Blogs

On October 19, 2022, InSight was generating an average between 275 and 285 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at 1.5 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

Payloads: Food Physiology: A diet briefing was attended between the crew and Principal Investigator team in support of the Food Physiology investigation. The Integrated Impact of Diet on Human Immune Response, the Gut Microbiota, and Nutritional Status During Adaptation to Spaceflight (Food Physiology) experiment is designed to characterize the key effects of an enhanced spaceflight …

Household maintenance tasks were the main objective aboard the International Space Station on Thursday as the Expedition 68 crew members configured crew quarters and serviced the orbiting lab’s toilet. The station residents also had time during the day for human research activities, robotics training, and upcoming cargo mission preparations. NASA Flight Engineers Frank Rubio and …

By Igor Uchôa, Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department // Aboard the Bold Horizon // NASA's S-MODE mission was designed to measure and understand the complex oceanic features classified as "submesoscale," i.e., features spanning up to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) across. Such fine filaments and sharp density …

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, where teams will begin final preparations for the spacecraft's launch in December on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Center-4 East. SWOT is the first satellite mission that will observe nearly all water on Earth's surface, measuring …

Payloads: Cerebral Autoregulation: The crew performed a Cerebral Autoregulation science session, and then stowed the experiment hardware. 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 …

A pair of brain studies were on the research schedule aboard the International Space Station today to learn how the central nervous system adapts to weightlessness. The Expedition 68 crew also worked on variety of household tasks throughout Wednesday including orbital plumbing and electronics system repairs. NASA Flight Engineers Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada worked …

NASA completed a flight readiness review in October, and is “GO” to resume routine spacewalks outside of the International Space Station. The first of three planned spacewalks is targeted to begin around mid-November to continue the work to install roll out solar arrays, called iROSA. The review marks the completion of an investigation into the cause …

Payloads: Cerebral Autoregulation: The crew set up the appropriate hardware and performed a Cerebral Autoregulation science session. 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 …

Today aboard the International Space Station, the Expedition 68 crew explored how to maintain healthy bodies and grow crops in the weightless environment of space. Learning to live long-term in microgravity and farther away from Earth orbit requires astronauts to sustain themselves without relying on visiting resupply missions. Humans lose muscle and bone mass much …