Fluid Shifts Dilution Measurements: The second of three 49S subjects completed their Flight Day 45 blood draw with assistance from a Crew Medical Officer (CMO) Operator in support of the first part of the Fluid Shift activities – Diultion Measurement. Upon wakeup the subject collected saliva, blood and urine and insert them into Minus Eighty …
CYGNSS Progress Report and Year-end Reflections
As the year comes to a close, I’m probably not the only one looking back at how 2016 panned out. For the CYGNSS team, we ended 2016 with a lot of excitement, after carefully and patiently working on pre-launch development for the past few years. It takes a long time to develop things in careful […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 12/23/2016
Fluid Shifts Dilution Measurements: The 49S subject, with blood draw assistance from a Crew Medical Officer (CMO) Operator, performed the first part of the Fluid Shift activities – Dilution Measurement. Upon wakeup the subject collected saliva, blood and urine and inserted them into Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) prior to ingesting …
Crew Heads into Christmas Weekend with Spacewalk Preps

The six-member Expedition 50 crew from France, Russia and the U.S. is heading into the holiday weekend with spacesuit checks and eye studies. The international crew will share a Christmas meal, enjoy a light-duty weekend and take Dec. 26 off. Commander Shane Kimbrough scrubbed cooling loops and tested the water in a pair of U.S. …
Let It Snow: Winter 2016
Eighty five years ago today, Wilson Alwyn Bentley died of pneumonia. It was December 23, 1931, and outside his home in Jericho, Vermont, the sky was ripe for snow. His final diary entry read: “Cold north wind afternoon. Snow Flying.” It was the sort of weather he had lived for. Bentley began to observe snow […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 12/22/2016
Sarcolab-3 Deconfigure and Stow: After successful completion of the Flight Day (FD) 30-60 sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, the crew deconfigured and stowed the Muscle Atrophy Research & Exercise System (MARES). Later today, the crew will verify and downlink the data and stow the remaining ancillary Sarcolab-3 hardware. The next session will be in the …
Astronauts Study How Lack of Gravity Impacts Muscles

The crew wrapped up part of a muscle research program today while continuing other experiments to study the effects of living in space. Also, a new CubeSat deployer was installed in Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. Scientists want to understand how the lack of gravity impacts muscles that aren’t used due to working in the microgravity …
Exploring Pluto and a Billion Miles Beyond

Today's blog is from Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado—principal investigator for NASA's New Horizons mission. As 2016 ends, I can't help but point out an interesting symmetry in where the mission has recently been and where we are going. Exactly two years ago we had just taken New Horizons …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 12/21/2016
Myotendinous and Neuromuscular Adaptation to Long-term Spaceflight Sarcolab-3: Today’s second operational day for the Sarcolab-3 experiment began with converting the Muscle Atrophy Research & Exercise System (MARES) from the ankle measurement configuration to the knee measurement configuration. The subject donned Percutaneus Electrical Muscle Stimulator (PEMS) and Electromyography (EMG) electrodes to stimulate and measure calf muscle …


