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    Third Launch Attempt Scheduled for Super Pressure Balloon

    A scientific balloon is to the right, and appears as a plastic, upside down teardrop. A tube attached to the top of the balloon leads down to the ground. A crane to the left holds a large payload structure with many solar panels.

    UPDATE: (4:30 a.m. New Zealand Time). NASA Balloon Launch Attempt Postponed Due to Weather NASA postponed the third launch attempt of its super pressure balloon (SPB) from Wanaka, New Zealand, at 4:30 a.m. Monday, April 10 (New Zealand time) due to poor weather at ground and surface levels. Wind speeds were just slightly above those …

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    Crew Packing Soyuz for Monday Landing

    Two NASA astronauts and a European Space Agency astronaut headed into the weekend with a light day Friday. Meanwhile, the three cosmonauts from Roscosmos packed a Soyuz spacecraft for departure and worked on maintenance and science. Commander Shane Kimbrough, who is returning to Earth early Monday, took it easy Friday aboard the International Space Station. …

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    NASA Postpones Super Pressure Balloon Launch

    Stratospheric Winds

    NASA postponed the scheduled launch of its super pressure balloon (SPB) from Wanaka, New Zealand, at 2 a.m. Saturday, April 8 (New Zealand time) due to unacceptable stratospheric weather conditions for operations. Along with monitoring ground and lower-level winds (up to 300 meters) on launch day, stratospheric wind conditions at 33.5 km (110,000 feet), which is …

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    SMAP! Goes The Memory

    Recent findings published in Nature Geoscience show that roughly 14 percent of all rainfall remains in the uppermost soil layer for as long as three days after a storm.

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    Launch Attempt Scheduled for Super Pressure Balloon

    COSI Launch

    NASA is targeting Saturday, April 8 (Friday, April 7 in Eastern Time), to conduct a super pressure balloon (SPB) test flight launching from Wanaka Airport, New Zealand, on a potential 100-day journey. NASA will begin flight preparations in the early morning hours Saturday and will continue to evaluate real-time and forecast weather conditions throughout the …

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    ISS Daily Summary Report – 4/06/2017

    Flight Day 120 (FD120) Human Research Program (HRP) Collections: The 49S subject performed a fasting blood draw and urine collections. Both samples were stowed in Minus Eighty Degree Celsius Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI) for freezing and storage until their return and analysis. The Biochemical Profile experiment tests blood and urine samples obtained from astronauts …

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    Trio Packs for Homecoming and Whitson’s Mission Extended

    Three crew members aboard the International Space Station are packing up their gear for a homecoming on Monday. NASA also decided to extend the mission of an astronaut living aboard the station since November. Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut will take a ride back to Earth early Monday inside the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft. Commander …

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    ‘Seal Team 6’: Constructing a Super Pressure Balloon

    SPB construction

    As the latest super pressure balloon (SPB) prepares to lift off from New Zealand, carrying the Extreme Universe Space Observatory-SPB (EUSO-SPB) payload, one may reflect back on how this balloon, the 6th iteration in the current model of long duration balloons, came to be and what goes into its construction — acres and acres of …

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