Blogs

Engineers have completed tanking for the hot fire test of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stage at the agency’s Stennis Space Center, and the countdown is proceeding normally. The liquid hydrogen tank holds 537,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen, cooled to minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit. The liquid oxygen tank holds 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen, cooled to minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit. After …

A day before Expedition 64 relocates the Soyuz MS-17 to another port on the International Space Station, the seven-person crew continued studies on the effects of microgravity on humans, plants, and materials, along with a couple outreach events. NASA astronaut Victor Glover took part in two media events, each accompanied by a different crewmate. First up, …

The test team conducted a pre-test briefing in the Test Control Center at the B test complex at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and gave a “go” to proceed with testing and to fill the propellant tanks.  Over the next several hours, the teams will monitor the systems and load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic, or supercooled, liquid oxygen and …

Payloads Antimicrobial Coatings (AC) Touch: Per standard procedure, the crew touched both the coated and uncoated coupons for this long-term investigation. Boeing Environment Responding Antimicrobial Coatings tests an antimicrobial coating on several different materials that represent high-touch surfaces. Some microbes change characteristics in microgravity, which could create new risks to crew health and spacecraft systems …

During NASA’s Green Run hot fire test, the team will be especially interested in several key operations when testing the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stage under conditions it may experience during a variety of deep space missions. Green Run, an end-to-end system test of the core stage with Artemis I flight hardware, will …

The crew of Expedition 64 took time to catch up on maintenance tasks for the International Space Station during a week bookended by some major activities: a spacewalk including NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins the previous Saturday and a Soyuz relocation maneuver coming up on Friday. NASA astronaut Shannon Walker worked with Astrobee, a technology demonstration …

With the Artemis program, NASA will send the first woman and next man to the surface of the Moon, construct a lunar orbiting outpost, and establish a sustainable presence. This will require deliveries of supplies and equipment to the lunar surface, but how to unload the cargo once it arrives is an open question. NASA …

On the fourth anniversary of its first-light measurements, we are taking a look at some of the critical data collected by NASA’s Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) aboard the International Space Station. Launched to the station in February 2017, SAGE III is the most recent in a series of SAGE instruments that […]

Payloads Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) / Advanced Combustion via Microgravity Experiments (ACME): The crew performed the steps necessary to lubricate the quick disconnect (QD) for the gas chromatograph argon gas bottle. They also replaced the N2/O2 gas bottle at manifold 2 and installed an ethane fuel bottle at the manifold 4 location. This was performed …