Category Archives: Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) has released a video of parts of the South Island captured on Saturday afternoon.

The video, posted by ISSAboveYou on Twitter, comes three days after the ISS captured a stunning video of the North Island showing the coastline stretching from Cape Reinga to the northern part of Hawke's Bay.

A representative for ISSAboveYou said the video was captured as the space station passed by just a bit to the north of Christchurch on January 8 at 12.35pm.

READ MORE:* Beautiful clear video of North Island from International Space Station * Weather: Heavy rain and strong winds expected for much of NZ* Aurora looks just as cool from space, as seen from the International Space Station* International Space Station passing sun captured by Auckland astrophotographer

ISSAboveYou/Supplied

The video was taken as the space station passed by just a bit to the north of Christchurch on January 8.

The ISS orbits Earth every 90 minutes and has been doing so since November 2000. A crew of seven people live and work in the station while travelling at a speed of 8 kilometres per second.

Nasas website says the space station orbits Earth 16 times in 24 hours and travels through 16 sunrises and sunsets in a day.

Link:
Stunning video of South Island captured by International Space Station - Stuff.co.nz

When we think about space exploration, we tend to think of astronauts, rockets, or the International Space Station. Maybe we also think about a team of experts sitting in the office of a Chinese or American space agency, breaking out into fits of joy as they successfully land a new rover on Mars.

What we tend to miss is all the people who write the software that keeps the satellites orbiting and the rockets on track. Large numbers of people sift through data from satellite sensors or simulate rocket launches before they take place. They, too, are doing rocket science. But its less intuitive to think of them as such.

Many images we see in the media show expert teams congratulating themselves or cool rovers and rockets cruising in outer space. They satisfy our human curiosity and our everlasting thirst for crossing new borders and expanding our horizons. At the same time, these types of stories keep things simple enough. Anyone can appreciate the fact that humanity has landed a few rovers on Mars. On the other hand, it takes a heap of expertise to understand how that rover is built, what goes into steering it, and which technologies make it fit for life on Mars.

Many people want to know about space. They want to know what it looks like and what humanity is doing to explore it. But without detailed knowledge, its hard to understand how space technology really works.

Thats where being a software engineer helps. Even if you dont know too much about physics, or about rocket materials, coders can understand what types of software technologies are used in space and why.

Although NASA makes a lot of its code public, its hard to find details on the day-to-day activities of a software engineer for space tech. A few stories are available from Elon Musks projects, though. Considering that working at SpaceX or Starlink is many an engineers dream, these will be my focus here.

Back in 1945, when science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke first proposed satellite TV, it sounded like a pipe dream. Even though it took three decades, this technology finally became reality. Nowadays, many people have satellite receivers on their roofs and think nothing of it. Satellites major advantage over cable is that they can reach rural areas, which wouldnt be cost-effective with very long cables.

Similarly, satellite internet still sounds like a pipe dream to many people. But the demand is there: One in four rural Americans thinks that their lack of access to high-speed internet is a major problem. Spotty internet access is also a problem for moving objects like trains, jets, and ships. Anyone who has tried to use WiFi while traveling can attest to that.

These problems might get resolved soon, however. Starlink, a spinoff of private-sector rocket pioneer SpaceX, is laying the groundwork for more expansive internet access. First announced in 2015, Starlink internet is already available in many parts of the U.S. today.

To ensure that the internet isnt too slow, the satellites need to be quite close to Earth. Because of that, they only remain overhead for a few minutes at a time. So, the ground-based antennas that they communicate with need to change which satellite they speak to very often. And the satellite network needs to be dense enough to provide the antennas with a signal at any given moment in time.

The network consists of hundreds of satellites; new ones are constantly being added and old ones replaced. As a result, Starlink software lead Andy Bohn says that the team doesnt have time to put each satellite into its own designated orbit. Instead, every Starlink satellite navigates itself. To manage the busy traffic conditions, the Earth-side network gives each satellite a place to be, and the satellite steers itself into its spot.

This process requires a huge computational effort. First, the satellites dont only risk bumping into each other. They can also collide with planes and other satellites in low orbit. Starlink satellites are already involved in half the near-collisions in space, where two objects get closer than one kilometer (0.6 miles) to one another, so this risk is real.

Second, the possibility of interference contributes to the massive computational requirements. When the signals of two satellites overlap, they can distort or even cancel one another. Avoiding interference requires putting the signals into slightly different frequency bands. But this isnt as easy as it sounds, and a finite number of possible frequency bands. Therefore, two satellites with bands that are too similar cant get too close to each other. This requirement further complicates the satellites navigation.

You might wonder why the satellites positions need to be calculated on Earth and not directly onboard the satellites. For one thing, if something goes wrong inside a satellite, its much harder to go there and fix it. In addition, things go wrong much more often in outer space than on Earth.

Because the suns radiation is much stronger outside the Earths atmosphere, bits can flip more easily. Bits, the zero-or-one encoding units of all computers, can corrupt entire software programs when they flip their value. To prevent this from messing up a satellites trajectory, different machines share software, and a correct copy of it can be reloaded in the event of corruption.

Software at Starlink is written in well-known programming languages. Because of its reliability and capability for bare-metal programming, Starlink uses C++ for most of the code in its satellites. The company also uses Python for some prototyping because its generally faster to build in. This mirrors what developers use in autonomous vehicle technology.

Satellite internet is a very ambitious project, and it comes with many difficult challenges. Starlink is undoubtedly the pioneer of this field, but other companies and space agencies are quick to follow. In a decade or two, it might be just as standard as satellite TV is today.

Similarly ambitious is SpaceX, of which Starlink is an offshoot. Launching rockets into outer space, docking with the ISS, or aiming for Mars requires near perfection in both hardware and software engineering. Tests can fail, of course. But in the final mission, nothing is allowed to go wrong. And if a part of the rocket system doesnt work properly, all other parts need to compensate for that failure.

All flight software for SpaceX rockets is built around control cycles. First, all the inputs are read, such as data from sensors or commands from the ground. Then this data gets processed and important things get calculated, such as the position of the rocket or the status of the life support system. Then the program goes to sleep for a fraction of a second, to save compute power, after which the whole cycle starts again.

Different subsystems control different parts of the rocket. In order to prevent big disasters, these need to be isolated from one another. If, for example, something goes wrong in the guidance system that steers the aircraft, the life support system doesnt need to go haywire as well. If one thing goes wrong, the show must still go on.

This setup differs from how many other tech companies operate. Take Google, for example. They record every failure, select those that seem most important, and try to draw lessons for the future from them. In other words, Google lets failures happen and tries to learn from them afterward.

For Google, this approach works perfectly well. But a search machine (and translator, document editor, cloud service provider, and more) operates a little differently from a rocket. If one process in Google fails, maybe a search query will return eerie results. If a manned rocket steers in the wrong direction, though, human lives are in jeopardy.

Because of the high-stakes nature of the problems it tackles, SpaceX tries its best to never fail. Although the companys engineers do embrace failure for rocket tests, in those cases, theyre almost purposefully allowing the project to fail in order to learn for the future. When the rocket starts for an actual mission, however, everything needs to work. That means the rocket must remain intact even if a part of it fails.

Rocket software needs to be as reliable as possible. So, it comes as no surprise that the quality requirements are high at NASA and SpaceX, especially compared to regular commercial applications. Elaborate systems are in place to ensure that no one breaks the code by merging something faulty with the master branch. That being said, none of SpaceXs tools related to testing are unheard of elsewhere in software development.

Before a developer can make a pull request, they need to meet a set of elaborate criteria. Before merging, the code gets tested twice, and its tested again after the actual merge.

SpaceXs continuous integration environment is largely based on HTCondor, and its metadata is managed with PostgreSQL. In addition, the company uses Python for backend test running, build orchestration, and web services. For the front end of these web services, it uses Angular, JavaScript, and some TypeScript. In terms of containerization, SpaceX uses Dockers, along with a little bit of Kubernetes.

The choice of tools and languages is, thus, very similar to what youd expect in a terrestrial company. Meeting the quality requirements and merging, however, is much more rigorous.

In addition to the software that gets deployed in and around rockets and satellites, spacefaring projects also deal with application software. This type helps bring a rocket to the pad and get it ready to launch and entails areas like supply chain, manufacturing, finance, inventory, and more.

Following the trend across many industries, SpaceXs application software has shifted from a monolithic architecture to microservices, specifically from AngularJS, C#, and MySQL towards Angular, PostgreSQL, and containerization. The advantage is largely the same as for all the other systems in SpaceX: If one piece is broken or waiting for repair, that delay doesnt affect the other pieces that much.

What sets SpaceXs application software division apart from its equivalents in other companies is that they have four very different projects to support: Falcon, which delivers cargo to outer space, Dragon, which focuses on human spaceflight, Starship, which will focus on interplanetary transport, and Starlink, for satellite internet. This scope of projects sets it apart even from NASA.

As in other areas, space tech uses largely the same tools and follows the same trends as others, but the scope and variety of the projects are a lot higher than in most terrestrial companies.

In other words, if youre a seasoned software developer and youre considering working at NASA, SpaceX or Starlink, you wont need to learn about many more tools and frameworks. But you should get prepared for more varied tasks, higher quality requirements, and a more intense workday ahead.Pe

Its quite legitimate to ask why we should bother with exploring outer space when we cant even handle our problems on Earth properly. Amidst an ongoing pandemic, racial and societal inequalities, floods and wildfires, plus all the smaller problems of life, shouldnt we take our gaze off the sky for a minute?

No. Its true that every rocket launch burns a horrendous amount of fuel. Its true that every software developer working on starships is one who isnt working on an app to beat a pandemic or on a payment processor for underprivileged communities. Its true that every dollar invested in outer space isnt invested in fair housing, better education, or preserving wildlife.

Those rocket launches, workers, and dollars come back in other ways. Open-source NASA software, for example, is available to help minimize aircraft emissions, calculate the size and power requirements of a solar power system, or optimize the efficiency of wind turbines. Therefore, by writing code for outer space, some developers just might be contributing to making other sectors greener.

In addition, the rise of private companies in space isnt necessarily a bad thing. If a small group of wealthy people loses a part of their money by literally shooting themselves to the moon and beyond, so be it.

By developing smart regulations, we do need to ensure that these people dont colonize space and repeat history. These regulations exist and ensure that no single country calls space their own territory, that every nation is free to explore it, that no entity is allowed to cause harm to space or the environment, and so on. As long as we make sure that these rules are respected, were not risking the future of less wealthy humans, were not wasting tax money, we can reap the benefits of open-source code, and we can satisfy our human curiosity for new frontiers. Sounds like a win-win-win-win to me.

This article is written by Ari Joury and originally published at Builtin. You can read it here.

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Software engineers are the backbone of space tech this is what they do - The Next Web

Tiangong is a space station that the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) is building in low Earth orbit. In May 2021, China launched Tianhe, the first of the orbiting space station's three modules, and the country aims to finish building the station by the end of 2022. CMSA hopes to keep Tiangong inhabited continuously by three astronauts for at least a decade. The space station will host many experiments from both China and other countries.

Related: China's space station will be open to science from all UN nations

Tiangong, which means "Heavenly Palace," will consist of Tianhe, the main habitat for astronauts, and two modules dedicated to hosting experiments, Mengtian and Wentian, both of which are due to launch in 2022. Shenzhou spacecraft, launching from Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert, will send crews of three astronauts to the space station, while Tianzhou cargo spacecraft will launch from Wenchang on the Chinese island of Hainan to deliver supplies and fuel to the station.

Tiangong will be much smaller than the International Space Station (ISS), with only three modules compared with 16 modules on the ISS. Tiangong will also be lighter than the ISS, which weighs about 400 tons (450 metric tons) following the recent addition of Russia's Nauka module.

The 54-foot-long (16.6 meter) Tianhe module launched with a docking hub that allows it to receive Shenzhou and Tianzhou spacecraft, as well as welcome the two later experiment modules. A large robotic arm will help position the Mengtian and Wentian modules and assist astronauts during spacewalks.

Tianhe is much larger than the Tiangong 1 and 2 test space labs China launched in the last decade and nearly three times heavier, at 24 tons (22 metric tons). The new Tiangong, visiting spacecraft and cargo spacecraft will expand the usable space for the astronauts; so much that they'll feel as though "they will be living in a villa," compared with how little space was available on previous Chinese space labs, Bai Linhou, deputy chief designer of the space station, told CCTV.

Tianhe features regenerative life support, including a way to recycle urine, to allow astronauts to stay in orbit for long periods. It is the main habitat for the astronauts and also houses the propulsion systems to keep the space station in orbit.

China has said it will take 11 launches to finish Tiangong: three module launches, four crewed missions and four Tianzhou spacecraft to supply cargo and fuel. The first three launches Tianhe, Tianzhou 2 and Shenzhou 12 have gone smoothly.

Once completed, Tiangong will be joined by a huge, Hubble-like space telescope, which will share the space station's orbit and be able to dock for repairs, maintenance and possibly upgrades. Named Xuntian, which translates to "survey the heavens," the telescope will have a 6.6-foot (2 m) diameter mirror like Hubble but will have a field of view 300 times greater. Xuntian will aim to survey 40% of the sky over 10 years using its huge, 2.5-billion-pixel camera.

The space station could potentially be expanded to six modules, if everything goes according to plan. "We can further expand our current three-module space station combination into a four-module, cross-shaped combination in the future," Bai told CCTV. The second Tianhe core module could then allow two more modules to join the orbital outpost.

China embarked on a long journey to reach the point of building its space station. The project was first approved in 1992, after which the country set about developing the Shenzhou crew spacecraft and the Long March 2F rocket to send astronauts into space. Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut in space in October 2003 and made China the third country in the world to independently send humans into orbit.

China expressed interest in joining the International Space Station partners, but the possibility was ended by a 2011 decree passed by U.S. lawmakers effectively banning NASA from coordinating directly with China or any Chinese-owned company. This means direct collaboration between NASA and Chinese space stations is strictly prohibited, making the prospect of sending U.S. astronauts to Tiangong (or Chinese astronauts to the ISS) impossible.

To be able to build and operate a crewed space station, China first needed to test out crucial space station systems, including life support and technologies for rendezvous and docking of spacecraft in orbit while traveling 17,448 mph (28,080 km/h). To accomplish this, China launched the 9-ton (8.2 metric tons) Tiangong-1 space lab in 2011, and subsequently sent the uncrewed Shenzhou 8 and the crewed Shenzhou 9 and 10 to join Tiangong-1 in orbit.

The upgraded but similarly sized Tiangong-2 launched in 2016 and hosted the two-astronaut crew of Shenzhou 11 for just over a month, setting a new national record for human spaceflight mission duration.

As the China Manned Space Agency checked off these initial milestones, the agency was also focused on developing new, larger Long March heavy-lift rockets to make a space station possible. The Long March 5B was designed specifically to launch the huge space station modules into low Earth orbit. The same rocket was the source of one of the largest uncontrolled reentries in recent decades following the launch of Tianhe in late April 2021.

In 2014 China completed its new, coastal spaceport at Wenchang, specifically to launch these larger-diameter rockets, which need to be delivered by sea.

The first crewed missions Shenzhou 12, 13 and 14 will be for space station construction. A series of operational phase missions lasting six months each will begin in 2023. Crews will carry out experiments in areas such as astronomy, space medicine and life sciences, biotechnology, microgravity combustion and fluid physics and space technologies. Tiangong will also temporarily host six astronauts during crew changeovers, Space.com previously reported.

Related: China selects 18 new astronauts in preparation for space station launch

Tiangong is also likely to host international astronauts in the future. European Space Agency astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Matthias Maurer trained with their Chinese counterparts in 2017 in a small step toward a possible future visit to the Chinese space station, the European Space Agency reported. Astronauts from other countries, particularly those involved in China's Belt and Road initiative, may travel to Tiangong as well; Russia is also considering sending its cosmonauts.

China is looking to develop alternatives for keeping Tiangong supplied, SpaceNews reported. In January 2021, the China Manned Space Agency put out a call for proposals for low-cost, reliable cargo missions to Tiangong. The call was open to commercial companies, echoing NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contracts that provided opportunities to SpaceX.

It will be possible to spot Tiangong from Earth, just as it sometimes is with the ISS. Tiangong will orbit at an altitude of between 211 and 280 miles (340 to 450 kilometers) above Earth and between 43 degrees north and south, and the space station should be a fixture in the sky for at least a decade.

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China's Tiangong space station | Space

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A SpaceX Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station early Wednesday (Dec. 22), carrying with it a holiday haul of science gear and Christmas treats for the astronauts living on the orbital outpost.

The autonomous Dragon resupply ship docked itself at the orbital outpost at 3:41 a.m. EST (0841 GMT), ahead of its planned 4:30 a.m. docking time. It parked itself at the space-facing port on the station's Harmony module, with NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn monitoring the docking from inside the station.

The Dragon capsule blasted off on its cargo mission for NASA, called CRS-24, early Tuesday (Dec. 21) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It delivered 6,500 pounds (2,949 kilograms) of research experiments and supplies for the crew. With Christmas just days away, NASA did pack a special dinner for the seven astronauts on the space station.

"I won't get in front of Santa Claus and tell you what's going to be sent up, but we are going to have some gifts for the crew," said Joel Montalbano, NASA's space station program manager, before the Dragon launched. "We're also going to fly some special foods for Christmas dinner. So you can imagine turkey, green beans, we have some fish and some seafood that's smoked. We also have everybody's favorite, fruitcake."

The research gear tucked inside will support a variety of experiments in the life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and many other fields.

NASA's upcoming Artemis moon missions will send crews back to the moon for the first time in decades, but it will also serve as a stepping stone to Mars. To that end, NASA is trying to figure out how it will feed, clothe, and protect its astronauts on extremely long-duration missions.

One investigation flying on CRS-24 will help them do just that. Together with Proctor and Gamble, the makers of Tide detergent, NASA is looking at how to wash clothes in space. This initial step will test how well the actual detergent holds up to the stresses of microgravity.

The agency estimates that it will need approximately 500 pounds of clothing per astronaut for a three-year trip to Mars. That amount can be decreased by providing the crews with the capability of washing clothes in orbit. (Currently, astronauts wear their clothes many times before tossing them out and grabbing a new set.)

"Once you start having extended trips out in space, laundry is a must-have," Mark Sivik, senior director and research fellow at Proctor and Gamble told Space.com. "We looked at what it would take for a crew of four to do laundry and we minimized that."

"What we've developed here is fully degradable and designed to work within the space station's closed-loop system," he added.

The Tide experiment will help put NASA on a path that leads to laundry in space. For this first iteration, researchers will be looking at how the specially designed detergent performs in space. Tide is also sending up a follow-on experiment next year that will look at how effective the detergent is at fighting stains while in space.

The detergent used will be a scaled-back version of the detergent we use at home, that is designed specifically for performance apparel. Since the astronauts work out multiple times per day, and wear more performance-active clothing, this is what the detergent will target.

It will run for about six months, coming back to Earth sometime during the summer. The research will not only provide future space travelers with a means of freshening their clothes but could prove effective for people in areas that don't have immense water supplies. That's because the detergent is designed to be used with less water while also performing as you would expect.

Protein crystal growth experiments are commonly sent to the space station because microgravity is an excellent platform to grow perfect, uniform crystals.

The crystals can then be used to test a variety of different drugs to treat ailments from arthritis to cancer.

Inspiration for one such treatment came from the body's own immune system. Monoclonal antibodies (MAB) attack a specific target by triggering the bodys immune response.

Given via transfusion, monoclonal antibodies can be made to lock onto specific targets inside a cell (or on its surface) and have fewer side effects compared to other treatments. However, in order to be an effective form of treatment, the MABs need to be administered in large doses intravenously. By sending this experiment into space, the pharmaceutical company Merck Research Labs is hoping it can make higher concentrations of high-quality antibodies.

It's also hoping that other companies will see the simplicity of its experiment and be inspired to do their own space-based research. Paul Reichert of Merck told Space.com that the idea for this experiment came in 2016 after he saw a video of NASA astronaut Kate Rubins using a pipette as part of another investigation.

Reichert realized that experiments didn't have to be incredibly complex to get the same results. The design of this experiment is simplistic, comprised of a few syringes affixed to a board. Reichert said that he hopes to be able to grow many small, perfectly-shaped protein crystals that the company can then use to improve its cancer treatment therapies.

Students from two different universities are sending experiments into space as part of NASA's Student Payload Opportunity with Citizen Science (SPOCS). The teams partnered with students in grades K-12, which acted as citizen scientists, as a means of doing real-world research.

Engineering students at the University of Idaho developed a payload to look at how microgravity affects bacteria-resistant polymers. Studies conducted on the station have revealed that bacteria are present on surfaces around the space station, and this experiment hopes to determine which coatings (polymers) have the best bacteria-resistant properties.

"The goal of our project is to help further space travel by reducing bacteria growth and disease on the International Space Station," Adriana Bryant, the team leader, told Space.com.

The team worked with a class of third graders from Moscow, Idaho to select two bacteria-resistant polymers that were sent into space. The experiment will run for roughly 30 days and is designed to be fully autonomous once it's plugged into the space station's power.

Teams will analyze the data collected when it comes back to have an idea on which of its polymers are the most resistant to bacteria in space.

Another team from Columbia University will look at antibiotic resistance in microgravity. The team is sending two different types of bacteria into space, which are known to interact here on Earth. The experiment will run for approximately 14 days and once its data is received back on Earth, the Columbia team are hoping to determine how each bacteria behaves individually when treated with certain antibiotics and how they behave together in space and how effective treatments are for it.

The Turbine Superalloy Casting module (SCM) is a commercial manufacturing device that processes heat-resistant alloys in microgravity. Alloys are materials that are made of at least two different chemical elements, one of which is a metal.

The experiment is designed by Redwire Space, which has already sent numerous payloads into orbit, including the first 3D-printer in space by Made In Space, which Redwire acquired in 2020.. By trying to print alloys in space, the company is hoping to look to the future when humanity will need to build things on other worlds as well as improve products here on Earth.

The team is expecting to see more uniform structures in the space-based prints versus the ones done terrestrially, which could help produce improved materials here on Earth, like turbine engines. These types of engines are used not only in the aerospace industry but also as a means of generating power.

The Dragon capsule is on its second trip to the International Space Station (it first flew in June of this year) and will remain docked to the orbital outpost for roughly 30 days. It will return to Earth in January.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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SpaceX Dragon cargo ship delivers Christmas presents (and supplies) to space station - Space.com

The COWVR and TEMPEST instruments are in the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft for the December 2021 commercial resupply mission for NASA to the International Space Station. Credit: SpaceX

Launched Tuesday to the space station, the COWVR and TEMPEST two instruments could lead the way to big improvements in gathering key information for weather forecasting.

The Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer (COWVR) is no bigger than a minifridge. The Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems (TEMPEST) is even smaller about the size of a cereal box. Yet these two compact science instruments are designed to do a big job: to make the same high-quality atmospheric observations as weather satellites many times their size and at a fraction of the cost.

Built by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the two radiometers are part of the U.S. Air Forces Space Test Program-Houston 8 (STP-H8) and are headed to the International Space Station Tuesday as part of SpaceXs 24th commercial resupply mission for the agency. Theyre considered technology demonstrations, and if they perform as planned, weather forecasting could be in for a technological boost.

The COWVR instrument, which is headed to the International Space Station in December 2021, during a thermal test in 2015. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Here are five things to know about COWVR and TEMPEST:

Together, COWVR and TEMPEST will provide many of the data points that scientists use to produce weather and climate forecasts: Theyll measure not only the speed and direction of winds blowing over the ocean surface, but also precipitation, atmospheric moisture, how that moisture is distributed vertically, and other conditions at the ocean surface and in the atmosphere.

From 2003 to 2020, these types of measurements were acquired by the 990-pound (450-kilogram) Windsat instrument aboard the U.S. Department of Defenses Coriolis satellite. Windsat lasted well beyond its anticipated lifespan. If COWVR and TEMPEST prove theyre up to the task, they (and small instruments like them) will be able to take the place of larger, aging satellites without compromising on data quality.

COWVR and TEMPEST will be attached to the space station, which circles our planet in low-Earth orbit from west to east about 16 times per day. Because of the stations unique orbit, the two instruments will spend most of their time over the mid-latitudes and tropics areas prone to storms and revisit them more frequently than sensors in other orbits. The additional data will help scientists better understand storm formation and better track developing storm systems.

COWVR and TEMPEST will also be able to send the data back to Earth faster than some other instruments currently in use, enabling scientists and forecasters to monitor the rapid intensification many storms undergo in near real time. Most satellites communicate with just a few ground stations around the world, and that takes time, said Shannon Brown, principal investigator for COWVR based at JPL. The data could be a couple of hours old before its even on the ground, and then it still needs to be processed.

COWVR and TEMPEST will instead send their data back to Earth via NASAs tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) constellation. TDRS essentially provides a direct data stream. So, once the sensors pass over a big hurricane or cyclone, youre going to get that data instantly, Brown said. Itll be up-to-the-minute observations, which is something not usually available with the traditional approach and something that could save lives.

The frequency with which COWVR and TEMPEST will take measurements over areas within their orbit will allow them to collect more comprehensive data than other instruments data that is expected to reduce uncertainties in weather and climate models.

The current satellite sensors that measure wind speed and direction at the ocean surface are in Sun-synchronous orbits, meaning that they provide measurements at a given location only in the morning and in the evening, leaving gaps in between, said JPLs Tony Lee, co-lead of the missions science working group. The space stations orbit will allow COWVR and TEMPEST to take measurements across different times of day, reducing those gaps.

Weather and climate models use this type of data to make predictions. The more data that is available, the more accurate the models and the predictions based on them will be.

The amount of heat and moisture released by the ocean influences atmospheric conditions; likewise, atmospheric conditions, such as wind, influence ocean currents and heat distribution. The more scientists learn about these interactions, the better theyll understand how they affect weather in the short term and climate in the long term.

Getting suitable data to study these interactions can be tricky, though.

The traditional way to study these interactions is by combining measurements from different satellites that have different sampling times of the ocean and the atmosphere, Lee said. This mismatch makes it more difficult for scientists to understand these interactions because we may be looking at wind in one part of the day and looking at rain and atmospheric water vapor at a different time of day.

If successful, COWVR and TEMPEST could change that. COWVRs main purpose is to measure the speed and direction of wind at the ocean surface, and TEMPESTs is to provide the atmospheric water vapor measurements. Since theyre flying together and taking measurements over the same areas, theyll be able to acquire this complementary data at the same time.

Simultaneous measurements of the different variables alleviate the difficulty associated with sampling time differences that come from mixing measurements from different satellites at different times, Lee said. It will also enable them to account for interactions that happen at shorter time scales wind gusts stirring up the ocean and causing it to lose heat to the atmosphere, for example.

If COWVR and TEMPEST perform well, theyll prove that comprehensive data vital to weather forecasting and a better understanding of climate can be obtained in a much smaller package with a much smaller price tag than previously thought.

Because the instruments are smaller and cheaper, organizations could launch three or four small satellites for the same cost as one of the larger variations. A constellation of these small satellites would be able to take measurements of a given area such as over a developing storm far more frequently than a corresponding single satellite could, resulting in even further refinement of weather models and forecasts.

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Pair of Small but Mighty Weather Instruments en Route to Space Station 5 Things To Know - SciTechDaily

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. 2021 was one of the busiest years for the Space Coast in years and it only looks to get busier in 2022.

With that in mind, heres a list of nine of the biggest Space Coast stories of 2021.

2021 was a busy year for SpaceX.

This year was so busy its launches seemed to be lighting up the Brevard Coast non-stop.

Here are some statistics from the company website:

Carried eight astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA

Transported 28,000 pounds of cargo and scientific research to and from the ISS.

Completed the worlds first all-civilian astronaut mission to orbit.

Deployed more than 800 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit, which are helping to connect over 150,000 customers around the world with high-speed, low-latency internet.

As impressive as SpaceXs record of launches is, nothing compares to the excitement of a manned launch to space.

In November, SpaceX Crew-3was the third operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the fourth overall crewed orbital flight of the Commercial Crew Program.

While there were some delays, the launch brought many first-time spectators from around the globe to the Space Coast.

WATCH: Crew-3 successfully blasts off from Kennedy Space Center following delays

The Lucy spacecraft blasted off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket early Oct 16.

The Atlas V took off at 5:34 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The mission will study the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter and is expected to last 12 years.

READ: Lucy in the sky! Lucy blasts off on a 12 year mission across the universe

Sierra Nevada Corporation in May signed an agreement for Space Floridas launch and landing facility at Kennedy Space Center.

The Dream Chaser will fly resupply missions to the International Space Station beginning 2022.

Next year, Dream Chaser is scheduled to begin cargo missions to the ISS. The company also has plans for its own flexible modular commercial space station.

READ: Dream Chaser to call Kennedy Space Center home

NASAs Kennedy Space Center named its first woman as the new director.

Janet Petro took over as acting director in May after former Director Bob Cabana was promoted to NASAs associate administrator.

NASA names new director for Kennedy Space Center

READ: NASA names new director for Kennedy Space Center

I really feel privileged to be sitting here today and what I call the second generation of workers and the second major leap were making during this Artemis generation, said new Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro.

NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins wasselected as part of an upcoming mission to the International Space Station, and that will make her the first Black woman to be part of the space station crew.

Read: Jessica Watkins to be first Black woman on International Space Station Crew

Watkins is scheduled to fly to the space station in April 2022.

She will join NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Robert Hines, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, on the SpaceX Crew-4 mission.

The Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral previewed plans in December for a new attraction focusing on the latest innovations in space exploration.

Already under construction and scheduled to open in March, Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex will offer an immersive experience featuring a collection of modern-day spacecraft, a 4D motion theater, and unique launch viewing opportunities.

To learn more, click here.

Have you ever dreamed of going to space? Well, for $125,000, you can make that dream a reality.

Florida space flight company Space Perspective is taking reservations on its Spaceship Neptune for flights in early 2024.

READ: Dreaming of space? Company begins selling $125K tickets for balloon trips to the edge of space

The six-hour trip will include a two-hour ascent above 100,000 feet, two hours for passengers to enjoy 360-degree views from the spaceship before making a two-hour descent to the ocean, where it will splash down

The company is working toward three Florida launch sites in Jacksonville, the Kennedy Space Center and the Space Coast Air and Spaceport in Titusville.

Space Perspective The Spaceship Neptune consists of a balloon that measures the length of a football stadium. Attached to it is a pressured capsule that will carry up to eight passengers. (Space Perspective)

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced in September that Terran Orbital would move its operations to the Space Coast.

The governor said the company would invest $300 million and bring about 2,000 new jobs to the Space Coast.

Terran Orbital plans to launch satellites for the government and commercial customers and is even working on its own satellite constellation.

READ: Terran Orbital to invest $300 million in Floridas Space Coast, Gov. DeSantis says

More information on Terran Orbital can be found here.

Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.

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We have liftoff!: Top 9 Space coast stories of 2021 - WFTV Orlando

Kathy Lueders, head of NASAs newly minted Space Operations Mission Directorate, joined us at TC Sessions: Space last week for a chat about the future of the agency and what she is looking forward to and dreading in the next decade of missions.

In the first place, Lueders explained the reasoning behind NASAs decision in September to split the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate in two.

Thirty years ago it was really, in the human exploration area, it was Shuttle, and then it was Shuttle and station Now weve added Commercial Crew, [Lunar] Gateway, you know, HLS [Human Landing System], I mean, were mushrooming! she explained.

This was putting too much pressure on the existing structure and it was amicably decided to split off, essentially, the development and planning side from operations. Lueders said she was pleased to be put in charge of the latter.

The best thing is I got to have, you know, the missions! I got to have the execution, she said. Ive spent probably about 15 years doing development. But my favorite part was when we started flying. So guess what Im firmly in the flying division. So Im very, very happy to be there. I get to do all the launches and operations and I love it.

While the big launches and landings tend to hog all the glory, Artemis and its related lunar missions are more diverse and wide-ranging than that. I asked what pieces of the puzzle may not be getting enough attention.

Its the infrastructure pieces that people dont talk about, she replied. You know, were gonna need power on the moon. Were going to need to be able to move cargo around on the moon. Were going to need to be able to have communication and additional relays on the moon. We tend to not think of roads and power lines as sexy things. But this is infrastructure that, if you ever run a business, you need those kinds of things to be able to operate. Try to run a business without power try to run a business without comms.

But not all of her duties will be pleasant. She was among those who saw the ISS go up, and she will be there when it comes down or at least, in the near term, is decommissioned.

Oh gosh I mean, when I moved to JSC [Johnson Space Center], it was to go work on an International Space Station. And so I actually was one of the lucky people that came onto the space station program at [mission] 2A. Been on the job two weeks and I got to be at the launch, and there were people there that invested 10 years of their life and were there crying. And so I will be crying when we have to deorbit the Space Station, she said. But it was also very painful for us to, you know, retire the Shuttle. Part of the things weve got to recognize is whens the right time, right?

And its the right time, because we really need to go off and we need to focus on living and working around the moon and wherever other crazy place that NASA people dream up to be able to go to.

TC+ members can watch the full panel at the top of this post.

Read more:
Kathy Lueders on Artemis, restructuring NASA and the lifecycle of the ISS - TechCrunch

Members of USU's Get Away Special team in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Monday, preparing to watch the of a satellite they built. The small satellite, called GASPACS, uses a custom-built inflatable aerodynamic boom to passively stabilize its orbit. (Get Away Special team, Utah State University)

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

LOGAN While most people were soundly asleep at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, a group of undergraduate students from Utah State University were wide awake seeing their dreams come to fruition as they watched NASA launch a satellite that they engineered into orbit aboard SpaceX's CRS-24 mission.

A project eight years in the making, the Get Away Special Passive Attitude Control Satellite (GASPACS), a CubeSat built by USU's Get Away Special team, launched Tuesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, with a destination of the International Space Station. Built entirely by undergraduate students at USU, satellite is a technology demonstration that uses a custom-built inflatable aerodynamic boom to passively stabilize its orbit.

The CubeSat is "about as small as you can build a satellite, (it's) about the size of a loaf of bread," said Ben Willard, team member and public relations contact on the project.

Willard said the mission of the CubeSat is to use an inflatable boom to stabilize the satellite along one direction, "almost like feathers on a dart would you throw the dart; the feathers stabilize the dart so it flies in a straight line."

"The primary mission of GASPACS is to deploy this boom and then photograph it and then send this photograph back down to a custom-built ground station that we have built on the roof of one of our buildings on campus," Willard said. The station is located on the roof of one of the physics buildings at USU.

The launch is especially significant, as the satellite is one of the world's first CubeSats to ever be built by a team of exclusively undergraduate students. And they did it while balancing full course loads and jobs.

"Satellites are extremely technologically advanced. Honestly, a lot of people didn't believe that we would be able to do it," Willard added. "It's kind of like a volunteer part-time job almost, so that definitely adds to the complexity and the timetable of it."

The project has gone through many sets of hands, as some students graduated and others came into the process.

"As students graduate and move on, it's a new set of undergraduates coming up behind them, having to learn everything that definitely takes a toll on it being even more difficult because you're not able to sit down with one group," Willard said.

To manage this difficulty, the team conducted lots of research, leaned on trial by error and reached out to experts in the industry to get advice, Willard said.

Did he and his team stay up in the early hours of Tuesday to watch the live stream of the launch?

"Absolutely," he said, emphasizing that watching the launch after the years of hard work means a lot to the team.

"One of the things we really try and do is help more students and more people have this love for space being able to say we actually have something that's in space, that's something that very few people can say," Willard said, noting that he's seen a lot more freshman join the team over the past year.

As for the future of the Get Away Special team, it's looking to keep pushing the envelope when it comes to undergraduate achievement.

"We're currently working on plans for our second satellite, we're working on proposals to send to NASA to get that accepted into the program. Now that we have built one and now that we've proven it is possible, the sky's the limit. We're just planning on continuing to build more."

The Get Away Special team welcomes all USU students to participate in leading technological developments in space, and interested students can learn more about how they can be a part of the team by signing up here.

Read more:
'Sky's the limit' for USU undergrad team that sent satellite into space - KSL.com

A microgravity experiment developed by a group of Texarkana ISD sixth graders is heading to the International Space Station in 2022, following a rigorous selection process through the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP).

This fall, all fifth-grade students at Martha and Josh Morriss Mathematics & Engineering Elementary School, and all sixth, seventh and eighth-grade Texas Middle School students enrolled in Science Honors spent six weeks learning about microgravity experimental design and developed more than 140 proposals that competed for inclusion in the SSEP Mission 16 to the International Space Station. The top three projects from TISD were then submitted to the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) for consideration by the SSEP Mission 16 Step 2 Review Board, and on Thursday, the program announced the final selections.

The Effects of Space Travel and Microgravity on Hybrid Brine Shrimp Eggs, an experiment created by TISD sixth graders Tiffany Bowen, Jaeden Rios and Rivers Glass, is now bound for the International Space Station in the Spring/Summer of 2022.

We are extremely proud of all our student researchers in TISD, as they have shown a tremendous amount of commitment and dedication during the last few weeks, said Todd Marshall, Director TISD CTE and STEM Education. We are thrilled to have these sixth graders representing our district at the national and global level.

Texarkana ISD is one of 23 participating communities in three countries (USA, Canada, and Ukraine) that are participating in this years SSEP program. The program gives students the ability to design and propose real microgravity experiments that are proposed to be conducted aboard the International Space Station.

Following this weeks announcement, and in accordance with SSEP guidelines, the group of TISD students will continue to refine and optimize their experiments design so that it can be cleared for the mission.

About the SSEP:The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program [or SSEP] is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S. and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with Nanoracks LLC, which is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

Read more:
Texarkana ISD student research project selected for microgravity experiment at the International Space Station | Texarkana Today - TXK Today

TheInternational Space Station completes multiple orbits around Earth every day, and now you can track the space lab as it passes overhead.

At an average altitude of 248 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, the space station is the third brightest object in the sky. Although this high-flying satellite can be seen from the ground, it passes by quickly, so it helps to know where to look.

To assist in this skywatching endeavor, NASA has launcheda new interactive map at its Spot the Station site.This tool allows users to enter their location and find the best places in a 50-mile radius to view the station as it passes over them, according to a statement from NASA. [Use Our Satellite & Space Station Tracker from N2YO]

"The International Space Station's trajectory passes over more than 90 percent of Earth's population. The service notifies users of passes that are high enough in the sky to be easily visible over trees, buildings and other objects on the horizon," NASA officials said in the statement. "NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston calculates the sighting information several times a week for more than 6,700 locations worldwide." In addition to the new interactive Spot the Station map,NASA has an embeddable Spot the Station widget(which you can see here) that allows users to find out when the station will pass overhead their location. The widget was released earlier this year, NASA officials said.

The first component of the space station was flown into space in 1998. Since then, the orbiting lab has been pieced together to create the complex structure that is now approximately the size of a U.S. football field. The launch of Spot the Station falls on the 16-year anniversary of humans living and working continuously aboard the station.

The Spot the Station tool also allows users to sign up to receive an email or text message notifying them the station will soon be visible in their selected area.

NASA officials said the space station is most visible in the sky at dawn and dusk. It will likely appear as a bright light moving quickly across the sky, as the space station flies at approximately 18,000 mph (28, 968 km/h).

Editor's Note:This article has been corrected to clarify that the International Space Station appears as a bright light moving across the sky, not a streak; images that feature streaks are usually long exposures that show the station moving over time.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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How to Spot the International Space Station Location with ...