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NASA and SpaceX are targeting the launch of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for no earlier than 6:51 p.m. EDT. Frequent updates from the countdown will begin here at 6:30 p.m. You can also watch at http://www.nasa.gov/live. TESS …

Metabolic Tracking (MT): The crew set up the hardware and materials to support two separate sessions of thawing and inoculation today for the MT investigation. They injected the thawed inoculum into multiwell BioCells, and inserted them into a NanoRacks Plate Reader.  Samples were placed into a Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI).  …

The International Space Station is set to raise its orbit Wednesday ahead of upcoming cargo and crew missions. Meanwhile, the six Expedition 55 crew members are staying busy today with medical tests, cargo work and lab maintenance. The space station will increase its altitude slightly when a docked Russian cargo craft automatically fires its engines …

Launch teams are standing down today to conduct additional Guidance Navigation and Control analysis, and teams are now working towards a targeted launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on Wednesday, April 18. The TESS spacecraft is in excellent health, and remains ready for launch. TESS will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from …

Metabolic Tracking (MT): Earlier today the crew set up the MT hardware and materials for thawing and inoculation. They then injected the thawed inoculum into multiwell BioCells, and inserted them into a NanoRacks Plate Reader.  The crew also took samples from the BioCell B group and placed them into a Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory …

The launch vehicle poised to give TESS its boost into space later today is the SpaceX Falcon 9, a two-stage rocket with nine Merlin engines powering the first stage and a single Merlin engine powering the second. Both stages run on a combination of liquid oxygen and RP-1, a refined kerosene. Propellant loading operations begin …

Scientists on the ground and in space this week are exploring a wide variety of phenomena affecting humans living in space. The ongoing life science aboard the International Space Station is designed to improve astronauts’ health in space and benefit people on Earth. Medicine plays an important role in an astronaut’s health and doctors want …

As the first space-based, all-sky surveyor in search of exoplanets, TESS is poised to provide tantalizing new clues in the search for planets outside our solar system that could harbor life. Like the successful Kepler mission before it, TESS will watch for signs of planets passing in front of the stars they orbit. When a …

In just a few hours, a NASA spacecraft is expected to launch on a mission to search the skies for the nearest terrestrial planets outside our solar system. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is scheduled to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:32 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 …

The planned liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, remains scheduled for 6:32 p.m. EDT Monday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Meteorologists with the U.S. Air Force 45th Space Wing continue to predict an 80 percent chance of favorable weather for …