orbit capability for its own scientific experiments. The US government wants to ensure a permanent human presence in low-Earth orbit because the low-Earth orbit economy is developing so quickly. So why not bring the private sector in to help fund some of that? And why not rent space on private space stations rather than own it and have to foot the bill for the operating costs, which are, you know, 3-4bn a year.

Sonja Hutson So is this business model going to work? Nasa funding private companies to do what Nasa wants to do is that feasible?

Peggy HollingerWell, this is the big question, isnt it? Because if Nasa is going to rely on the private sector for its needs, you know, to have human presence in low-Earth orbit, it damn well better be sure that these companies it places its contracts with are viable. Its very, very clear that none of them can survive, certainly in the early years, without substantial government support, ie contracts from Nasa. And theyre all saying that they believe the contract from Nasa is likely to be around 1-1.5bn. So that will keep them going nicely until they can attract other customers for their space stations. But there are some who believe that, you know, ultimately, a) theres not much room for more than one private space station because the more you begin to spread Nasas needs across different stations, the more difficult it is to survive and build that commercial business. But then again, demand might appear from places that we cant envisage right now.

Sonja Hutson Peggy Hollinger is the FTs international business editor. Thanks, Peggy.

Peggy HollingerThank you very much.

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Sonja HutsonBefore we go, Apples made a big shift. Its producing its iPhone 14 in India. Its the first time Apple is manufacturing the newest phone outside China so soon after its release. Usually, Apple only manufacturers in India or other countries once its confident that production of the new device is going smoothly. India has been trying to become a bigger player in the global electronics supply chain, so this is a big win. Other countries are also benefiting as Apple shifts production outside China. The companys already tested out AirPod production in Vietnam and plans to build iPads and Apple Watches there too.

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You can read more on all these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

This transcript has been automatically generated. If by any chance there is an error please send the details for a correction to: typo@ft.com. We will do our best to make the amendment as soon as possible.

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The race to reinvent the space station - Financial Times

Hurricane Ian is pictured approaching the west coast of Florida as a category 4 storm. The International Space Station was orbiting 259 miles above the Gulf of Mexico at the time of this photograph. Credit: NASA

Hurricane Ian is pictured above in a stunning photograph that was taken by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station (ISS). When this photograph was snapped, the ISS was orbiting 258 miles above the Caribbean Sea east of Belize. At the time, Ian was just south of Cuba gaining strength and heading toward Florida. In the foreground (from left), are the Soyuz MS-22 crew ship, docked to the Rassvet module, and the Soyuz MS-21 crew ship, docked to the Prichal module.

There were a couple of other stunning photographs released by NASA of Hurricane Ian from the ISS:

A crew member onboard the International Space Station took this photograph of Hurricane Ian on September 26 while orbiting more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earths surface. At the time, the space station was located over the Caribbean Sea east of Belize, and Hurricane Ian was just south of Cuba. Over the course of the day, it grew from a tropical storm to a category-2 hurricane. Credit: NASA

Above is another photograph of Hurricane Ian captured by a crew member onboard the International Space Station. When the picture was taken, on September 26, the ISS was orbiting more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earths surface. At the time, Hurricane Ian was just south of Cuba and the space station was located over the Caribbean Sea east of Belize. Over the course of that day, it grew from a tropical storm to a category-2 hurricane.

Hurricane Ian is pictured approaching the west coast of Florida as a category 4 storm. The International Space Station was orbiting 259 miles above the Gulf of Mexico at the time of this photograph. Credit: NASA

This picture of Hurricane Ian was photographed from the ISS while the orbiting lab was over 250 miles above the Gulf of Mexico. At the time this photograph was taken, Ian was approaching the west coast of Florida as a category 4 storm.

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Hurricane Ian Captured in Stunning Pictures From the International Space Station - SciTechDaily