Three Crew Members Nearing Launch to Station Live on NASA+
The Roscosmos Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station with (pictured left to right) NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. Credit: Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center
NASA’s live launch coverage is underway on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms including social media.
The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:23 p.m. EDT (9:23 p.m. Baikonur time) to the International Space Station with NASA astronaut Don Petitt and Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner.
After a two-orbit, three-hour trajectory to the station, the spacecraft will automatically dock at the orbiting laboratory’s Rassvet module at 3:33 p.m. NASA’s coverage of rendezvous and docking will begin at 2:30 p.m. on NASA+, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
Once aboard, the trio will join Expedition 71 crew members including NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko, and spend approximately six months at the orbital laboratory before returning to Earth in the spring of 2025.
NASA Stennis Set to Continue ASTRA Mission with Sidus Space
NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, announced Wednesday it will continue its historic in-space autonomous systems payload mission aboard an orbiting satellite through a follow-on agreement with Sidus Space, Inc.
“We are excited to report the historic ASTRA (Autonomous Satellite Technology for Resilient Applications) mission will continue,” said Chris Carmichael, chief, Stennis Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL) branch at NASA Stennis. “We look forward to working with Sidus Space to demonstrate the capabilities of the NASA Stennis payload and our autonomous systems team.”
With this new agreement, the ASTRA payload will be used to collect onboard data on satellite systems and support management of the satellite’s Electrical Power System (EPS). The NASA Stennis ASTRA system will monitor and autonomously optimize the satellite’s battery system, ensuring the satellite continues to operate as needed for the course of its remaining mission lifetime. The ASTRA EPS management capability provides a new, innovative level of adaptability and efficiency for monitoring the satellite’s ongoing operations.
Developed by NASA Stennis to fly and demonstrate an autonomous systems hardware/software payload, ASTRA is the on-orbit mission. The NASA Stennis ASTRA technology demonstrator is a payload rider aboard the Sidus Space LizzieSat-1 (LS-1) small satellite. Partner Sidus Space is responsible for all LS-1 mission operations, including launch and satellite activation.
The LS-1 small satellite launched into space on the SpaceX Transporter 10 rideshare mission March 4 and deployed the same day. Following payload activation by Sidus Space, the NASA Stennis team worked with the company to establish a telemetry link to send and receive data in the ASTRA Payload Operation Command Center located at the NASA site. The ASL team continued to checkout and verify operation of ASTRA, confirming in early July that ASTRA primary mission objectives were successful.
The team is now focused on demonstrating autonomous system management as part of the LS-1 satellite’s planned four-year mission. “We are excited about the opportunity to continue this unprecedented mission,” Carmichael said. “Every step helps advance our autonomous systems work and lays a foundation for continued development and success.”
The NASA Stennis ASL team works to create safe-by-design autonomous systems. NASA’s ASTRA demonstrates technology that is required by NASA and industry for upcoming space missions. The ASTRA computer on the satellite runs a digital twin of key satellite systems, which identifies anomalies, and autonomously generates plans to resolve those issues.
The ongoing success of the ASTRA mission comes as NASA Stennis moves forward with strategic plans to design autonomous systems that will help accelerate development of intelligent aerospace systems and services for government and industry.
For information about NASA’s Stennis Space Center, visit:
Immerse yourself in the future of deep space science exploration and download a 3D model of Gateway. Click, drag, and explore the exterior of the lunar space station from multiple angles.
International teams of astronauts will use Gateway, humanity’s first space station to orbit the Moon, to explore the scientific mysteries of deep space. Gateway is part of the Artemis campaign to return humans to the lunar surface for scientific discovery and chart a path for the first human missions to Mars.
NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance conducts proximity science on the Eremita Mesa abrasion patch in the Margin Unit on Sept. 6, 2024, as it continues its traverse up the rim of Jezero Crater. Perseverance acquired the image using its Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera A (Hazcam) on sol 1261 — Martian day 1,261 of the Mars 2020 mission — at the local mean solar time of 13:53:53.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
To conclude its exploration of the mysterious margin unit before it ascends the rim of Jezero Crater, Perseverance made one last stop this past week to investigate these strange rocks at “Eremita Mesa.”
Since beginning its steep drive up the crater rim, Perseverance has been traversing along the edge of the margin unit (the margin of the margin!), an enigmatic unit rich in carbonates, a mineral group closely linked to habitability. Here, the rover team scouted out a mound of rock called “Specter Chasm,” where Perseverance cleared away the dusty, weathered surface with its trusty abrading bit. The resulting abraded patch, called Eremita Mesa, is pictured above being investigated by Perseverance’s proximity science instruments mounted on its robotic arm. This includes taking close-up images to examine the millimeter-scale particles that make up the rock, using the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera, which functions as Perseverance’s magnifying glass.
Before the rover began exploring, investigations using orbital satellite data had suggested the margin unit rocks may have formed in several different ways. Theories the team has been exploring include that the unit formed on the shoreline of the ancient lake that once filled Jezero Crater, or instead that it was produced by volcanic processes such as pyroclastic flows or ashfall, or ancient lavas flowing into the crater. Since Perseverance began its investigation of the unit in September 2023, more than 350 sols ago (1 sol = 1 Mars day), the Science Team has been scouring data collected by the rover’s instruments to help constrain the unit’s origin. So far, this has remained largely a mystery, with the original rock textures potentially heavily affected by alteration since it formed more than 3 billion years ago. Perseverance has already collected three exciting samples of this curious rock unit for future Earth return: “Pelican Point,”“Lefroy Bay,” and “Comet Geyser,” and the team is hoping the data collected at Eremita Mesa could help further constrain the ancient processes on Mars that formed these strange rocks.
Next, it’s onwards and upwards for Perseverance as it faces a steep climb up the crater rim, where perhaps even more exotic and exciting rocks await!
Written by Alex Jones, Ph.D. student at Imperial College London
Tuesday Sees Human Research and Space Biology Ahead of Crew Arrival
The Soyuz rocket is seen after being rolled out by train to the launch pad at Site 31, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Human research activities and space biology kept the International Space Station residents busy on Tuesday as they prepare for the arrival of three new crewmates who are set to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, will launch aboard the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft at 12:23 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 11. Following launch, the trio will take a short ride to the station and dock at 3:33 p.m. to the Rassvet module before opening the hatches and joining the Expedition 71 crew in orbit, where they’ll spend approximately six months living and working in space.
Aboard the orbiting lab, NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick completed some cable and power reconfigurations in the Columbus laboratory module, then finalized hardware preps for human research activities that took place throughout the day.
Dominick was joined by NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps, and in coordination with remote ground teams, spent the day using ultrasound and tomography hardware to collect Epps’ blood pressure data and view her optic nerve, retina, and cornea. Epps then donned thigh cuffs through the remainder of the day to test how they could be used to possibly reverse space-induced headward fluid shifts in astronauts.
In the Japanese Experiment Module, NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson set up the Confocal Space Microscope, configured its lenses, and inserted samples for analysis. She then completed some medical training before ending the day swapping the gloves, sleeves, and media bag in the Life Science Glovebox.
NASA astronaut Mike Barratt set his sights to prepping for future space botany investigations throughout the day. He charged the Multispeq tool, which is used to capture plant data for the APEX-09 investigation, then updated the software that logs and manages the data.
A suite of activities topped NASA astronaut Suni Williams’ schedule on Tuesday as she replaced hardware on the Packed Bed Retractor Experiment, completed some orbital plumbing, and prepped for upcoming crew arrivals. Her NASA crewmate, Butch Wilmore, collected water samples from the potable water dispenser and later analyzed them for microbial growth. Wilmore also powered on the KERMIT microscope, swapped the lens, and installed new slides. In the evening, the duo held a conference with SpaceX ground teams.
Current station Commander Oleg Kononenko swabbed various surfaces throughout the orbital complex to assess for microbial growth in microgravity. He then spent the rest of the day packing items for return on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, which is due to bring him, along with Dyson, and cosmonaut Nikolai Chub, home in late September.
Chub spent the day packing items for departure then took some time to observe the glow of Earth’s nighttime atmosphere in near-ultraviolet and collect condensate samples from the water recovery system. His Roscosmos crewmate, Alexander Grebenkin, spent a majority of the day on orbital plumbing tasks, including replacing hoses and running a distillation cycle on the water processing unit.
