NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft will be boosted into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Learn how SMAP and the Delta II were readied for liftoff.
ISS Daily Summary Report – 01/27/15
Loss of Port Thermal Radiator (PTR) Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (MDM): This morning, there was a loss of the PTR MDM. This MDM controls and provides insight to the Radiator Beam Valve Module (RBVM) system on External Thermal Control System (ETCS) Loop B. This afternoon, flight controllers downlinked and analyzed supplementary telemetry then reinitialized the MDM without issue. …
Virts and Wilmore Preparing for Trio of Spacewalks
NASA astronauts Terry Virts and Barry Wilmore are getting a pair of U.S. spacesuits ready for a set of spacewalks beginning in February. Throughout Tuesday in the Quest airlock, they recharged suit batteries and checked out fans and other suit components. Virts also joined Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti transferring cargo to and from the SpaceX …
SMAP Launch Weather Forecast 80 Percent ‘Go’
Weather forecasters from the U.S. Air Force 30th Weather Squadron are predicting an 80 percent chance of favorable weather for launch of NASA's SMAP observatory aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket. Liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is targeted for 9:20 a.m. EST on Thursday, Jan. 29 at the opening of …
Marshall Scientist to Observe Asteroid 2004 BL86
On Monday evening, January 26 from 10 p.m. to midnight CST Marshall scientists will observe the large Asteroid 2004 BL86 as it passes by Earth. The public is welcome to follow their observations via the Marshall Ustream feed The asteroid will safely pass about three times the distance of Earth to the moon, or approximately …
ISS Daily Summary Report – 01/26/15
Advanced Plant Experiment (APEX) 03-1: Wilmore prepared the Maintenance Work Area (MWA), gathered the APEX hardware, and configured the Advanced Biological Research System (ABRS) photo grid. The crew then retrieved the APEX fixation tube kit from the General Laboratory Active Cryogenic ISS Experiment Refrigerator (GLACIER) and proceeded to harvest and fix the second set of …
SMAP Launch Week Begins
Launch of NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive, or SMAP observatory, aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket remains on schedule. Liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is targeted for 9:20 a.m. EST on Thursday, Jan. 29 at the opening of a 3-minute launch window. The full launch team, spacecraft test team and …
Crew Studying Tiny Organisms to Understand Larger Organisms
After a week of medical science activities, the space station residents began the new week focusing on worms, fruit flies and plants. The tiny organisms provide scientists a model for larger organisms and how microgravity affects such things as immunity, muscles and bones. › Read more about the Epigenetics experiment › Read more about the …
January Puzzler
Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The January 2015 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part of the world we are looking at, when the image was acquired, what the image shows, and why the scene is interesting. How to answer. Your answer can be a […]