Blogs

The Expedition 68 crew is looking forward to a delivery mission that will arrive at the International Space Station this weekend. Meanwhile, space science and orbital plumbing took up the orbital residents’ day as well as more cleanup work following last week’s spacewalk. Nearly three tons of food, fuel, and supplies, is on its way …

The uncrewed Roscosmos Progress 83 is safely in orbit headed for the International Space Station following launch at 1:15 a.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 9 (11:15 a.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The resupply ship reached preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas as planned, on its way to meet …

NASA Television, the agency’s website and the NASA app now are providing live coverage of the launch of a Roscosmos cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. The uncrewed Progress 83 is scheduled to lift off on a Soyuz rocket at 1:15 a.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 9 (11:15 a.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in …

NASA’s CAPSTONE – short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment – is in good health following a communications issue that began in late January, and the mission team is preparing for upcoming technology demonstration tests. Beginning Jan. 26, CAPSTONE was unable to receive commands from ground operators. The spacecraft remained overall …

Payloads: Cerebral Autoregulation: The crew set up the experiment hardware to support science sessions later this week. As the body’s most important organ, the brain needs a strong and reliable blood supply, so the brain is capable of self-regulating blood flow even when the heart and blood vessels cannot maintain an ideal blood pressure. The …

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight CubeSat launched on Dec. 11, 2022, to demonstrate several new technologies with a stretch science goal of detecting surface ice at the Moon’s South Pole. Shortly into Lunar Flashlight’s journey, the mission operations team discovered three of its four thrusters were underperforming. Among the steps taken to analyze the issue and find …

A new cargo mission stands ready to launch early Thursday and dock to the International Space Station two days later. Meanwhile, the Expedition 68 crew switched roles between space scientists and orbital plumbers on Wednesday promoting advanced knowledge and maintaining life support systems. A rocket packed with about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies, …

In September, the James Webb Space Telescope observed as NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally smashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid, in the world's first-ever in-space test for planetary defense. Today, we hear from Stefanie Milam, Webb's deputy project scientist for planetary science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, about how the Webb …

Payloads: Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF): The crew performed the steps necessary to remove the processed boron carbide-stainless steel (B4C-SS) samples and install the next set of samples to be processed. The ELF is an experimental facility designed to levitate/melt/solidify materials by containerless processing techniques using the Electrostatic Levitation method. With this facility, thermophysical properties of …

The seven-member Expedition 68 crew was back on its full complement of microgravity research on Tuesday. The orbital residents also saw a trash-filled cargo craft depart the International Space Station early in the morning. It was a science-packed day aboard the orbital outpost with the four astronauts and three cosmonauts exploring the behavior of fuels …