Category Archives: Space Station

HOUSTON, May 11, 2022 (Axiom Space PR) The future of low-Earth orbit and human spaceflight in Space City, has a new base of operations as Axiom Space breaks ground on a new state-of-the-art headquarters in Houston.

On Wednesday, May 11, commercial space leader Axiom Space and the City of Houston celebrated groundbreaking at the companys new, long-term headquarters at Ellington Airport, the site of the Houston Spaceport. There, Axiom Space which is developing Axiom Station, the worlds first commercial space station will construct a campus containing employee offices, astronaut training, and mission control facilities, engineering development and testing labs, and a high bay production facility to house Axioms space station modules under construction.

From this Axiom Space headquarters campus, we will continue the progress in space that will revolutionize life back home, Axiom Space President & CEO Michael Suffredini said. We are proud to be an anchor tenant of the Houston Spaceport and ensure the future of human spaceflight and the space economy is centered in the city where it all began.

Houstons leadership in the Apollo, Space Shuttle, and ISS programs earned its title as Space City, the home of human spaceflight.

Now Axiom Space is adding a new accolade to Space City, for the first time in the citys history it will be home to the development and construction of human-rated spacecraft thanks to Axiom Stations modules, which will be outfitted and assembled at Axioms facility at the Spaceport.

These are historically exciting times for us all. As the city that helped put men on the moon, Houston continues to lead the way in technology and innovation, said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Axiom Space has set itself apart from others in the private space industry. Our city Space City couldnt be prouder for our own Houston Spaceport to serve as home base for such momentous commercial and academic advancement.

Axiom Space has partnered with Jacobs, Turner Construction Company, Savills, and Griffin Partners to expand the companys headquarters at Houston Spaceport. Jacobs, in close collaboration with Axiom Space, designed the assembly, integration, and testing facility. Axiom Space has contracted with Turner for site construction. Savills real estate firm represented Axiom Space in the lease negotiations, and Griffin Partners is providing development management services for the project.

The development of Axiom Spaces Spaceport property will be developed in two phases. Phase I includes 106,000 square feet of assembly integration and test facilities and aims to be completed by April 2023. The second phase will add facilities for labs, mission operations and training, aircraft operations, and office space.

This is Axiom Spaces latest accomplishment as it grows the commercial space industry and expands access to low-Earth orbit to a broader international community. Axiom Space recently welcomed home the crew of Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) after successfully completing the first all-private astronaut mission to the ISS, a precursor mission to Axiom Station. The company has also signed agreements with several nations including Italy, Hungary, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to fly on future space missions.

Axiom Space was founded in Houston in 2016 by Michael Suffredini NASAs ISS Program Manager from 2005 to 2015 and space entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian to build the worlds first commercial space station and develop commercial space infrastructure that will drive a thriving low-Earth orbit economy. The company currently employs more than 400 people, the majority of which work at its current Houston facilities and has plans to grow the number to 600 by the end of 2022 and 1,000 by 2025.

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Axiom Space Breaks Ground on New Headquarters and Space Station Production Facility at Houston Spaceport Parabolic Arc - Parabolic Arc

Space is important to usand thats why we'reworking to bring you top coverage of theindustry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here.

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Conditions look favorable for the Space Coast's next slate of back-to-back launches flying from both Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station this week.

If schedules hold, SpaceX is up first at KSC's pad 39A with yet another batch of Starlink internet satellites set for liftoff between 6:10 a.m. and 7:10 a.m. ET Wednesday, May 18. The Space Force on Monday said conditions should be 80% "go" for that liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket.

"Southerly winds will keep the temperatures elevated in Central Florida and allow daily sea breeze interactions to produce isolated showers and thunderstorms each afternoon and evening," Space Launch Delta 45 forecasters said. "On Tuesday and Wednesday, the remnants of the boundary will stall mostly north of the Space Coast, but add ingredients to enhance the shower and thunderstorm coverage and intensity."

This will mark the company's 48th launch for the internet constellation and, along anortheast trajectory, include a drone ship landing in the Atlantic Ocean.

About 36 hours after Falcon 9, United Launch Alliance is up next on the Eastern Range. An Atlas V rocket outfitted with a Boeing Starliner capsule will fly the company's second attempt at autonomously reaching the International Space Station without crew aboard after a 2019 versionfailed and had to return to Earth ahead of schedule.

Conditions should be 70% "go" for the 6:54 p.m. ET Thursday liftoff from the Cape's Launch Complex 41.

"For (rollout of the rocket)on Wednesday, mainly dry conditions are forecast with only a small chance, less than 20%, of a shower or thunderstorm in the afternoon as the Atlantic sea breeze develops and moves inland," forecasters said Monday. "Similar conditions are expected on Thursday with isolated afternoon activity expected to develop near or just west of the launch complex."

If all goes according to plan, Atlas V will boost Starliner to orbit, where it will fly toward and dock with the ISS. After a yet-to-be announced period attached to the outpost, Starliner will undock and return for landing at the Army'sWhite Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Both Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon were selected by NASA to return astronauts to the ISS after the space shuttle program ended in 2011. SpaceX has flown five crews since 2020, while Boeing expects to fly its first this year if Thursday's launch goes well.

Boeing's mission is also known as Orbital Flight Test 2, or OFT-2.

For the latest, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule.

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly.

Launch Wednesday, May 18

Visitfloridatoday.com/spaceat 5 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 18, for real-time updates and video of Falcon 9's launch.

Launch Thursday, May 19

Visitfloridatoday.com/spaceat 5 p.m. EDT Thursday, May 19, for real-time updates and video of Atlas V's launch.

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Weather looks OK for back-to-back SpaceX and ULA launches this week - Florida Today

The firstOpen-ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threatsthats been meeting all week in the Swiss city, is the result of a UN General Assemblyresolutionlast December, seeking to promote norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviours among countries already present in the cosmos - or which are planning to have a presence in space.

The situation has changed dramatically in the last few decades. We have so many space activities there is a growing number of space-faring nations - and even those that are not space-faring are sending their own satellites, explained Hellmut Lagos, chair of the working group talks.

There are so many activities and the regulations arenot enough to deal with the different risks and threats to the security of all those activities.

Progress on disarmament is a key priority of UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres, who recentlyreportedon ways to reduce the risks of misunderstanding and miscalculations on outer space issues.

An internationalOuter Space Treatyalready exists that forms the basis of international space law.

Its main focus is on the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodiesfor the benefit and in the interests of all countriesand shall be the province of all mankind.

In keeping with the optimism of the era surrounding the space race,astronauts are described as envoys of mankind, and there is also a nod to todays concerns over space pollution, with explicit wording that States must avoid the harmful contamination of space, the moon and other celestial bodies.

Russia, the UK and the US provided the original impetus for the treaty, whose impressive title in full is Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.

But the Outer Space Treaty is 55 years old and needs updating urgently, to take account of new space-based threats to global security and the fact that all nations rely on space today for everything from navigation to communication, broadband and finance, explained Mr. Lagos:

The most basic things that we do in in modern life, they are dependent on these technologies and services that come from space: GPS, critical infrastructure, energy, everything, everything is controlled by space technologieseveryone is becoming increasingly aware of this issue.

Chilean diplomat Lagos also pointed out that although nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are banned in the 1967 space accord the cornerstone of the international space regime, in his words - there wasno way of knowing about todays new generation of missile systems that can target satellites.

Equally important, there is no review mechanism of the treaty as there is with other major treaties, Mr. Lagos noted, which is why all Member States need to find common ground on new norms, rules and principles, to plug legal gaps that might be exploited by space-faring nations.

To date, China, Indian Russia and the US have reportedly used anti-satellite (ASAT) technology,sparking concerns about attempts to weaponisespace and the fact that an unknown number of fragments may now be hurtling around around earth in low orbit, threatening spacecraft including the International Space Station.

NASA/Johnson

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is seen floating during a spacewalk on 21 December 2015 as he and fellow astronaut Tim Kopra released brake handles on crew equipment carts on either side of the space station.

Underlining the increasing number ofnon-State actors involved in space exploration, Mr. Lagos welcomed the significant number of civil society representatives at the talksin Geneva, and the fact that countries from all regions of the world attended.

Civil society is extremely important, not only because there are an increasing number of non-State actors in space, but also because their participation in these multilateral processes,they give an additional layer of legitimacy to the result, to the outcome of the process.

And although global tensions are higher than theyve been for decades, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, the underlying push for consensus of the working groups agenda has kept discussions on track, Mr. Lagos insisted.

Last week, the head of Russias space agency reportedly confirmed that in response to sanctions over the war in Ukraine, Russia was planning to pull out of the International Space Station.

It is obvious that the geopolitical context now is really concerning and it has an impact on all the discussionsand all the processes all over the world that does not exclude us, said Mr. Lagos.

But we are trying to have a positive momentum in this process at least to try to make progress because it is in everybodys interest, and so far we have achieved that we see that there is big engagement and interest in moving things forward.

The next session of the Working Group is planned for September, where the item will be current and future threats by States to space systems, and actions, activities and omissions that could be considered irresponsible.

Next year, the group will take up its item on the preparation of recommendations to the General Assembly.

See more here:
Unity among nations, in push for greater space security at UN-led talks - UN News

WASHINGTON (WSAV) NASA astronauts recently took part in a study to help improve the health of astronauts during long-term space expeditions.

According to NASA, Tuesdays study focused on exercise and the central nervous system, providing insights into the aerobic capacity of a crew member in living and working weightlessness.

Aerobic capacity shows how much physical exertion someone can endure. In space, the ability to perform spacewalks and respond effectively to emergencies requires astronauts to be very fit.

Dr. Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Dr. Jessica Watkins took turns pedaling on an exercise cycle in the U.S. Destiny laboratory module throughout the day and spent almost an hour each working out while attached to sensors.

Researchers found that aerobic capacity in space is related to the intensity of exercise. NASA found that those exercising at normal intensity saw an initial decrease followed by a gradual increase over time.

However, maximum intensity exercise appears better at improving aerobic capacity.Aerobic capacity returned to preflight levels one month after landing, indicating no long-lasting effects on lungs and muscles. Testing both intensities provides a more comprehensive picture, and better documentation of intensity and specific regimens is needed.

This research, NASA said, is especially important for physically demanding space-walk activities outside the space station. A spacewalk is said to be the most physically demanding thing astronauts do because of the pressurized resistance of the spacesuit they have to wear.

Future plans call for up to 24 hours per week of extravehicular activity (working outside of a spacecraft) during lunar and Martian missions, however, early evidence suggests this long stretch of activity may be too strenuous.

According to the Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation and Stabilization System (CEVIS) investigation, cycling in space could help improve physical stamina for extended extravehicular activity. The study found that exercise heart rate initially goes up during onboard exercise but approaches preflight levels later on in missions, owing perhaps to the rigorous exercise regimens, including pedaling.

All three astronauts are currently serving as mission specialists on NASAs SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station, which launched on April 27. Lindgren serves as the commander, Hines serves as the pilot and Watkins serves as the mission specialist.

As the Expedition 67 crew was busy with human research, the Boeing Company continued to ready its unpiloted Starliner crew ship spacecraft for launch to the International Space Station on May 19.

For more information about the International Space Station, visit this link.

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Astronauts physically exerted aboard International Space Station for research - WSAV-TV

Soon after photos started arriving from the International Space Station (ISS), Justin Walsh spotted something unexpected: frosting. Tucked into a plastic bag hanging off the station wall, near a can opener and bottle of ketchup, were telltale red, yellow, and green tubes. Walsh was mystified. What does frosting imply? Baking, he said recently over Zoom. But baking in space is pretty much impossible.

He got his resolution when astronaut Kayla Barron posted on Instagram that shed made a birthday cake for a colleague. They did it by cutting the tops off of muffins and gluing them together with honey, then covering the whole thing with icing and frosting, Walsh says. To Walsh, an art historian and archaeologist at Chapman University, the frosting was physical proof of something less concrete: astronauts bond with one another. Cooking and eating is not only about sustenance; it's about social relations, he sayseven 250 miles above Earth.

He, fellow space archaeologist Alice Gorman, and their colleagues received the frosting photo as part of the Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment, known as SQuARE. The ISS, which is administered by multiple space agencies, is essentially a network of modules for cooking, sleeping, science research, and other uses thats slightly larger than a six-bedroom house. Between January and March, astronauts on board took daily photos of six carefully chosen sites around their temporary home first at the same time each day, then at random times. The project was an interstellar version of the archaeological technique known as quick testing, in which archaeologists divide a new site into a grid of one-meter squares and dig test pits that provide a basic sense of what they might find.

In SQuARE, those pits are one-square-meter areas marked off with tape, scattered across the American, European, and Japanese modules of the ISS in areas used for work, science experiments, cooking, and hygiene. The team will analyze the resulting photos in hopes of understanding how each area is used over time and, from there, identify opportunities to improve space habitat design.

NOVA talked with Walsh about the challenges of space archaeology and why astronauts eat so many tortillas.

Alissa Greenberg: Usually, archaeologists excavate sites because its the only way to learn about life in those placesall the people are long dead. But we can talk to these astronauts. Why not do that?

Justin Walsh: It's true that, for the most part, archaeologists do study the distant past. Contemporary archaeology developed starting in the 1970s. The first example of it was a project called the Tucson Garbage Project by a guy named William Rathje at the University of Arizona. He got the City of Tucson sanitation department to drop off samples of neighborhood garbage on a regular basis, and he and his graduate students went through it to understand the patterns of usage of different items.

What's really fascinating about it is that they then went and interviewed people from the neighborhood about their consumption habits. So first of all, he found that people were throwing out lots of meat that they weren't using. So he was able to show that people were being wasteful with this particular commodity. But then he went to talk to people about these things, and he found out some interesting facts. Such as when you ask people questions, the way sociologists and anthropologists often do, they are not necessarily really good at articulating the realities of their livesor they don't want to. Which is also perfectly fair and understandable! I would not blame them for that. But what it shows is that what archaeology can do is provide additional insights into human practices and that those insights don't have to be about the distant past.

So, you can say, Well why don't you just talk to the crew and ask? or Doesn't NASA document all that stuff? Okay, we can absolutely do that, but that doesn't always work wellespecially for astronauts, who are 100% good at staying on message and will not say anything to jeopardize their next flight to space. And as for the space agency, they don't do any forensic work on what's happened on the space station before. They're in the present and the futureand the past is gone. They're not thinking about what they can learn.

One of the SQuARE sample locations, in a U.S. module galley area, marked by yellow tape at each corner. On the wall, mesh bags hold ketchup, Sriracha sauce, chocolate, and other food items. In the upper right corner are plastic bags holding tubes of frosting, which indicated that a kind of space cooking activity was happening in this location. Image courtesy of Justin Walsh

AG: Why do you find space culture so compelling?

JW: Because humans are doing things there in an environment that we are 100% not adapted for. We literally cannot survive. So, we have to come up with all these technologies that allow us to survive in that environment, living in microgravity. And on top of that, there's the other issues of confinement and isolation: the bad food, the distance from family and friends. How do they work together and live together?

One of the phrases that I like is that a crewed spacecraft is a microsociety in a miniworld. You have the transmission of culture and traditions"this is how we do things, this is how this is laid out being handed down almost from generation to generation. For example, on the ISS they have dinner together every Friday. Most of the time it's in the Russian service module; sometimes it's in the American service module. Or on ISS their food is carefully designed, and there are different kinds of traditions associated. Things like there's no bread, because crumbs are bad in space. If you inhale a crumb, that could really be a problem, so instead they use tortillas for everything. Tortillas don't make crumbs.

AG: Can you talk about this most recent study? Whats the goal here?

JW: We've been doing this study of historic photos that document life on the space station over 21 years. We've got this body of photographs, both published photographs from Flickr and also unpublished photographs that NASA has now given usthousands and thousands of photographs. We've been working for the last three years to develop machine learning techniques that would allow the automated tagging of people, places, and objects in the photos. But they were taken essentially randomly. They weren't taken at precise intervals. How do we even characterize what the potential problems might be with that? One way is by doing an actually systematic survey of the material culture of the space station over the short term. That's what SQuARE is.

A NASA astronaut, a JAXA astronaut, and a Hungarian-American space tourist pose in the Russian service module Zvezda in 2008. The wall behind them is decorated with items including flags, mission patches, portraits of Soviet space heroes, and Russian Orthodox religious objects such as painted icons. Image courtesy of Justin Walsh

In archaeology, we take soil thats all the same type, same color, same consistency, and different from what's above it and what's below it or what's adjacent to it, as a group that reflects a particular period of time. We take all of those items as relating to one another, and therefore they are separate from and need to be interpreted differently from whats above or below. So we're treating each photo that way, because it is a slice of time, separate from the next day or the previous day.

The fact that we're doing this one picture a day for each of six squares for 60 days, 360 images that were taken systematically at precisely defined locations, will allow us to better understand what the historic photos are all about. And likewise, what's happening in the historic photosbecause there's so many of them and such a variety of things going on in themwill help us to interpret what we're seeing in the systematically recorded images.

AG: What have you found so far?

JW: We thought that the two experimental areas that we selected probably were not going to show very much change over time because they're basically just racks with scientific equipment. In fact, we were asked, Are you sure you want to use those areas? Dont you want to see where more activity is happening? We had to say no because archaeology is not a treasure hunt. We want to actually see the full range. How would we be able to tell the difference between low activity and high activity if were only looking at high-activity areas?

It turns out that one of those areas is seeing hardly any change. But in one of the other areas, we actually have seen a lot of things moving around. Things are being stored there, like laptops and a video camera. It seems to be kind of a staging area for what's happening next door, a veggie experiment. So that's really interesting, because that shows that when things aren't happening in the location, it can be repurposed.

Another thing weve been seeing in the eating area is books. In one case there's been an actual physical book on the wall, just kind of stuck there for the time beingsomebody put it down. But we've also seen an iPad with an e-book that was on. So, in a leisure moment, when you're eating by yourself, maybe you read a book or a magazine.

The way it works right now is that there's this kind of plate hooked to an adjustable arm. And the plate has some Velcro on the front of it, so that the back of the iPad that has Velcro on it can be stuck to it. And that's fine, maybe that's a good enough solution. But now we have evidence of a different way in which the space is being used. And in future space habitat designs you might want to accommodate it in order to make a better experience. If nobody had evidence that this is how this is being done, we wouldn't even be able to think of solutions.

In an image of a SQuARE sample in a U.S. hygiene area, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Kayla Barron take a self-portrait in the mirror. Image courtesy of Justin Walsh

Another aspect of the photo studywe placed a preprint of this on SocArXivis we had all these images from Flickr, 8,000 of them, and helpfully NASA has captioned all of them. We were able to scrape them and peel out particular words: the names of the crew members and the locations. Just with those two pieces of data from each item, for the first time it's possible to map out where men and women are across the International Space Station by module.

And if we look at nationality by module, it does seem like there are some real results. In the Russian segment, unsurprisingly, Russians make up the majority of people. And unsurprisingly, in the U.S. segment Americans make up the majority of people who are in those modules. So this indicates that in what claims to be an international space station, there are national zones. That's not something anybody has ever been able to show data for. Again, anecdotally you might have expected that to be the case. But we're able to show the reality. And this is because of the way the ISS is managed. Those are official designations. Each agency decides what happens in its own module and what their own crew do. So as a result, you end up with inefficiencies.

AG: Youve mentioned the future design of space habitats. Do you know if people doing that are watching your project? What kind of questions are they hoping youll answer?

JW: The ISS is maybe the most expensive building project humans have ever undertaken. A staggering amount of money for one piece of architecture, and $3 billion or $4 billion on NASA alone to maintain it each year. I think that we're looking to be able to give more accurate and more precise descriptions of the functions of different areas and how that relates to what the originally designed and planned functions of those spaces are. It's really important to be able to understand whether people are using spaces the way they're intended. If they're not, how are they being used?

We have at the moment four different commercial organizations that are planning, designing, building their own space stations, partly funded by NASA. And NASA and the other space agencies in ISSexcept for the Russiansare currently already building a new space station that's going to go into orbit around the moon: Lunar Gateway.There are key problems that they're already focused on sorting out. But also, how do astronauts and designers create the conditions that mimic, or are as my colleague Alice says, are surrogates for, gravity? That is to say, handrails, bungee cords, Velcro, resealable bags. Where do we see Velcro building up over time? Those are areas where it might not have been foreseen, where it ended up that the crew realized that they were going to need more gravity. First of all, we have to identify those areas. And, second of all, then we have to understand why those areas are requiring gravity, because of the kinds of activities that are going on there. And then third, how do we anticipate that for future designs?

Those kinds of questions, the space station companies really want to know that. Even when they have astronauts on their staff or in their executive boardroom, they still realize that there's a difference between anecdotes and data. So the really amazing thing about this is that, as (terrible pun) out of this world as this project is, it's the rare archaeological project that can actually have concrete and practical implications for the future.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Correction: Due to a punctuation error, a previous version of this article indicated that the Russian space agency was building Lunar Gateway. It is actually a project of the four non-Russian ISS space agencies.

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Daily life on the International Space Station: A Q&A with a space archaeologist | NOVA - PBS

Four astronauts successfully returned home to Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft today, bringing an end to their six-month-long stay on the International Space Station (ISS). After undocking from the ISS early Thursday morning, the crew dove through Earths atmosphere before splashing down underneath parachutes off the coast of Florida at 12:43AM ET.

On board the Crew Dragon were three NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron as well as German astronaut Matthias Maurer with the European Space Agency. The astronauts, part of a mission called Crew-3, launched to space in the same Crew Dragon back in November. Since docking with the ISS, theyve been living and working on the orbiting lab, conducting science experiments and maintaining the station through spacewalks.

The Crew-3 astronauts have had a rather eventful stay in space, too. Shortly after they arrived at the ISS, Russia destroyed one of its own satellites with a ground-based missile, creating a cloud of debris that initially threatened the integrity of the space station. Immediately following the satellites destruction, the Crew-3 astronauts and Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS had to shelter inside their spacecraft in case the resulting debris damaged the space station and they needed to make a quick getaway. Fortunately for the station inhabitants, the debris did not harm the ISS, and the crew was able to return to a normal work schedule.

A few months after that incident, Russia then invaded Ukraine, increasing tensions between the United States and Russia on Earth. That led many to question the stability of the ISS partnership between NASA and Russias state space corporation, Roscosmos, and there were concerns that operations on board the space station might be affected. Ultimately the Crew-3 astronauts continued their work as planned along with their Russian colleagues, and they even welcomed a new crew of Russian cosmonauts to the station in March. While the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, continues to hint about a possible end to Russias ISS agreement, NASA administrator Bill Nelson assured Congress on May 3rd that it was business as usual on board the ISS and that Russia has not yet pulled out of the partnership.

Crew-3s safe return marks the end of another routine human spaceflight mission to the ISS for both SpaceX and NASA. SpaceX holds a contract with NASA to periodically send astronauts to and from the International Space Station, part of an initiative called the Commercial Crew Program. Crew-3 was SpaceXs third operation mission to the ISS for NASA as well as the companys eighth time launching astronauts to space.

Now that Crew-3 is safely back on Earth, SpaceX and NASAs next mission will begin in earnest. On April 27th, three NASA astronauts and an Italian astronaut with the European Space Agency launched to the ISS on another Crew Dragon, part of SpaceXs Crew-4 mission. The Crew-3 astronauts were on board to greet them and help familiarize them with the ISS. The Crew-4 astronauts are slated to remain on the ISS until the fall.

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SpaceX successfully returns four astronauts from the International Space Station - The Verge

You may have heard that Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin recently threatened, yet again, to pull his nation out of the International Space Station program.

Several media outlets reported that news last weekend, basing their stories on an interview that Rogozin the head of Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos gave recently to Russian state television about leaving the International Space Station program. But, as Ars Technica's Eric Berger noted, Rogozin's words don't really amount to a threat.

"The decision has been taken already; were not obliged to talk about it publicly," Rogozin said, according to Bloomberg. "I can say this only: In accordance with our obligations, well inform our partners about the end of our work on the ISS with a years notice."

That's not an announcement of a departure from the program just an acknowledgement that Roscosmos will give the other partners a heads-up if such a decision is made. (The ISS partners, including Roscosmos, are currently signed on to operate the orbiting lab through the end of 2024. NASA wants to keep the station going through the end of 2030, a desire backed by U.S. President Joe Biden.)

Related: Ukraine invasion's impacts on space exploration

Rogozin's statements need to be viewed through a particular lens: He is angry about the economic sanctions imposed on Russia due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine and wants them lifted. He has railed against the sanctions repeatedly over the past few months, on several occasions suggesting that their existence imperils the ISS partnership.

For example, on Feb. 24 the day the invasion began Rogozin said on Twitter that the sanctions could "destroy" cooperation on the ISS. And on April 2, he tweeted (in Russian), "I believe that the restoration of normal relations between partners in the International Space Station and other joint projects is possible only with the complete and unconditional lifting of illegal sanctions."

(Rogozin has since protected his tweets, so only approved followers can see them. That's why we're not linking to them here.)

These statements raise the prospect of Roscosmos leaving the ISS partnership but certainly don't promise that such a move is imminent. And it's tough to know how seriously to take any Rogozin threat, either explicit or implicit, because he's a blustery figure prone to making hyperbolic statements.

In April 2014, for example, when he was Russia's deputy prime minister, Rogozin suggested that the United States should use a trampoline to get its astronauts to the space station. This comment, a reference to NASA's total dependence at the time on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for crewed orbital flight, came shortly after sanctions were imposed on Russia for a previous invasion of Ukraine. During that invasion in February 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, which it still holds today.

(The U.S. can get astronauts to and from the ISS now, thanks to SpaceX, which launched its first crewed mission to the orbiting lab in May 2020. Just after that liftoff, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk clapped back at Rogozin, saying, "The trampoline is working!")

Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

So, what are the odds that Russia actually does leave the ISS program in a huff in the relatively near future? Not high, according to NASA chief Bill Nelson.

"They are not pulling out," Nelson said Tuesday (May 3) during a hearing of the U.S. Senate appropriations subcommittee, as reported by SpacePolicyOnline.

"I see nothing in the very even-keeled professional relationship between the cosmonauts and the astronauts, between Mission Control in Moscow and Houston, in the training of Russian cosmonauts in America and American astronauts in Moscow and Baikonur [the Russian-run cosmodrome in Kazakhstan]," Nelson added.

"I see nothing that has interrupted that professional relationship no matter how awful [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is conducting a war with such disastrous results in Ukraine," he said. "We see every reason that the Russians are going to continue on the space station for the immediate future and, of course, we personally hope that they will continue with us all the way to 2030."

That professional relationship was on display on March 30, when NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei came back to Earth with two cosmonauts in a Soyuz spacecraft after an American-record 355-day stay aboard the ISS. The landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan, and everything that followed, went off without a hitch, said former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, citing conversations with Americans who were there.

"They said you would have not known the difference with how they were treated,the relationship there," Kelly told Space.com last month.

Kelly who has four spaceflights under his belt, including a 340-day stay aboard the ISS from March 2015 to March 2016 is an outspoken critic of the Russian invasion. He has called Putin a murderous dictator and a war criminal, and he got into a Twitter fight with Rogozin shortly after the invasion began. (Kelly has stopped targeting Rogozin directly, complying with a request from NASA officials concerned that such feuds could damage the ISS partnership.)

Kelly is obviously no fan of Rogozin, but he stressed that Roscosmos is far bigger than one man.

"I know NASA is committed to maintaining this partnership with Russia," Kelly said. "I know most of the people at the Russian space agency are as well. I'm not too sure about Rogozin, but others that I know that work there are good people."

Most of Russia's other space partnerships have fallen apart as a result of the Ukraine invasion. For example, Europe recently announced that its life-hunting Mars rover Rosalind Franklin will no longer launch atop a Russian Proton rocket and land on a Russian-built platform, as previously planned moves that will likely push the rover's liftoff back six years, to 2028. Russia is no longer selling Russian-made rocket engines to American companies, and Soyuz rockets aren't flying out of Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana as they once did.

So Russia may wish to remain in the ISS partnership to avoid further deterioration of the nation's civil space program, at least until it has other options, some experts have suggested.

"Just to summarize the discussion: Roscosmos will hold on to ISS for as long as technically and politically possible. The goal is to sustain the ISS until the Russian station is ready, which [is] realistically not likely before the 2030s," journalist and author Anatoly Zak, who runs RussianSpaceWeb.com, said via Twitter on Wednesday (May 4), referring to the planned Russian Orbital Service Station.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or on Facebook.

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Will Russia leave the International Space Station? Take Roscosmos chief's words with a grain of salt - Space.com

By European Space Agency (ESA)May 8, 2022

Video clip of ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and his Expedition 66 crewmates experiencing a reboost of the International Space Station. While the video at the bottom of this article is sped up by 8 times, this GIF is sped up by 32 times.

Get in line with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and his Expedition 66 crewmates to experience an orbital reboost of the International Space Station (ISS) from the inside. This video is sped up 8 times faster than real-time.

The International Space Station flies around Earth at around 400 km (250 miles). It is reboosted periodically to maintain its orbit and overcome the effects of atmospheric drag created by molecules of the atmosphere, which causes the Station to lose about 100 m of altitude per day.

A Space Station orbital reboost maneuver also optimizes phasing for future visiting vehicles arriving at the station. In March 2022 the ISS performed an orbital reboost using Russias ISS Progress 79 cargo craft. By firing its engines for several minutes, the station was put at the proper altitude for a crew ship orbit rendezvous and landing operations.

During the maneuver, the astronauts inside the station keep flying at the same speed and direction. While it seems like the astronauts are moving inside the station, it is in fact the ISS that gets the boost and is moving around them.

Credit: ESA/NASA

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See What Happens on the Space Station During an Orbital Reboost Maneuver - SciTechDaily

The future of vision may be out of this world.

LambdaVision is developing a synthetic retinal implant that could help restore sight to humans with degenerative eye diseases, and the companys founders and principal researchers believe the microgravity environment on the International Space Station may be the key to their project.

Right now the way that we manufacture the artificial retina is through a process called layer by layer deposition, said Nicole Wagner, a molecular and cell biologist and LambdaVision president and CEO, and company co-founder with chemist Jordan Greco.

Thats kind of a fancy word for dipping a substrate in multiple solutions and building a number of layers of thin film.

Connecticut-based LambdaVision uses bacteriorhodopsin, a light-reactive protein, to replace the function of photoreceptors in the retina, the layer of the eye responsible for converting light into nerve impulses for interpretation by the brain.

Its a process that involves moving a piece of gauze between multiple beakers hundreds of times, and sedimentation, evaporation, convection, and other factors influence how well those thin films can form. But in a microgravity environment, you remove a lot of those, Dr Wagner said.

An experimental, miniaturised version of LambdaVisions synthetic retina manufacture process was aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Nasas Crew-4 mission rode to the ISS on 27 April and was just one of a wide array of experiments the Crew-4 astronauts will set up or conduct over the next six months.

The Crew-4 team Nasa astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, and Jessica Watkins, along with European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will participate in a study of how microgravity affects the human nervous system when reaching for and grasping objects, and wear smart shirts lined with sensors monitoring their hearts and blood pressure, the latter an experiment from the German Space Agency called Ballistocardiography for Extraterrestrial Applications and long-Term missions, or Beat.

The astronauts will also grow plants using hydroponic and aeroponic technologies as part of the exposed Root On-Orbit Test System (xroots) experiment, and test how well off-the-shelf terrestrial technologies identify disease-related biomarkers in liquid samples in microgravity in the rhealth one Microgravity Demonstration.

The results of the rhealth experiment could have implications for future deep space missions, such as Nasas journey to Mars in the late 2030s or early 2040s, where astronauts will need to carry all the medical support they might require for an entry two-year mission with them.

But for the LambdaVision experiment, according to Dr Wagner, staying in low Earth orbit, rather than going to Mars, is the goal. The goal would be eventually to continue to manufacture on the International Space Station, she said, or on future commercial space stations. This is a way to sort of realize what could be the potential for a low Earth orbit economy.

If manufacturing in microgravity helps create the thin layers of the protein necessary to build a functional retinal implant, LambdaVision could build in space synthetic tissues that could restore sight to people with conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration on Earth.

Were still about three years out from a clinical trial, even with the work that were doing on the International Space Station, Dr Wagner said, but the ultimate goal is to get these into patients as soon as possible.

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Astronauts to help build artificial retinas on Space Station - The Independent

FormerNavy submariner Kayla Barron and three other astronauts splashed down offthe Florida Coast on Friday following about a half a yearof conducting experiments and performing repairs aboardthe International Space Station.

Barron, a Washington native who served aboard the Bangor-based USS Maine, returned to Earth along withfellow NASA Astronauts Tom Marshburn andRaja ChariandEuropean Space AgencyastronautMatthias Maurer. The fourpiled in the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft Thursday for a trip back to Earth.

Barron and the others splashed down safely early Friday, local time, off the coast of Tampa.

"Living and working aboard the International Space Station has been a transformative experience and an extraordinary privilege," Barron said on social media before departing the station."Part of me is ready to come home I miss my loved ones dearly, and wouldnt mind sipping coffee out of a cup instead of through a straw but part of me is having a hard time letting go."

Related: Pioneering female Navy submariner on the International Space Station has her eye on the moon next

After launching to the station Nov. 10, Barron, 34, conducted two spacewalks, one to repair a damaged antenna and the other to install a roll-out solar array kit. She also helped perform and monitormany scientific experiments, many helping to advance the knowledge of growing food and plantsin space. And she humanized her first experience in space through social media, demonstrating the basics of life in microgravity to include a how-to video of washing her own hair.

She also never tired of photographing her home planet, admiring its cloud formations often.

I hope you arent tired of seeing photos of clouds from space because Im not tired of taking them yet," she wrote in April.

Raised in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, Barron graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2010. The Navy lieutenant commander was one of the first women to serve aboard Navy submarines. Barron was a nuclear reactor officer aboard the USS Maine, a "boomer," orballistic missile sub, from 2013 to 2015.

It was while working as a flag aide to Vice Adm. Walter "Ted" Carter Jr., the superintendent of the Naval Academy, that she got an opportunity to meet Space Shuttle program veteran astronaut Kathryn "Kaye" Hire. Talking to Hire about space travel reminded her of her service on submarines.

Barron was selected in 2017to be an astronaut from NASA's largest applicant pool ever, atmore than 18,300.

Barron's time as an astronaut could be far from over. As part of NASA's Artemis program, the 34-year-old could even be the first woman to walk on the Moon. Success in the program will inform NASA's next goal: landing humans on Mars.

Josh Farley is a reporter coveringthe military and Bremerton for the Kitsap Sun. He can be reached at 360-792-9227,josh.farley@kitsapsun.comor on Twitter at@joshfarley.

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NASA SpaceX astronaut, Washington native returns from space station - Kitsap Sun