NASA Selects Companies to Collect Lunar Resources for Artemis Demonstrations
NASA has selected four companies to collect space resources and transfer ownership to the agency: Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado; Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California; ispace Europe of Luxembourg; and ispace Japan of Tokyo. Overall, the new NASA contracts with these companies totals $25,001.
Relaxing Inside the Space Station’s Window to the World
JAXA and Expedition 64 astronaut Soichi Noguchi relaxes at the end of the work day inside the seven-windowed cupola on the International Space Station.
Busy December Sees Crew Ramping Up for Space Cargo
Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi is pictured relaxing at the end of the work day inside the seven-windowed cupola, the International Space Station’s “window to the world.”
December is shaping up to be a busy month as the Expedition 64 gears up for space freighter traffic. All seven crew members also practiced responding to a simulated emergency aboard the International Space Station.
NASA Flight Engineer Kate Rubins set up the tools that she and fellow Flight Engineer Victor Glover will use when the new SpaceX Dragon cargo craft arrives this weekend. The duo will monitor Dragon’s arrival on Sunday almost 24 hours after it launches from Florida on Saturday at 11:39 a.m. EST.
Rubins’ science work today consisted of setting up a microscope then servicing botany gear supporting the Plant Habitat-02 experiment. Rubins harvested the first crop of radish plants on Monday. Glover researched how diet affects the immune system in space for the Food Physiology study.
The entire crew, including cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, gathered together Wednesday afternoon and trained for the unlikely event of an emergency at the orbiting lab. They coordinated with mission controllers around the world practicing their communication, locating safety gear and maneuvering through escape routes.
Lying inside our home galaxy, the Milky Way, this Herbig–Haro object is a turbulent birthing ground for new stars in a region known as the Orion B molecular cloud complex, located 1,350 light-years away.