Blogs

Payloads Astrobee:  The crew powered on the Astrobee systems and cleared stowed items from the Astrobee area.  Following this, ground teams performed ground commanding to further checkout and prepare Astrobee for support of the upcoming Kibo Robot Programming Challenge.  Astrobee is made up of three free-flying, cube-shaped robots which are designed to help scientists and …

The International Space Station is gearing up for an advanced bathroom set to arrive on a U.S. resupply ship early next month. Meanwhile, the Expedition 63 crew continued this week’s eye checks and more space research and life support maintenance. The orbital lab will get a new space toilet scheduled to be delivered inside Northrop …

The icebreaker made quick progress north owing to warm conditions and thin, fragmented sea ice.

It was a busy day aboard the International Space Station as the Expedition 63 crew members traded roles as an eye doctor, orbital plumber and scientist. The station also boosted its orbit out of the way of an unknown piece of space debris today. Once again, the U.S. commander and the two Russian flight engineers …

Using the ISS Progress 75 thrusters and with NASA and Russian flight controllers working in tandem, the International Space Station conducted a 150-second reboost Tuesday afternoon at 5:19 p.m. EDT to avoid a possible conjunction with an unknown piece of space debris. Because of the late notification of the possible conjunction, the three Expedition 63 …

Flight controllers in Mission Control Houston, with assistance from U.S. Space Command, are tracking an unknown piece of space debris expected to pass within several kilometers of the International Space Station. An avoidance maneuver is scheduled to take place using the Russian Progress resupply spacecraft currently docked to the aft end of the Zvezda service …

Payloads Combustion Integrated Rack/Advanced Combustion via Microgravity Experiments (CIR/ACME)/BRE-2: The crew exchanged a 40% oxygen/60% nitrogen bottle at the manifold 2 location for a new bottle with the same composition.  They also replaced the ethylene manifold 4 bottle with a methane bottle, but were not able to open the bottle valve.  CIR powered ops for …

By Joe Atkinson / NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia/ Four months ago, with COVID-19 disrupting life across the globe, it seemed virtually unthinkable that a major NASA airborne science campaign would fly again anytime soon. But today, that's exactly what's happening. In August, NASA's Aerosol Cloud Meteorology Interactions Over the Western Atlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) eased …

Following a series of critical contract awards and hardware milestones, an update on NASA’s Artemis program is now available, including the latest Phase 1 plans to land the first woman and the next man on the surface of the Moon in 2024. In the 18 months since NASA accepted a bold challenge to accelerate its …