Blogs

Last night at 8:38:30 PM CDT, a basketball size meteoroid entered the atmosphere 63 miles above Columbia, South Carolina. Moving northwest at 78,000 miles per hour, it burned up 52 miles above the Tennessee country side, just north of Chattanooga. This fireball was not part of any meteor shower and belongs to a class of …

SpX-3 Dragon Departure Preps:  Yesterday during during the crew day off, the SpX team performed a computer reboot to clear some error flags.  Today Swanson checked out the COTS UHF Communication Unit (CUCU) Crew Command Pane (CCP) that will be used for commanding the Dragon vehicle during unberth operations.  Dragon unberth and release is scheduled …

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2 is an Earth satellite mission to study carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and provide scientists with a better idea of the chemical compound's impacts on climate change. The mission is NASA's first dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide from space. OCO-2 will launch on a Delta II 7320 rocket from …

37 Soyuz (37S) Undock and Landing:  Expedition 39 Commander (CDR) Wakata,  Flight Engineer (FE)-4 Tyurin and FE-5 Mastracchio closed the hatches to the 37S vehicle and undocked their spacecraft from the ISS today at 5:36 p.m. CDT, marking the start of Expedition 40.  The Soyuz landed outside of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan at 8:58 p.m CDT. The …

Change of Command Ceremony:  The Change of Command Ceremony was completed at the end of the crew day today in preparation for return of the 37S crew tomorrow.  ISS CDR Wakata, handed over to Expedition 40 CDR Swanson.  Undock tomorrow is scheduled at 5:36pm CDT with landing at 8:58pm CDT. Salivary Markers: On Sunday, FE-3 …

Direct Current Switching Unit (DCSU) 3A:  The power system remains in a stable configuration following yesterday’s DCSU Channel 3A Remote Bus Isolator (RBI) 1 trip.  DCSUs 3A and 3B were tied together and all power loads were recovered.  Ground teams continue their investigation and are developing recovery plans. Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder (SMILES) relocation:  SMILES …

Direct Current Switching Unit (DCSU) 3A Trip:  DCSU Channel 3A Remote Bus Isolator (RBI) 1 tripped open due to a negative current condition.  DCSUs 3A and 3B have since been tied together and all power loads have been recovered.  Hardware that temporarily lost power or partial power included:  Optical PAyload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS), AlphaMagnetic …

Threshold Acceleration for Gravisensing (GRAVI)-2 Run #2: Flight Engineer (FE)-5 Mastracchio hydrated sixteen GRAVI-2 sample chambers on the MWA. He then assembled sixteen GRAVI-2 culture chambers and eight GRAVI-2 fixative units into the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) experiment containers, using the BioLab glove box. The aim of GRAVI-2 is to subject lentil seedling roots …

There will still be Eta Aquarids visible tonight, but at a rate of less than half of last night’s peak. Those in the southern hemisphere will again see more Eta Aquarids than those in the northern hemisphere, but pretty much everywhere in the world except the Arctic Circle has a chance to view the shower. …

Sprint: With assistance from Flight Engineer (FE)-3 Swanson, Commander (CDR) Wakata took data for his Return-7 days ultrasound Sprint session. Sprint evaluates the use of high intensity, low volume exercise training to minimize loss of muscle, bone, and cardiovascular function in ISS crewmembers during long-duration missions. Ultrasound scans are on FD 14, 30, 60, 90, …