Media accreditation is open for the launch of Northrop Grumman’s next delivery of NASA science investigations, supplies and equipment to the International Space Station on April 17.
NASA Breaking News
NASA invites media and social media to agency centers across the country Monday, March 11, to get an up-close look at America’s work to return astronauts to the Moon and on to Mars, following the delivery of President Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal to the U.S. Congress.
NASA Breaking News
«The dawn of a new era in human spaceflight,» wrote astronaut Anne McClain. McClain had an unparalleled view from orbit of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft as it approached the International Space Station for docking on Sunday, March 3, 2019.
NASA Image of the Day
Expedition 58 capped off its busy weekend with additional outfitting for the SpaceX Crew Dragon, which had only completed its hard dock to the International Space Station yesterday morning as part of the Demo-1 uncrewed flight test.
After opening the hatch between the two spacecraft, the crewmates configured Crew Dragon for its stay while barnacled to the orbiting laboratory. This work included installation of the intramodule ventilation system, which helps cycle air from Crew Dragon to station. The crew members ticked off additional items from their checklist, also installing window covers and checking valves before taking part in a welcoming ceremony for the visiting vehicle at 10:45 a.m. EST Sunday, which aired on NASA Television.
Today, NASA astronaut Anne McClain, David Saint-Jacques of the Canadian Space Agency and Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 58 Commander Oleg Kononenko went over emergency procedures specific to Crew Dragon’s stay in orbit. While Crew Dragon is designed to remain docked to the space station for up to 210 days, this test of the spacecraft will be much shorter, ending early Friday morning. Crew Dragon is expected to return to Earth with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean at approximately 8:45 a.m. on Friday, March 8—a little more than six hours after its separation from station.
While Kononenko was focused on the Plasma Kristall-4 experiment, which investigates the liquid phase and flow phenomena of complex plasmas, for this week’s runs, McClain and Saint-Jacques spent most of the day in the Quest airlock. The pair worked on their EMU [Extravehicular Mobility Unit] spacesuits, making sure their suits fit in advance of a series of spacewalks currently slated for late March and early April.
Saint-Jacques also made time in the day to connect with junior high school and college students in Hallifax, Nova Scotia, through a space-to-ground downlink where he shared his perspective of living and working aboard the world’s only microgravity laboratory.
More details about the mission and NASA’s commercial crew program can be found in the press kit online and by following the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew and commercial crew on Facebook.
Learn more about station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
Catherine Williams
Graham G0NBD writes about the contact on Digital Radio Groupsio.
Markus started using 250 milliwatts on 2.4 GHz into a 60 cm dish pointing at Es’hail-2. The downlink signal was received via the AMSAT-UK and BATC 10 GHz WebSDR at Goonhilly in Cornwall by Peter Knol PA1SDB.
Markus then reduced power to just 2.5 milliwatts and the signal was still receiveable.
See Digital Radio Groupsio post at
https://digitalradio.groups.io/g/main/message/50861
OPERA was developed by Jose EA5HVK and can be downloaded from
https://rosmodem.wordpress.com/
Es’hail-2 / Qatar OSCAR-100 web receiver now live
https://amsat-uk.org/2019/02/10/qatar-oscar-100-web-receiver-now-live/
DF6NM to PA1SDB using OPERA via Es’hail-2 on March 3, 2019. Note Microwavers spots site doesn’t display satellite frequencies correctly
m5aka
AMSAT-UK
Markus Vester DF6NM successfully used the digital mode OPERA to send a 2.5 milliwatt signal on 2.4 GHz through the amateur radio transponder on the Es’hail-2 / QO-100 geostationary satellite.