NASA's football-stadium-sized scientific super pressure balloon crossed the 169.24 east longitude line at about 11:32 p.m. EDT, April 25, officially completing its first mid-latitude circumnavigation after launch April 15 (U.S. Eastern time) from Wānaka Airport, New Zealand. NASA achieved the milestone just 10 days, 3 hours, and 50 minutes after launch. The balloon is …
Payloads: JEM Water Recovery System (JWRS): Treated Water Bag and Cation Exchange Tank Port valves were opened as part of system verification objectives. The demonstration of JWRS generates potable water from urine. In the past, urine and wastewater were collected and stored, or vented overboard. However, for long-term space missions, water supply could become a …
Four Expedition 69 astronauts aboard the International Space Station worked throughout Tuesday preparing for a spacewalk and cleaning space biology hardware. Meanwhile, the orbiting lab’s three cosmonauts had an off-duty day following several days of their own spacewalk preparations. Flight Engineers Stephen Bowen of NASA and Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) spent Tuesday …
Payloads: NanoRacks CubeSats Deployer-25 (NRCSD-25): The NRCSD satellites were successfully deployed. NRCSD-25 deployed six different satellites: NEUDOSE will measure and map the real-time radiation dose received by astronauts performing EVAs. YukonSat demonstrates using student-designed satellites for on-demand display of art and audio recordings from Northern Peoples. The project also supports a world-wide game with coded …
Two astronauts on the Expedition 69 crew are gearing up for a spacewalk at the end of the week. Meanwhile, two cosmonauts are standing down after their spacewalk planned for Tuesday was postponed. Flight Engineers Stephen Bowen of NASA and Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) are preparing for a spacewalk scheduled for 9:15 …
This year’s Lyrid meteor shower will peak in the predawn hours of April 23. On average, the shower can produce up to 15 meteors per hour under ideal viewing conditions. The Lyrids occur every year in mid-April, when Earth crosses the trail of debris left by the Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. These bits of comet …
Payloads: CapiSorb Visible System (CVS): Experiment operations continued. The CVS investigation demonstrates a liquid control using capillary forces over a range of liquid properties that are characteristic of liquid carbon dioxide sorbents. Since microgravity makes it difficult to control the flow of liquids, carbon dioxide removal methods on the ISS have been unable to take …
All 17 observing modes of the James Webb Space Telescope undergo routine performance monitoring and calibration. This month, while performing calibration by comparing the brightness of standard stars that have been well-cataloged by other observatories to what Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) was receiving, team members noticed a discrepancy in the data. Further analysis of MIRI's …
At 7:22 a.m. EDT, Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft was released from the Canadarm2 robotic arm which earlier detached Cygnus from the Earth-facing port of the International Space Station’s Unity module. At the time of release, the station was flying southwest of Ireland. The Cygnus spacecraft successfully departed the space station more than five months after …
Live coverage of the departure of Northrop Grumman’s uncrewed Cygnus cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station is underway on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app, with its release from the robotic arm scheduled for 7:20 a.m. EDT. Coverage will conclude following departure from station. Flight controllers on the ground sent commands …
