Blogs

Energy Requirements for Long-Term Space Flight (Energy): The crew completed urine collections for Day 6 of the 11-day Energy protocol, logging food and drink consumptions as well.  The Energy investigation measures adaptations in the components of total energy expenditure of crewmembers so that an equation to determine the energy requirements of crewmembers during space flight …

NASA is preparing for longer human journeys deeper into space and is exploring how to keep astronauts healthy and productive. The Expedition 50 crew members today studied space nutrition, measured their bodies and checked their eyes to learn how to adapt to living in space. The space residents also unloaded a cargo ship, worked on …

Microgravity Expanded Stem Cells (MESC) Microscope Operations: Over the weekend the crew completed the MESC experiment, performing two days of back-to-back operations.  The crew viewed the BioCells on the microscope, then sampled and preserved the BioCells which were inserted into the Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) for cold stowage.  The crew …

Four CubeSats were deployed this morning as the crew researched fluid shifts toward the head that may affect astronaut vision. Tools were also being collected and organized today ahead of possible maintenance spacewalks. Four CubeSats were ejected Monday morning from outside Japan’s Kibo lab module using the NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer. The LEMUR-2 satellites will help …

The Nadir Viewing Platform that will orient our instrument in the correct direction was installed Sunday evening, March 5, in its new home, the ELC-4 platform on the outside of the space station!

Fluid Shifts Dilution Measurements: The 48S subjects initiated their Return minus 45 (R-45) Fluid Shifts Dilution Measurements activities, beginning at wakeup the subject collected saliva, blood and urine and insert them into Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) prior to ingesting a Sodium Bromide (NaBr) tracer. Throughout the day, the crew performed …

Three Expedition 50 crew members recently surpassed 100 days in space and will come home in June. Also, SpaceX Dragon external experiments are being unloaded for installation on the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has been living in space with her Expedition 50 crewmates for over 100 days now. She and Thomas Pesquet …

Overnight, Thursday, March 2 through Friday, March 3, the SAGE III Instrument Payload (IP) was successfully removed from the SpaceX Dragon trunk by the International Space Station robotics team based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The IP was installed on the Enhanced ORU Temporary Platform or EOTP which is supplying survival power until the transfer […]

Regular readers of our site may have noticed our recent piece on the Antarctic Peninsula. That Aqua MODIS shot was made possible by a weather pattern that brings clearer skies to the peninsula in January or February most years. You can see the same pattern in finer detail with a mosaic of Landsat scenes from early 2016. But […]