Our Sun as a Glowing Pumpkin
On October 8, 2014, active regions on our Sun gave it the appearance of a jack-o’-lantern.
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Station Gets Ready for Russian Cargo and SpaceX Crew Missions
Station Gets Ready for Russian Cargo and SpaceX Crew Missions
The seven-member Expedition 66 crew is getting ready for a Russian cargo mission and the arrival and departure of two commercial crews over the next several days. Nevertheless, a host of advanced space research is ongoing today aboard the International Space Station keeping the orbital residents busy and focused.
Russia’s ISS Progress 79 resupply ship stands atop its rocket today at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad in Kazakhstan. Loaded with nearly three tons of cargo, the Progress 79 is due to blast off toward the orbiting lab on Wednesday at 8 p.m. EDT and replenish the station crew two days later. NASA TV on the agency’s website and the NASA app will broadcast both mission events live.
Mission managers gave a “go” on Monday for all teams to proceed toward this weekend’s launch of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission. The four Crew-3 astronauts are in Florida counting down to their launch aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance on Sunday at 2:21 a.m. The commercial crew foursome, Commander Raja Chari, Pilot Thomas Marshburn and Mission Specialists Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer, will dock to the Harmony module’s forward port just one day later.
Four space station astronauts spent Monday afternoon getting ready for their return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour in November. Crew-2 Commander Shane Kimbrough joined Pilot Megan McArthur and Mission Specialists Akihiko Hoshide and Thomas Pesquet and practiced their undocking and departure procedures on a computer. The quartet then called down to NASA and SpaceX mission controllers and discussed their upcoming ride through Earth’s atmosphere and splashdown off the coast of Florida.
Science as usual is continuously ongoing aboard the space station. NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei swapped fuel bottles inside the Combustion Integrated Rack. Next, he removed a specialized microscope from the Fluids Integrated Rack to start work on the Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment. Hoshide, of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), serviced samples inside the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace that enables safe research into high temperature physics in space.
Cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov spent the day in the station’s Russian segment on their complement of space research and lab maintenance. Shkaplerov studied the behavior of plasma-dust structures using neon and argon gases before cleaning Soyuz crew ship fan screens and working on a Russian oxygen generator. Dubrov had a physical fitness test then moved on and checked electrical connections between the Zvezda service module and the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.
Mark Garcia
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NASA Invites Media to Learn About S-MODE Mission
NASA Invites Media to Learn About S-MODE Mission
NASA will hold a media teleconference at 1:30 p.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 29 to share information about the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE), a campaign to study small ocean whirlpools, eddies, and currents.
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A Sample of Asteroid Ryugu
A Sample of Asteroid Ryugu
In June 2021, NASA received its first sample of asteroid Ryugu, which was returned to Earth in December 2020.
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Crew-3 FRR Concludes; NASA, SpaceX ‘Go’ for Oct. 31 Launch
Crew-3 FRR Concludes; NASA, SpaceX ‘Go’ for Oct. 31 Launch
The Flight Readiness Review for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station has concluded, and teams are proceeding toward a 2:21 a.m. liftoff on Sunday, Oct. 31, from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida. NASA will hold a media conference at approximately 7:15 p.m. to discuss the outcome of the review. Listen live on the agency’s website.
Participants in the teleconference are:
- Kathy Lueders, associate administrator, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, Kennedy
- Joel Montalbano, manager, International Space Station, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
- Holly Ridings, chief flight director, Flight Operations Directorate, Johnson
- William Gerstenmaier, vice president, Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX
- Junichi Sakai, manager, International Space Station, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
- Frank de Winne, manager, International Space Station, European Space Agency (ESA)
NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, along with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, will launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance, for the third crew rotation flight under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
More details about the mission and the Commercial Crew Program can be found in the online press kit, or by following the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew, and commercial crew on Facebook.
Gary Jordan
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