Blogs

Congratulations to reader Suzi for being the first to answer our April puzzler. As Suzi noted, the image shows South Korea’s Sisan Island. While Suzi (and several other readers) thought the offshore grid pattern was evidence of oyster or fish farming, our research suggests it is mainly seaweed farming. Several sources cited the western part of South Korea’s […]

Fluid Shifts Before, During and After Prolonged Space Flight and Their Association with Intracranial Pressure and Visual Impairment (Fluid Shifts):  Kelly and Padalka performed a system test of the Ultrasound in the Service Module.  The crew configured the ultrasound, laptop, and video, and with assistance from the ground remote guider, then performed an ultrasound scan.  …

Ocular Health (OH): Virts and Cristoforetti completed their Return (R)-30 OH today.  They each performed ultrasounds of their eye with the assistance of the other crewmember acting as a Crew Medical Officer (CMO).  Virts, again with Cristoforetti as his CMO, performed an ultrasound echocardiogram. The Ocular Health protocol calls for a systematic gathering of physiological …

Researcher Amy McNally spent two weeks in Yanco, Australia to participate in the three week Soil Moisture Active Passive Experiment-4 (SMAPEx-4) field campaign in May. The field campaign measures soil moisture and related data using ground and airborne instruments. The data is used to validate actual data and algorithms from the SMAP satellite. In the […]

Based on email and social media comments we receive, climate models are one of the least understood and most maligned tools used by Earth scientists. What is a climate model? Putting aside the scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who posed for a climate model calendar in 2014 (cover above), climate models are simply mathematical […]

SpaceX-6 Dragon Departure:  Overnight, the crew disconnected both power jumpers, installed the Center Disk Cover, and closed Node 2 Nadir Hatch.  They then successfully depressurized and pressure checked the Node 2/Dragon vestibule.  Dragon was unberthed from the Node 2 Nadir docking port and subsequently released by the crew utilizing the Space Station Remote Manipulator System …

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:42 p.m. EDT, about 155 miles southwest of Long Beach, California, marking the end of the company’s sixth contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The spacecraft is returning more than 3,100 pounds of NASA cargo and science samples from the International …

Scott Kelly, NASA’s One-Year crew member, flawlessly released the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from the grips of the Canadarm2 at 7:04 a.m. EDT this morning. Mission Control in Houston had earlier commanded the station’s 57.7 foot long robotic arm to remove Dragon from the Harmony module and place it in its release position. After its release, …

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft was released from the International Space Station’s robotic arm at 7:04 a.m. EDT. The capsule will begin a series of departure burns and maneuvers to move beyond the 656-foot (200-meter) “keep out sphere” around the station and begin its return trip to Earth. The capsule is currently scheduled to splashdown …