Sally Ride Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle Schools (EarthKam) Set Up: ISS CDR set up the Sally Ride EarthKam equipment in the Node 2 window which begins a week-long imaging session. The objective of Sally Ride EarthKam is to integrate Earth images with inquiry-based learning to enhance curricula in support of national and state education …
The Language of Science: Do’s and Don’ts of Extreme Rainfall
In the United States, we say “it’s raining cats and dogs” when we get a heavy downpour. In South Africa, it rains “women with clubs.” In Slovakia, a good soak means “tractors are falling.” World languages brim with rainy day idioms. But when it comes to describing copious amounts of wet stuff, meteorologists do not […]
Into the Ice
By Alek Petty After five days of cruising through open water, it was clear we had to change course and venture further north to find ice. The satellite imagery was showing ice above 76-77 degrees North (we were around 74 degrees North), and the ice edge didn’t seem to be drifting south at any real […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 09/30/2016
ENERGY (Astronaut’s Energy Requirement for Long-Term Space Flight): Today, FE-5 continued with Day 2 of the 11 day ENERGY experiment. The second day activities include the consumption of a standardized breakfast, continued diet logging, continued wear of the Armband Activity Monitor, double labeled water intake, oxygen uptake measurements, and urine collection. FE-6, as the control …
Expedition 49 Trio Wrapping Up Busy September
September was a busy month on the International Space Station filled with a wide variety of space research, a spacewalk, a crew departure and a test of the new BEAM module. One science highlight this month includes a new experiment that may improve how medicine works. This week, astronaut Kate Rubins tested the endurance of …
Come Fly With OMG
September 22, 2016 Light rain this morning in Svalbard, but we soon took off and left the clouds behind for bluer skies. Today’s plan was ambitious since ice cover was present at almost every drop point. Ice conditions ranged from loosely packed sea ice, to thick sheets with just a few cracks, to fast ice with no […]
ISS Daily Summary Report – 09/29/2016
Group Combustion Module (GCM) Installation: FE-5 continued with the third day of installation and preparation for the GCM experiment and was to perform two pressure decay leak checks. After the first check, a leak was detected in the Air/O2 line, thus aborting the second check until specialist can determine the cause and develop a solution. …
BEAM Open Today for Tests
BEAM, the new expandable module attached to the International Space Station, was opened up today for tests and equipment checks. The Expedition 49 crew also explored eating right in space, adapting to new technology and studied a variety of other life science and physics research. Flight Engineer Kate Rubins opened up and entered the Bigelow …
Julia: A Drenching, Perplexing Tropical Storm
Tropical Storm Julia made headlines in September 2016, but not in the usual way. It wasn’t a particularly strong or destructive storm, although it brought heavy rainfall to coastal areas of the eastern United States from Florida to Virginia. The unusual aspect was where it formed: Julia became a tropical storm while over land, not […]