Category Archives: Space Station

Written by Komal RJ Panchal | Mumbai | Updated: July 5, 2020 8:23:36 am Aftab Shivdasani on the set of Poison 2. (Photo: PR)

Actor Aftab Shivdasani recently started shooting for web series, Poison 2. In an interview with indianexpress.com, he shared his experience of resuming work amid the coronavirus pandemic.

He believes its time we made peace with the new normal as the virus is not going away anytime soon, and we need to learn how to live with it for a bit. He remarked, It felt good to be back on sets, doing what I love. Every one of us will have to get back to work to sustain ourselves. We better get used to the new normal. The set had all safety measures in place, and we would regularly wash and sanitise our hands.

Wearing a mask has become second nature now, admits Aftab Shivdasani, emphasising on the need to safeguard oneself from the virus. Since we have been practising social distancing for more than 90 days now, wearing a mask and following precautions has become automatic. The actor shared a fun anecdote from the set when, after returning from a coffee break, he had forgotten to take off his mask. When the director said action, he had to pause as Shivdasani still hadnt removed his mask for the take. He commented, It looked like we were shooting on a space station and not a film set.

The Maharashtra government on May 31 had announced that film and television shoots could resume in non-containment zones from June, as part of the relaxation process in the state. It also issued a 16-page set of guidelines, which include maintaining 33 per cent crew (not including the main cast) on set, all staff members to carry identification cards and Aarogya Setu app downloaded on their compatible devices etc.

The Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association (IMPPA) introduced an added clause, where before starting work all unit members proposing to work in the shoot should submit negative COVID-19 reports.

Aftab Shivdasani commented, Things are strict, only once we got our negative reports, were we allowed to come for the shoot. Before we enter the set, in the morning, our body temperature is checked. We are sanitised. I think it is a healthy trend to make sure we stay safe and healthy on and off the sets.

While maintaining social distancing between actors during shots is impossible, filmmakers and writers are working around it. According to the actor, There have been changes in some scenes to make sure that we can maintain some sort of distance and arent very close to each other.

Much of the set construction work, too, takes place one day before the actors and technicians arrive for the shoot so that both teams avoid coming in contact. The shoots follow strict shift timings to ensure all teams can work seamlessly and without any schedules colliding with each other. Everybody reaches the set on time. We shoot in shifts allocated to us, pack up between 6 pm to 6.30 pm to make sure everybody reaches home before 9 pm, to observe the night curfew. People in general seem to have become more understanding and working on the set feels good, Aftab Shivdasani concluded.

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Its like being on a space station: Aftab Shivdasani on shooting amid coronavirus pandemic - The Indian Express

Does this matter? Software has never played a more critical role in spaceflight. It has made it safer and more efficient, allowing a spacecraft to automatically adjust to changing conditions. According to Darrel Raines, a NASA engineer leading software development for the Orion deep space capsule, autonomy is particularly key for areas of critical response timelike the ascent of a rocket after liftoff, when a problem might require initiating an abort sequence in just a matter of seconds. Or in instances where the crew might be incapacitated for some reason.

And increased autonomy is practically essential to making some forms of spaceflight even work. Ad Astra is a Houston-based company thats looking to make plasma rocket propulsion technology viable. The experimental engine uses plasma made out of argon gas, which is heated using electromagnetic waves. A tuning process overseen by the systems software automatically figures out the optimal frequencies for this heating. The engine comes to full power in just a few milliseconds. Theres no way for a human to respond to something like that in time, says CEO Franklin Chang Daz, a former astronaut who flew on several space shuttle missions from 1986 to 2002. Algorithms in the control system are used to recognize changing conditions in the rocket as its moving through the startup sequenceand act accordingly. We wouldnt be able to do any of this well without software, he says.

But overrelying on software and autonomous systems in spaceflight creates new opportunities for problems to arise. Thats especially a concern for many of the space industrys new contenders, who arent necessarily used to the kind of aggressive and comprehensive testing needed to weed out problems in software and are still trying to strike a good balance between automation and manual control.

Nowadays, a few errors in over one million lines of code could spell the difference between mission success and mission failure. We saw that late last year, when Boeings Starliner capsule (the other vehicle NASA is counting on to send American astronauts into space)failed to make it to the ISS because of a glitch in its internal timer. A human pilot could have overridden the glitch that ended up burning Starliners thrusters prematurely. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine remarked soon after Starliners problems arose: Had we had an astronaut on board, we very well may be at the International Space Station right now.

But it was later revealed thatmanyother errors in the software had not been caught before launch, including one that could have led to the destruction of the spacecraft. And that was something human crew members could easily have overridden.

Boeing is certainly no stranger to building and testing spaceflight technologies, so it was a surprise to see the company fail to catch these problems before the Starliner test flight. Software defects, particularly in complex spacecraft code, are not unexpected,NASA saidwhen the second glitch was made public. However, there were numerous instances where the Boeing software quality processes either should have or could have uncovered the defects. Boeing declined a request for comment.

According to Luke Schreier, the vice president and general manager of aerospace at NI (formerly National Instruments), problems in software are inevitable, whether in autonomous vehicles or in spacecraft. Thats just life, he says. The only real solution is to aggressively test ahead of time to find those issues and fix them: You have to have a really rigorous software testing program to find those mistakes that will inevitably be there.

Space, however, is a unique environment to test for. The conditions a spacecraft will encounter arent easy to emulate on the ground. While an autonomous vehicle can be taken out of the simulator and eased into lighter real-world conditions to refine the software little by little, you cant really do the same thing for a launch vehicle. Launch, spaceflight, and a return to Earth are actions that either happen or they dontthere is no light version.

This, says Schreier, is why AI is such a big deal in spaceflight nowadaysyou can develop an autonomous system that is capable of anticipating those conditions, rather than requiring the conditions to be learned during a specific simulation. You couldnt possibly simulate on your own all the corner cases of the new hardware youre designing, he says.

So for some groups, testing software isnt just a matter of finding and fixing errors in the code; its also a way to train AI-driven software. Take Virgin Orbit, for example, which recently tried to send its LauncherOne vehicle into space for the first time. The company worked with NI to develop a test bench that looped together all the vehicles sensors and avionics with the software meant to run a mission into orbit (down to the exact length of wiring used within the vehicle). By the time LauncherOne was ready to fly, it believed it had already been in space thousands of times thanks to the testing, and it had already faced many different kinds of scenarios.

Of course, the LauncherOnes first test flightended infailure, for reasons that have still not been disclosed. If it was due to software limitations, the attempt is yet another sign theres a limit to how much an AI can be trained to face real-world conditions.

Raines adds that in contrast to the slower approach NASA takes for testing, private companies are able to move much more rapidly. For some, like SpaceX, this works out well. For others, like Boeing, it can lead to some surprising hiccups.

Ultimately, the worst thing you can do is make something fully manual or fully autonomous, says Nathan Uitenbroek, another NASA engineer working on Orions software development. Humans have to be able to intervene if the software is glitching up or if the computers memory is destroyed by an unanticipated event (like a blast of cosmic rays). But they also rely on the software to inform them when other problems arise.

NASA is used to figuring out this balance, and it has redundancy built into its crewed vehicles. The space shuttle operated on multiple computers using the same software, and if one had a problem, the others could take over. A separate computer ran on entirely different software, so it could take over the entire spacecraft if a systemic glitch was affecting the others. Raines and Uitenbroek say the same redundancy is used on Orion, which also includes a layer of automatic function that bypasses the software entirely for critical functions like parachute release.

On the Crew Dragon, there are instances where astronauts can manually initiate abort sequences, and where they can override software on the basis of new inputs. But the design of these vehicles means its more difficult now for the human to take complete control. The touch-screen console is still tied to the spacecrafts software, and you cant just bypass it entirely when you want to take over the spacecraft, even in an emergency.

Theres no consensus on how much further the human role in spaceflight willor shouldshrink. Uitenbroek thinks trying to develop software that can account for every possible contingency is simply impractical, especially when you have deadlines to make.

Chang Daz disagrees, saying the world is shifting to a point where eventually the human is going to be taken out of the equation.

Which approach wins out may depend on the level of success achieved by the different parties sending people into space. NASA has no intention of taking humans out of the equation, but if commercial companies find they have an easier time minimizing the human pilots role and letting the AI take charge, than touch screens and pilotless flight to the ISS are only a taste of whats to come.

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Are we making spacecraft too autonomous? - MIT Technology Review

The space projects have been dominated by government bodies until we saw the ambitious companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin diving into this diverse area. These two are the most prominent names in the private space community and are often put on a face-off due to the similarity of its founders in other areas as well.

Owned by two of the most powerful businessmen of all time Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, they have been on the competition radar for their interest in the area of autonomous vehicles. Similarly, in the space segment, while the two companies might look quite similar in its attempts to explore space, the ideology and the approach of these companies vary quite significantly. But one thing cannot be denied that they both are developing large, reusable vehicles capable of carrying people and satellites across space.

While we have often heard about SpaceXs missions and launches over the past few years, Blue Origin does not come out to be so ambitious in gaining traction. In the last two years alone SpaceX has performed 21 launches, representing about 20% of roughly 100 worldwide launches.

Recently it also became the first private company to successfully launch its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into space. It is the first time ever that commercially-developed space vehicles owned and operated by a private entity rather than NASA have transported humans into orbit. Musks obsession with exploring Mars and other space is not unknown. Back in 2001, he came up with the idea for Mars Oasis and even pledged a few million dollars for the project.

Blue Origin, on the other hand, has yet to launch anything into orbit. But its ambitions are not too different from SpaceX. Its rocket called the New Glenn is often the talk of the town, and the company is aiming to launch it in 2021. This rocket will be powered by an engine developed by the company itself, called the BE-4. It was secretly found in 2000 by Bezoz but has gained attention only after 2015. It is also working on New Shepard, a vertical takeoff and vertical landing rocket that the company wants to use for human tourism.

In 2018, SpaceX sent an AI-based robot called CIMON, short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion to the international space station. It was designed to help astronauts perform their work such as scientific experiments. It became the first AI technology to be launched to the space station.

Not just that, the recently launched Falcon 9 rocket also made use of artificial intelligence. It has a sophisticated AI autopilot that steers the cone-shaped Crew Dragon. Once it reaches within 60 feet of the space station, the astronauts then manoeuvre it.

Talking about Blue Origin, Bezos parent company Amazons cloud unit, AWS recently unveiled a new space business segment called Aerospace and Satellite Solutions business segment. With an aim to bring AWS services to space enterprises and satellite industry, it aims to help them with spaceflight operations. It aims to reimagine space system architectures, launch services that process space data on Earth, provide secure, flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud solutions to space missions. It might hardly come as a surprise if Blue Origin tries to benefit from it in the coming future.

Home SpaceX Vs Blue Origin: Who Wins The Space Race

SpaceX has many firsts in its name, for instance, building and sending liquid-fueled rockets in Earths orbit, developing a small launcher, successfully launching, orbiting and recovering spacecraft, developing the cheapest rocket, first private company to send humans into space and more.

Blue Origin, on the other hand, likes to take smaller steps at a time. It has so far developed a suborbital capsule system, acquired the technology of reusable rockets with vertical takeoff and landing, made a two-stage orbital launch vehicle with New Glenn and soon aims to send astronauts to the moon again.

While SpaceX has sent many rocket designs to orbit and recently sent astronauts to space, Blue Origin is working towards it. It has till now flown suborbital rocket flights and is in the early stages of assembling its first rocket capable of reaching orbit. Though there is a visible lag, experts believe that Blue Origin is well set for giving major competition to SpaceX. Especially with Amazons Kuiper project and AWS space unit, it can soon be expected to make a competitive move against SpaceX.

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Srishti currently works as Associate Editor at Analytics India Magazine. When not covering the analytics news, editing and writing articles, she could be found reading or capturing thoughts into pictures. Contact: srishti.deoras@analyticsindiamag.com.

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SpaceX Vs Blue Origin: Who Wins The Space Race - Analytics India Magazine

This photograph, taken by an astronaut from the International Space Station (ISS), illustrates several environmental wonders and highlights of the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

The Cascade Mountains, running north-south along the right side of the image, extend from southern British Columbia in Canada through Washington, Oregon, and Northern California in the U.S. The rugged terrain is largely masked by snow in this photograph from mid-April 2020. Several of the peaks are active volcanoes in the Cascade arc. Rising to an elevation of 10,525 feet (3,207 meters), Glacier Peak is one of the youngest and most active volcanoes in the range.

Olympic National Park occupies the center of the Olympic Peninsula in northwestern Washington. Naturalist John Muir, known as the Father of the National Parks, explored and documented this wilderness in the late 1800s, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated the area as a national park in 1938. The park features a spectrum of ecosystems, from rugged coastline to temperate rainforests to the glaciated peaks of the Olympic Mountain Range.

The Salish Sea encompasses several waterways, including the Strait of Georgia, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Puget Sound. Situated within these waterways is an archipelago called the San Juan Islands, which were formed from strong bedrock that resisted the glacial scouring of the surrounding straits. The islands were proclaimed a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2013 due to their ecological significance as a home to diverse species and several ecosystems ranging from sandy beaches to Douglas fir forests.

Astronaut photograph ISS062-E-148249 was acquired on April 13, 2020, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a 50 millimeter lens and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 62 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Laura Phoebus, Jacobs Technology, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC.

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Pacific Northwest Bathed in Green and White - nasa.gov

From left, Apollo astronauts Joe Engle and Eugene Cernan with NASA geologist Dr. Ted Foss at Craters of the Moon in August 1969. As their mission was to involve collecting rocks from the moons Fra Mauro Highlands, NASA officials decided the national monument in Idaho would be a suitable place to train. | (Photo: NASA)

IDAHO FALLS When people think of NASA, Idaho doesnt exactly jump to mind.

Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center are in Florida, Johnson Space Center and Mission Control are inTexas, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is in California.

But Idahos contributions to space exploration date back to the early years of the space race and continue today.

In fact, when NASA launches the Perseverance mission to Mars this summer, its rovers heat and power will come from a radioisotope power system (RPS) assembled and tested at Idaho National Laboratory.

Craters of the Moon

Idahos relationship with NASA began in 1969, the same year Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

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That August, NASA sent four Apollo astronauts, including Alan Shepard, to Craters of the Moon National Monument for geology training.

In the Apollo days, NASAs central mission was to get astronauts where they were going and return them alive.

Only one scientist was sent to the moon, said Idaho State University volcanologist Shannon Kobs-Nawotniak. The rest were all test pilots. Today, things are driven much more by science.

The former test pilots would be collecting rocks on the moons Fra Mauro Highlands, and NASA mission planners decided Craters of the Moon would be a good place for them to practice spotting scientifically interesting rock specimens.

A rover prototype explores a cave at Craters of the Moon. More than 50 years after Apollo astronauts trained at the national monument, it continues to be a resource used by the space agency whose BASALT and FINESSE programs conduct field experiments that may one day be used on the moon and Mars. | (Photo: NASA)

NASA still uses Craters of the Moon for research. In 2014, scientists from the Ames Research Center began a project called FINESSE (Field Investigations to Enable Solar System Science and Exploration) to conduct field experiments and procedures that may be used by astronauts on the moon and Mars. A second project, BASALT (Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains) examines terrain similar to the surface of Mars.

We have the benefit of so much more technology, said Kobs-Nawotniak, geology co-lead on FINESSE and deputy principal investigator on BASALT. With tools such as spectral imagery and more sophisticated satellites, we have a much better sense of what were looking for, she said.

FINESSEs focus on volcanic terrain applies to both the moon mission slated for the mid-2020s and Martian exploration in the 2030s. BASALT focuses on how water-rock interactions might affect habitability for microbial organisms on Mars.

In addition to her research, Kobs-Nawotniak engages with students all over the country, including the Idaho Space Grant Consortium, which funds Idaho students who are awarded NASA internships. Based at the University of Idaho in Moscow, the consortium was established in 2009 with a $1 million grant for STEM education.

NASAs BASALT (Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains) program conducts experiments and procedures on terrain determined to be similar to the surface of Mars. This includes locations in Hawaii and Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. Here, students learn in a mock space station at the national monuments headquarters. | (Photo: NASA)

Partnering in STEM education

NASA has emerged as a vital partner for STEM education in Idaho, especially in the states underserved rural communities and on Native American reservations.

Ed Galindo, a part-time professor at Idaho State University in Pocatello, deserves a lot of credit. A member of the Yaqui tribe, Galindo first gained NASAs attention when he formed the Native American Science Association. Realizing the agency might be sensitive to another group using its name, he went right to the head of NASA for permission. This was the beginning of a warm relationship.

In 1997, Galindo took Fort Hall students to Houston for a ride on NASAs notorious Vomit Comet, a Boeing KC-135A that makes parabolic arches to give passengers the sensation of zero-gravity flight.

None of the Native American students lost it on the plane, Galindo said. I just told the students to have fun.

A series of student-designed NASA experiments followed, including Spuds in Space, in which the Fort Hall students planted Idaho potatoes in JSC Mars-1, a soil mix designed to emulate everything scientists knew about the Martian soil. The test, done on the STS-Atlantisin 2000, examined how soil would support plant growth in space.

Fun With Urine went aboard STS-Endeavor in 2001 to learn whether urine could serve as the basis of usable space water. In 2003, the club launched its sequel, More Fun With Urine, in which students sought to learn whether their space water could be mixed with paint pigment and American Indian dyes to make art.

Other students around Idaho have put science projects in space. Gary Lam, a sixth-grade teacher at Potlatch Elementary School, helped his class get the Pepper Oil Surprise experiment on the International Space Station.

We wanted to see if water and oil would separate in space, said Lam. We got hold of someone at NASA who told us, You should be OK because they do have pepper oil on board to spice up their food.

Power and heat for Mars, deep space

Since 2003, INL researchers and engineers have participated in four missions for NASA.

That includes support for the radioisotope heater units that warmed the Spirit and Opportunity rovers during the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover mission.

More recently, INL has assembled and tested the systems that power and heat spacecraft and rovers as they gather data.

In 2006, the Pluto New Horizons spacecraft launched with a radioisotope power system provided by INL. That system is still generating electricity and heat as the craft approaches the edge of the solar system. Nearly four years after passing Pluto in 2015, New Horizons flew by and photographed Ultima Thule in the Kuiper Belt, the most distant object in the solar system ever explored by humans4.1 billion miles away.

The second RPS assembled and tested for NASA at INL left Earth in 2011 on NASAs Curiosity rover.

Finally, INL delivered an RPS for the latest Mars Rover, Perseverance, which is scheduled for launch in late July or early August 2020. Once the rover lands, its RPS will provide a source of power and heat for the rovers instruments and onboard systems as it explores the surface.

NASAs BASALT (Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains) program conducts experiments and procedures on terrain determined to be similar to the surface of Mars. This includes locations in Hawaii and Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. Here, students learn in a mock space station at the national monuments headquarters. | (Photo: NASA)

Center for Space Nuclear Research

Idaho National Laboratory is home to the Center for Space Nuclear Research, which invites undergraduate and graduate-level students to work with INL scientists on space nuclear research of potential interest to NASA. CSNR researchers have studied a tungsten-based fuel for use in a nuclear thermal rocket that emits a clean, nonradioactive exhaust.

NASA luminaries and supporting players from Idaho

Barbara Morgan of McCall was the first teacher in space onboard the STS-Endeavor in 2007 for a mission to the International Space Station. She served as a robotic arm operator and transfer coordinator, directing the transfer of over 5,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS and bringing home over 3,000 pounds.

John Herrington of Lewiston, a member of the Chickasaw Nation and the first Native American in space, flew on the shuttle Endeavor in 2002. After leaving NASA and retiring from the U.S. Navy in 2005, he earned a Ph.D. in education from the University of Idaho.

Nick Bernardini, now at JPL, is the planetary protection lead on Curiosity and the 2020 Perseverance mission. He earned his Ph.D. in microbiology, molecular biology and biochemistry at UI in 2008.

Jason Barnes, an associate professor at UI, is a founding member and deputy principal investigator on NASAs Dragonfly project, the robotic rotorcraft lander planned to launch for Saturns Titan moon in 2025.

David Atkinson, UI professor of electrical engineering from 89 to16, is now a senior systems engineer at JPL on the Saturn Ice Giant Probe Mission.

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Spuds and space: NASA and Idaho have a long history - East Idaho News

(CNN) If you're trying to avoid airborne viruses, heading to a near vacuum might not be the worst idea.

A Florida company is planning to fly passengers to the edge of space in a high-tech version of a hot air balloon, with a pilot and up to eight travelers riding in a pressurized capsule suspended from an enormous blimp.

Human space flight company Space Perspective has scheduled the test flight of its Spaceship Neptune for early 2021, from the auspicious surroundings of the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

That test flight will be uncrewed and carrying research payloads, but Space Perspective hopes that in a few years it'll also be taking space tourists on six-hour sightseeing jaunts, with a refreshment bar and social media capabilities to hand.

"We're committed to fundamentally changing the way people have access to space -- both to perform much-needed research to benefit life on Earth and to affect how we view and connect with our planet," said Space Perspective founder and co-CEO Jane Poynter in a release.

The six-hour trips will involve a two-hour gentle ascent above 99% of the Earth's atmosphere to 100,000 feet -- an experience, Space Perspective says, only enjoyed so far by 20 people in human history.

There'll be another leisurely two hours for passengers to enjoy the 360-degree views from the cabin before the spaceship makes its two-hour descent to the ocean, where it will splash down safely. Voyage to shore will be completed by ship.

"We looked at all the different elements that would make the experience not just memorable, but truly comfortable as well," Nigel Goode, designer and cofounder of PriestmanGoode said in a release. "We wanted to make sure that passengers would be able to get 360-degree unobstructed views and that we created an efficient space that would enable them to move around during the journey."

The capsule is five meters in diameter, while the polyethylene balloon above has a 100-meter diameter when fully inflated, about the length of a football field.

Spaceship Neptune's test flight will be from Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

Courtesy PriestmanGoode

Space Perspective claims that the process will be simple as boarding an airplane and that the capsule's pressurized capsule offers what it describes as a "shirt-sleeves environment" (although with its plans to host weddings and other events, it could also be black-tie).

The lavatory, it claims, is "the loo with the best view in the known universe," and is located in the center of the capsule in the splashdown cone.

Space Perspective's co-founders Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum previously designed the air, food and water systems for the Biosphere 2 space base, in which they lived for two years.

"Our advanced space-balloon is designed to operate in the near vacuum found at the edge of space," says Space Perspective's website. "NASA has used similar balloons for decades for flying large research telescopes."

As helium is in limited supply and needed for critical medical applications, Spaceship Neptune uses hydrogen. "The lift gas inside the balloon is lighter than air and allows Neptune to float on top of the Earth's atmosphere like an ice cube on water," Says Space Perspective.

Paul R. La Monica and Jackie Wattles contributed to this report

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Balloon trips to the edge of space by 2021 - CNN

Editor's note: SpaceX is now targeting 4:10 p.m. EDT (2010 GMT) for today's GPS satellite launch.

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. SpaceX is gearing up to launch a Falcon 9 rocket today, June 30, to deliver an upgraded global positioning satellite (GPS) into orbit for the U.S. Space Force and you can watch it live online.

The flight, the California-based rocket builder's 11th launch this year, is scheduled to blast off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida during a 15-minute window that opens at 3:55 p.m. (1955 GMT).

You can watch the launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of SpaceX, beginning about 15 minutes before liftoff. You'll also be able to watch the launch directly from SpaceX here.

Related: The U.S. GPS satellite network explained

This is SpaceX's third launch this month and the third launch of an upgraded next-generation GPS III satellite to date. The first launched on a different Falcon 9 rocket in December 2018, while the second launched atop the very last Delta IV Medium in August 2019. SpaceX has secured the next few launches as the military works to upgrade the aging network.

Built by Lockheed Martin, the new batch of satellites are the most powerful ever made, thanks to onboard anti-jamming capabilities and new technology that will produce signals that are three times more accurate and up to eight times more powerful than previous iterations.

In stark contrast to the Starlink launches earlier this month, which featured used Falcon 9 boosters, a shiny new Falcon 9 is the star of today's mission a requirement set by the Air Force. The booster, dubbed B1060, will carry an advanced global positioning satellite into orbit to replace an aging satellite that was launched 20 years ago.

Related: China launches final Beidou satellite for GPS-like navigation system

This mission is SpaceX's first for the U.S. Space Force, under the recently established U.S. Space Force, which was signed into existence by President Donald Trump in December 2019. The Space Force will operate under the Department of the Air Force, and will oversee all space operations.

The mission also marks the first time the company will attempt to launch and land a booster as part of a national security launch. During the last GPS III mission in 2018, SpaceX flew its Falcon 9 in an expendable configuration without grid fins or landing legs and did not recover the first stage like it typically does. But the company received approval from the Space Force to recover the first stage.

To that end, SpaceX's drone ship Just Read the Instructions departed Port Canaveral over the weekend in advance of its planned recovery attempt. The ship is stationed 394 miles (634 kilometers) down range in the Atlantic Ocean, awaiting the Falcon 9's first stage as it returns to Earth approximately 8 minutes after liftoff.

Today's launch comes just days after SpaceX had to stand down from what would have been its third Starlink flight this month. That mission featured a veteran of SpaceXs fleet of gently used Falcon rockets. The booster would have been the companys third to fly five times. However, the company postponed the launch citing the need for additional pre-flight testing.

That mission was set to loft 57 internet-beaming satellites to help build SpaceXs megaconstellation called Starlink, along with two Earth-observing satellites for BlackSky. The flight was part of SpaceX's new rideshare program, which was kicked off on June 13 when 58 Starlink satellites were launched with a trio of small satellites for the Earth-imaging company Planet.

The weather for today's launch looks promising, as meteorologists predict a 60% chance of favorable conditions at liftoff. It's summer in Florida and that means afternoon thunderstorms could be an issue. According to weather officials, the main concerns are storm clouds, which have the potential for producing lightning a launch hazard.

SpaceX's two fairing catchers, GO Ms. Tree and GO Ms. Chief, are stationed out in the recovery zone. It's unclear if SpaceX will attempt to catch the fairings as they fall back to Earth, or if they will just scoop up them up after they land in the water.

The company has been successful in its attempts to reuse more of the rocket. The rockets nose cone, also known as a payload fairing, accounts for approximately 10% of the cost of the rocket. By reusing them, SpaceX could save as much as $6 million per flight.

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

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SpaceX is launching an advanced GPS satellite for the US Space Force today. Here's how to watch. - Space.com

Boeings John Mulholland gives a briefing to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine during a visit to the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2018. Hardware for Boeings CST-100 Starliner space taxi can be seen in the background. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)

As a new commercial-centric era dawns for the International Space Station, Boeing is realigning its top managers for the space station program and for the program thats working to send Starliner capsules there and back.

Mark Mulqueen, who has served as Boeings space station program manager since 2015, will be retiring July 2. During his 35 years at Boeing, Mulqueen has served in a variety of management positions for example, as deputy program manager for the space station and deputy program manager for the commercial crew program.

Boeing has served as the prime contractor for the U.S. segment of the International Space Station since its inception. The orbital outpost will mark 20 years of continuous occupation this November.

Mark has made an immense contribution to Boeings human spaceflight programs, and his legacy will endure well beyond his departure, Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch, said in an email to employees announcing todays management changes.

John Mulholland will take on the role of vice president and program manager for the International Space Station, effective June 26. Since 2011, Mulholland has led the design and development of the CST-100 Starliner space taxi, which is meant to ferry astronauts to and from the space station.

NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion fixed-price contract in 2014 to develop the Starliner as part of a commercial space transport system in the wake of the space shuttle fleets retirement in 2011. SpaceX won a similar contract worth $2.6 billion for the development of its Crew Dragon capsule, which sent NASA astronauts to the station for the first time last month.

Starliner took on an uncrewed test flight to orbit last December, but a timing glitch foiled Boeings plan to go all the way to the space station and back. A joint NASA-Boeing independent review turned up dozens of fixes that had to be made. Another uncrewed trial is expected later this year and assuming that flight goes well, Starliners first crewed trip to the station would take place next year.

In a financial report issued in January, Boeing said it would take a $410 million pre-tax charge against earnings to cover the cost of a second uncrewed flight.

Before taking on his role with the Starliner program, Mulholland was vice president and program manager for Boeings part of the space shuttle program. (The prime contractor for the shuttle program was United Space Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.)

Effective June 26, John Vollmer will take on Mulhollands role as vice president and program manager for the CST-100 Starliner program.

Vollmer joined the Starliner program this year to support the implementation of recommendations from the independent review team. Vollmer previously served as chief engineer on the space station program.

His experience with the space station goes back 33 years, to Boeings first contract award for the program. He was a member of the station redesign team in 1993, when Space Station Freedom was reworked to accommodate Russian participation. Vollmer also served as the launch package stage manager for the stations first U.S. element, which was launched in 1998 and is now known as the Unity node.

Their leadership will help us rise to the challenges before us and the opportunities ahead as we advance Boeings 60-year legacy in human spaceflight, Chilton said.

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Later this year, if all goes well, the International Space Station will receive a very important delivery: a new and improved toilet system.

It has a fancier name, of course; officially, the commode is NASA's Universal Waste Management System (UWMS). The system is designed to bridge the gap between current lavatorial space technology and what humans will need to make extended visits to, say, Mars, in comfort. But there's nothing like a plumbing problem to make any trip seem much longer than it is, so before engineers take UWMS that far from the comforts of home, they want to test it in orbit.

The launch is targeted for no earlier than the fall, a NASA spokesperson confirmed to Space.com, although the agency is still determining what spacecraft will carry the new plumbing up.

Related: International Space Station at 20: A photo tour

In the long term, the new toilet is meant to prepare waste-management engineers for some of the challenges experts anticipate on future missions, Jim Broyan, a deputy program manager for Environmental Control and Life Support Technology and Crew Health and Performance at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during a meeting of the Committee on Space Research, or COSPAR, on May 20.

The meeting focused on what human missions to Mars mean for planetary protection, the practice of looking to protect both Earth and the rest of the solar system from cross-contamination by living organisms. Waste collection and storage are ripe for such cross-contamination, of course, since human waste is full of microbes. So future Mars visitors won't necessarily be able to take the approach of Apollo astronauts on the moon, who simply left bags of human waste on the lunar surface.

For Mars missions, which by necessity will be much longer flights, volume is another challenge. Broyan said that current estimates suggest Mars missions would need to manage about 600 lbs. (270 kilograms) of solid waste, about 75% of which is water.

Those challenges mean that before humans head to Mars, waste-management experts have, well, a bucket list, Broyan said. "Our future goals are to stabilize and dry the metabolic waste to make it microbially inactive and possibly reuse that water, reduce the amount of consumables for the potty, because it does really accumulate on a long mission, and we're also looking at, Can we reuse some of the waste?"

And while the current standard practice of adding stench-dampening charcoal to fecal containers and storing those containers on the ship works now, for longer missions it is less appealing and may require too much mass.

The new station-bound toilet won't tackle all of those challenges single-handedly, but it will improve on previous NASA designs for the shuttle and space station and incorporate crew feedback about those systems. The UWMS is also crucial to support the larger population on the U.S. side of the space station that the coming rise in commercial crew missions will facilitate, according to NASA.

The toilet currently on offer on the U.S. side of the space station was designed in the 1990s and based on its shuttle counterpart, according to a detailed review of space toiletry. But the apparatus has its flaws. It can be clunky to use, particularly for women, and it is "sensitive to crew alignment on the seat," sometimes resulting in messes, according to that review.

So NASA has tried to keep the aspects that have gotten positive reviews while trimming mass and volume and making some design changes, like adjusting the shape of the seat and replacing the apparatus that compresses the waste.

Another change mimics a feature of the toilet on the Russian side of the space station, where astronauts simply hook their feet into toe bars, rather than the thigh bars used on the American equivalent to anchor the astronaut in the microgravity environment.

The UWMS will remain on the space station for the rest of the orbiting laboratory's lifetime, and a second toilet of the same model will fly on the Orion capsule that astronauts use to fly around the moon on the first crewed Artemis mission in NASA's ambitious lunar return plan, according to the agency.

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

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The International Space Station is getting a new toilet this year - Space.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was a pure flying machine compared to the space shuttle, according to the astronauts who rode it into space.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken piloted the first manned flight of the Falcon 9 on May 30. Each astronaut had previously been onon two space shuttle missions, and they spoke of their surprise at how comparatively smooth the SpaceX launch was.

From the time the engines lit, the first two-and-a-half minutes to staging was about like we expected, except you can never simulate the Gs, so as the Gs built you could certainly feel those, Hurley toldSpaceflight Now. What I thought was really neat was how sensitive we were to the throttling of the Merlin engines. That was really neat. You could definitely sense that as we broke Mach 1.

He added: We didnt even need to look at the speed. You could tell just by how the rocket felt, so its a very pure flying machine.

Remember, [the]shuttle had solid rocket boosters to start with, Hurley said. Those burned very rough for the first two-and-a-half minutes. The first stage with Falcon 9 were the nine Merlin engines. It was a much smoother ride, obviously, because it was a liquid engine ascent.

Liquid engine ascent is a reference to the mix of super-chilled kerosene and cryogenic liquid oxygen propellants consumed by the Merlin engines.

After the smooth launch, the astronauts said the second stage felt a bitrougher.

The biggest difference is just the dynamics that are involved, the vibration, the experiences that we felt actually riding a real rocket, Behnken said.

It will be interesting to walk with the SpaceX folks to find out why it was a little bit rougher ride on the second stage than it was for shuttle on those three main engines, Hurley added.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft was developed to largely function autonomously, handling all prep and docking with the International Space Station following the 19-hour flight.

NASA is also working with Boeing on itsmanned Starlinercapsule, which is expected to launch early next year.

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