NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Tuesday the agency is creating two new mission directorates that will best position the agency for the next 20 years.
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Expedition 65 is kicking off the week with a host of space biology and robotics activities aboard the International Space Station today.
Five astronauts out of the seven crewmates who comprise the space station crew joined each other today for a review of upcoming research operations with rodents. The quintet reviewed roles and procedures for the study to learn how microgravity affects normal skin and healing functions. The astronauts will take turns transferring the mice from the Mouse Habitat Unit to the Life Science Glovebox for observation.
Full-fledged operations for the Rodent Research-1 Demonstration will begin Tuesday and continue before the SpaceX Cargo Dragon returns to Earth with the rodents on Sept. 30. NASA Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough will trade shifts on Tuesday with Commander Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency). NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei will also contribute to the experiment later in the week.
Kimbrough started Monday checking out and activating the toaster-sized Astrobee robotic fee-flyers in cooperation with engineers on the ground. Hoshide began his day extracting DNA from microbe samples for sequencing to understand the microbial environment of the station. McArthur replaced fuel bottles inside the Combustion Integrated Rack. Pesquet set up student-controlled Earth observation hardware then cleaned up debris to support the Plant Habitat-04 space crop experiment.
Cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are continuing to set up hardware, including cables and laptop computers, inside the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. The new gear will enable the crew to control the European Robotic Arm from both inside and outside the station. The duo then split up Monday afternoon for Russian communications work and life support maintenance.
Norah Moran
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In 2023, NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land near the western edge of the Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole to map and explore the region’s surface and subsurface for water and other resources.
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En 2023, el Vehículo de exploración polar para investigación de volátiles (VIPER, por sus siglas en español) de la NASA aterrizará cerca del borde occidental del cráter Nobile en el polo sur de la Luna para mapear y explorar la superficie y el subsuelo de la región en busca de agua y otros recursos.
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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and other senior agency leaders will host an employee town hall for all civil servant and contractor employees at noon EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 21, to provide updates about the agency’s human spaceflight programs, projects, and activities to the workforce.
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