Since its launch in February 2013, Landsat 8 has collected about 400 scenes of the Earth’s surface per day. Each of these scenes covers an area of about 185 by 185 kilometers (115 by 115 miles)—34,200 square km (13,200 square miles)—for a total of 13,690,000 square km (5,290,000 square miles) per day. An area about […]
Cygnus Departure: Today, the Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) in the Hot Backup configuration and re-rigidized Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) Latching End Effector (LEE)-A which was grappled to Cygnus. Flight Engineer (FE)-6 Nyberg and FE-5 Parmitano demated Cygnus from the Node 2 Nadir Active Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) …
Just so you know – there was a very bright event over Southwest on Saturday, October 19 at 8:16 PM local time. The fireball was picked up New Mexico State University meteor camera. It looks to be a grazing fireball. “ We are uncertain of the origin of the fireball at this time. However, this …
Cygnus Preparation for Unberth and Release: Flight Engineer (FE)-3 Hopkins, FE-5 Parmitano and FE-6 Nyberg configured Cygnus and Node 2 vestibule today in preparation for unberth scheduled tomorrow, Tuesday October 22nd at 0545am CDT. The Cygnus hatch was closed earlier this morning followed by the removal of power, data, and air revitalization system (ARS) jumpers. …
Blood Pressure Regulation (BP Reg) Experiment: Flight Engineer (FE)-5 Parmitano set up hardware to support the leg cuff and rebreathing protocol for the Canadian Space Agency BP Reg experiment. He then performed the experiment protocol on himself. BP Reg tests the efficacy of an in-flight manipulation of arterial blood pressure as an indicator of post-flight …
Cygnus Onboard Training Sessions: Flight Engineer (FE)-5 Parmitano and FE-6 Nyberg have taken part in onboard training sessions to gain proficiency on the Cygnus departure profile, procedures, and the crew interfaces for monitoring and commanding Cygnus. Unberth from ISS is scheduled for 05:00am CDT Tuesday, 22 October. Spinal Ultrasound Scan Operations: Nyberg performed her third and …
While most of NASA went dark during the government shutdown, life went on at the International Space Station. Throughout October, astronauts Karen Nyberg, Mike Hopkins, and Luca Parmitano sent a steady stream of tweets back to Earth. The most eye-popping of the bunch came from Hopkins, who tweeted this on October 10, 2013: “Saw something […]
Ocular Health (OH) Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT): Flight Engineer (FE)-6 Nyberg and FE-3 Hopkins set up associated Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Infrared (IR) hardware and took turns as Crew Medical Officer (CMO) and subject, performing the eye examination portion of OCT Functional Checkout with the ground experts providing remote guidance. The OCT testing will be used …
Investigating the Structure of Paramagnetic Aggregates from Colloidal Emulsions (InSPACE)-3 Experiment: Flight Engineer (FE)-5 Parmitano conducted the 2nd of the new series of 12 InSPACE-3 runs. This new series uses the same test parameter settings as previous runs but with an increase in the duration from 2 hours to between 4.5 and 6 hours. This …
