All posts tagged: ISS

Two astronauts left behind on ISS as troubled Boeing Starliner capsule lands on Earth empty | Science & Tech News

Two astronauts left behind on ISS as troubled Boeing Starliner capsule lands on Earth empty | Science & Tech News

Published by skeptic

Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which has been plagued with problems, has returned to Earth, leaving two astronauts behind on the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft – running on autopilot – parachuted into the New Mexico desert six hours after setting out. Cameras caught the capsule as a white streak coming in for the touchdown at 11.01pm local time (5.01am on Saturday UK time), which drew cheers from Boeing’s Mission Control. NASA judged it too risky for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to get back into the spacecraft. It means they’ll remain on the ISS until February, more than eight months after blasting off on what should have been a quick trip lasting just eight days. Shortly after Boeing’s long-delayed capsule was launched in orbit in June, issues were spotted before it arrived at the space station involving multiple thruster failures and propulsion-system helium leaks. Image: The Starliner spacecraft landed empty at White Sands, New Mexico. Pic: AP/Nasa Image: The capsule was checked after landing. Pic: AP/Nasa Boeing carried out extensive thruster tests in space and …

ISS review – Ariana DeBose shines in tense if contrived International Space Station thriller | Thrillers

ISS review – Ariana DeBose shines in tense if contrived International Space Station thriller | Thrillers

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Fast-tracked through the space programme, rising star research scientist Dr Kira Foster (Ariana DeBose) finally makes it to the International Space Station. There, she is welcomed by her new colleagues: two American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts, united by a common goal to work in service of all humankind regardless of nationality, race or creed. Borders, explains cosmonaut Nika (Masha Mashkova), are invisible from space. But there are hints that the idealism and harmony on the ISS might be fragile when Kira’s lab mice react to zero gravity by chewing each other’s limbs off. It’s not the most subtle of metaphors, particularly for the amputee rodents. When US-Russian hostilities back on Earth boil over into full warfare (strikingly and unsettlingly evoked in the view from orbit, as the blue-green planet turns an angry, inflamed red), the tensions on board soon ignite. It’s a neat premise, with something of the claustrophobia and high-stakes space peril of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine. But while DeBose is impressive, the contrived plot of Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s movie hinges, somewhat preposterously, on rational, …

NASA Confirms Where the Space Junk That Hit a Florida House Came From

NASA Confirms Where the Space Junk That Hit a Florida House Came From

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NASA has confirmed that the object that fell into a Florida home last month was part of a battery pack released from the International Space Station. This extraordinary incident opens a new frontier in space law. NASA, the homeowner, and attorneys are navigating little-used legal codes and intergovernmental agreements to determine who should pay for the damages. Alejandro Otero, owner of the Naples, Florida, home struck by the debris, told Ars he is fairly certain the object came from the space station, even before NASA’s confirmation. The circumstances strongly suggested that was the case. The cylindrical piece of metal tore through his roof on March 8, a few minutes after the time US Space Command reported the reentry of a space station cargo pallet and nine decommissioned batteries over the Gulf of Mexico on a trajectory heading forward the coast of southwest Florida. On Monday, NASA confirmed the object’s origin after retrieving it from Otero. The agency said in a statement that the object is made of the metal alloy Inconel, weighs 1.6 pounds, and …

International Space Station Trash May Have Hit This Florida House

International Space Station Trash May Have Hit This Florida House

Published by skeptic

A few weeks ago, something from the heavens came crashing through the roof of Alejandro Otero’s home, and NASA is on the case. In all likelihood, this nearly 2-pound object came from the International Space Station. Otero said it tore through the roof and both floors of his two-story house in Naples, Florida. Otero wasn’t home at the time, but his son was there. A Nest home security camera captured the sound of the crash at 2:34 pm local time (19:34 UTC) on March 8. That’s an important piece of information because it is a close match for the time—2:29 pm EST (19:29 UTC)—that US Space Command recorded the reentry of a piece of space debris from the space station. At that time, the object was on a path over the Gulf of Mexico, heading toward southwest Florida. This space junk consisted of depleted batteries from the ISS, attached to a cargo pallet that was originally supposed to come back to Earth in a controlled manner. But a series of delays meant this cargo pallet …

Weather Delays SpaceX Launch Taking US, Russians to ISS

Weather Delays SpaceX Launch Taking US, Russians to ISS

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A planned launch on Saturday of a mission to take three American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station was scrubbed because of poor weather. SpaceX announced that the launch was delayed, and NASA said the agency would now target Sunday at 10:53 p.m. EST for liftoff. The SpaceX Crew Dragon named Endeavour is to carry the four atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Hours before Saturday night’s scheduled launch, SpaceX posted on X that “elevated winds” forced the delay. It was the latest postponement for the launch, which initially was slated for February 22. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been providing astronaut launch services for NASA since 2020 under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, while a rival program by Boeing has yet to get going. Matthew Dominick, who leads the Crew-8 mission, is making his first spaceflight, as is fellow American Jeanette Epps. It will also be the first time for Russian Alexander Grebenkin. Michael Barratt, a physician, is making his third visit to the ISS. His …

First remote, zero-gravity surgery performed on the ISS from Earth (on rubber)

First remote, zero-gravity surgery performed on the ISS from Earth (on rubber)

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Researchers successfully completed the first remote, zero-gravity “surgery” procedure aboard the International Space Station. Over the weekend, surgeons based at the University of Nebraska spent two hours testing out a small robotic arm dubbed the Miniaturized In Vivo Robotic Assistant, or spaceMIRA, aboard the ISS as it orbited roughly 250 miles above their heads.  But don’t worry—no ISS astronauts were in need of desperate medical attention. Instead, the experiment utilized rubber bands to simulate human skin during its proof-of-concept demonstration on Saturday. [Related: ‘Odie’ is en route for its potentially historic moon landing.] Injuries are inevitable, but that little fact of life gets complicated when the nearest hospital is a seven-month, 300-million-mile journey away. But even if an incredibly skilled doctor is among the first people to step foot on Mars, they can’t be trained to handle every possible emergency. Certain issues, such as invasive surgeries, will likely require backup help. To mitigate these problems in certain situations, remote controlled operations could offer a possible solution. Designed by Virtual Incision, a startup developing remote-controlled medical …

The SpaceX Axiom Space Ax-3 mission to the ISS returned to Earth

The SpaceX Axiom Space Ax-3 mission to the ISS returned to Earth

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In this image from video provided by NASA, the 11 International Space Station crew members representing Expedition 70 (red shirts) and Axiom Space 3 (dark blue suits) crews gather for a farewell ceremony calling down to mission controllers on Earth on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. NASA via AP hide caption toggle caption NASA via AP In this image from video provided by NASA, the 11 International Space Station crew members representing Expedition 70 (red shirts) and Axiom Space 3 (dark blue suits) crews gather for a farewell ceremony calling down to mission controllers on Earth on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. NASA via AP ORLANDO, Fla. — A crew of four is back on Earth after splashing down off Daytona Beach, Fla. Friday morning in the same SpaceX capsule that launched the crew’s mission three weeks ago from the Kennedy Space Center. Their return was delayed several days due to poor weather off Florida’s coast. The capsule undocked from the International Space Station Wednesday, over the Pacific Ocean, and spent two days freely flying in orbit …

Stop Asking What Would Happen If War Broke Out on the ISS

Stop Asking What Would Happen If War Broke Out on the ISS

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Still, I.S.S. has landed at an awkward time for the actual ISS. Russia and the US are far from a nuclear conflict, but they are on opposite sides of a brutal war in Ukraine that’s gone on for nearly two years and resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties. While the Russian and American space programs, Roscosmos and NASA, have managed to keep operations aboard the ISS going—scientists from both countries have traveled to and from the station on Soyuz and SpaceX spacecraft—the ISS’s unique situation hasn’t gone unnoticed. In fact, the station has turned into something of a political bargaining chip. During the 2014 invasion of Crimea, the then-head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, responded to US sanctions by suggesting that US astronauts start traveling to the ISS via “trampoline” (at that point, NASA was dependent on Russia’s Soyuz). After the onset of the broader Ukraine war, Rogozin suggested that, without Russia’s help, the ISS could have an uncontrolled deorbit. Recent Russian anti-satellite missile testing—which typically involves shooting down old satellites from Earth—has also created …

Nasa briefly loses contact with ISS after power outage and relies on backup systems for first time | Nasa

Published by Sam

A power outage at Nasa’s building in Houston disrupted communication between mission control and the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, forcing the space agency to rely on backup control systems for the first time. The outage meant mission control lost command, telemetry and voice communications with the station in orbit. The power outage hit as upgrade work was under way in the building at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The crew was notified of the problem through Russian communication systems, within 20 minutes of the outage. Space station program manager Joel Montalbano said neither the astronauts nor station were ever in any danger and that backup control systems took over to restore normal communications within 90 minutes. “It wasn’t an issue on board. That was purely a ground problem,” he said. “At no time was the crew or the vehicle in any danger.” “We knew this work was going on, and in preparation for that we have the backup command and control system that we would use if we have to close the centre for …

Welcome home, Ax-2 crew: Axiom Space concludes second private mission to ISS

Welcome home, Ax-2 crew: Axiom Space concludes second private mission to ISS

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Axiom Space‘s second private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) concluded late Tuesday, with a four-person crew splashing down off the west coast of Florida around 11 PM EST. The splashdown marks another win for Axiom, the private company that operated the mission, and SpaceX, which launched and returned the crew inside a Dragon crew capsule. This was Axiom’s second private human spaceflight mission to the ISS and SpaceX’s tenth time launching humans to the orbital lab and back. “SpaceX, we would like to tell you, that was a phenomenal ride,” mission commander Peggy Whitson said shortly after splashdown. “We really enjoyed all of it.” Image credit: SpaceX The Ax-2 crew includes Whitson, former NASA astronaut and Axiom’s director of human spaceflight; pilot John Shoffner; and Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi, both astronauts from Saudi Arabia. Alqarni and Barnawi are the first Saudi astronauts to visit the ISS. Whitson has now spent a total of 674 days in space – a record for any other American or woman. While aboard the ISS, the Ax-2 …